The New Curriculum: Questions You May Have

What do you mean, there’s a new curriculum?

In late Fall Semester 2023, the English Faculty agreed upon a new curriculum – meaning, they selected a new set of requirements for English Majors.

Does the new curriculum apply to me?

If you declare your English major after January 1 2024, then yes, it does. If you declared the major before January 1 2024, it applies to you if you choose it. This is a conversation you should have with your advisor as quickly as possible (if you haven’t already).

What’s different? How do I decide if the new curriculum is right for me?

Here’s a quick summary of the changes:

• We’ve instituted a new Underrepresented Voices and Social Justice Requirement. Like the college’s IPE requirement, courses with this designation may simultaneously fulfill another departmental requirement. Courses fulfilling this requirement will be identified “UVSJ.”

Courses that fulfill the UVSJ requirement take on voices, identities, and bodies of literature that have typically been ignored by and even erased from traditional literary studies. Aiming to recenter marginalized perspectives and ways of reading, such courses also integrate pedagogical approaches that destabilize and question the power relations that underscore traditional approaches to literature.

• We’ve changed the historical dividing line for what used to be called the “Broad Traditions” section of the Major.

In the old curriculum, students were required to take two courses in literature written before 1700, two between 1700 and 1900, and one after 1900.  All five were to be taken at the 300- or 400-level.

This restricted students’ abilities to take courses in modern and contemporary literature, which are particularly important for our creative-writing concentrators. It also meant that 1-200 level courses did not count for the “core” of the major.

In the new curriculum, majors take two (or, in the case of Literature concentrators, three) courses in literature written before 1800 and two in literature written after 1800. They can achieve historical coverage in courses at any level of the curriculum.

The proposed new curriculum opens up more space for 1-200-level courses but still requires that at least 5 of the 12 credits for the major be at the 300- or 400-level.

• We’ve regularized the track all students take through the major.

In the new curriculum there is just one advising track (not three): all students, Literature and Creative Writing concentrators, will move through the same basic system: first foundation, then core, then concentration, and finally capstone.

Though we are discontinuing the Literature & Film concentration, we anticipate that courses in film will become distributed more widely and evenly through English majors’ courses of study.

• The new curriculum has a more uniform senior capstone requirement, including a two-semester senior thesis in creative writing. Students in either concentration, Literature or Creative Writing, may choose between a senior seminar or an honors option of a year-long thesis (with colloquium).

How will I know what fulfils what?

All courses will, for the next few years, indicate the requirements they fulfill in the old and new systems. Ask your advisor or the chair for advice if you are in any doubt.

Why are the course numbers changing as well?

The department is also regularizing course numbers to help students navigate the choices.

100-level courses introduce students to the discipline of English. They emphasize skills necessary for further study in the department. 100 level courses are foundation-level (hence “Introduction to Literary Studies” and “Introduction to Creative Writing” will now become 160 and 170, respectively).

200-level courses introduce students to corpora of literary texts based on historical, geographical, generic, and/or topical parameters.  They emphasize understanding literature in context and prioritize exposure to primary texts over engagement with criticism.  They may be larger than Seminars in Literary Studies and therefore less writing-intensive; because they emphasize knowledge of a corpus, they are more likely to involve exams.  They often involve creative or personal writing to promote engagement with texts students may find historically or culturally remote.

300-level courses engage students fully in the scholarly and creative practices of the discipline.  In creative writing, these are workshop classes.  In literary and film studies, they are “research-intensive.” They ask students to synthesize and apply their work in 100- and 200-level coursework: to engage in close reading of literary works, understand those works in relevant context, and formulate arguments that participate in critical conversations.  They may sometimes cover fewer primary texts than a 200-level course would, in the interest of being more writing-intensive and engaging students more extensively in critical discourse.  They are most often taught on a twice-per-week schedule.

400-level courses are advanced courses. Often taught on a once-per-week schedule, they may include MA students; Senior Seminars and Senior Colloquia are 400 level courses, as well as independent-study credits in which students do, in more self-directed ways, the kind of work they’ve practiced in 300-level courses.

What happened, by the way? Why did things change?

The English department underwent an external review in Spring 2022; the reviewers’ report sparked departmental discussions about our curriculum in the 2022-23 academic year.  As part of this process, the department reviewed the major requirements of English departments at peer institutions; held numerous meetings and discussions, both as small working groups and a full department; convened for a day-long retreat in May 2023; and asked the department’s Curriculum Committee to fine-tune details last fall.  We’re excited to present our revised program of major requirements!