Program Learning Outcomes
Literature Department Undergraduate
Program Learning Outcomes
Students who complete the Literature major should emerge with the following knowledge and skills:
- A capacity for critical analysis of texts that is attentive to:
- the formal structures, genres, and rhetorical strategies of different kinds of writing, public discourse, and media
- the historical and social contexts of such texts
- Effective written communication that demonstrates the following abilities:
- to evaluate multiple interpretations of texts
- to write effective argumentative prose
- to situate texts in relation to a critical/theoretical tradition
- Advanced critical reading skills across cultures and time periods
- become a critical reader across different cultures, languages and time periods
- from a breadth of world cultures and traditions
- from different historical periods, including the pre-modern
- originally written in languages other than English
- Design and carry out a research project or creative activity
- conceptualize and formulate a research problem or question and write a research proposal
- conduct a review of prior research on the topic using physical and digital archives, develop an annotated bibliography or similar review
- complete a research paper or creative project