English (BA)
Critical thinking meets creative expression.
The Thomas College program in English is intellectually challenging, engaging, and enlightening. You’ll focus creative and career-ready writing skills, and read classic and contemporary literature of all kinds. If you’re ready to engage your skills at a higher level of creativity, this program might be right for you.
Courses include:
- Composition I & II
- Introduction to Literature
- Writing Elective
- Literature Elective
You can explore paths in:
- Writing and editing
- Journalism
- Law and legal studies
- Education
- Film and media management
- Publishing
You’ll graduate with a diverse portfolio of writing that showcases your technical skill, critical thinking ability, strength in research and analysis, and imagination. You’ll read texts that challenge your thinking, inspire your creativity, and expand your worldview. And you’ll graduate ready for a career that draws on your skill as a writer, editor, and student of human experience.
You can take…
- Create a portfolio of publishable writing that opens doors to a career or graduate study in Junior/Senior Seminar: Special Topics in Literature
- Read, analyze, and perform your favorite works of theater in Drama and Shakespeare
- Take Autobiography and Memoir, which gives you a chance to write about your own life experiences while learning from notable writers of all kinds
You’ll graduate with the ability to…
- Develop a portfolio of your own exemplary writing, diverse in content, style, and purpose
- Read critically, evaluating literary works based on evidence in texts and recognizing the potential for misunderstanding that can arise from conflict with personal values and from assumptions about reality and experience
- Marshal evidence from texts to articulate understanding, interpretation, appreciation, and evaluation of literary works
- Identify concepts and conventions of literary form and language (such as characterization, figurative language, plot, tone, symbolism, motif, setting, and point of view) and apply these to specific texts
- Identify recurrent themes in literature, recognizing literature as an art that expresses the diversity and universality of human experience
- Demonstrate familiarity with major authors of the literary canon, as well as emerging literary voices
- Understand how knowledge of culture, history, science, psychology, philosophy, literary periods, biography, and the fine arts can enhance appreciation of a literary work
- Research literary works and authors, and incorporate research into oral and written discussions of literature
- Apply knowledge of literary theory and criticism to your own work
- Demonstrate mastery of expository prose, including the ability to use a variety of rhetorical techniques
