English Department Handbook

Final Reflection & Evaluation: English Graduation Requirement
To be completed during your second seminar.

     English majors must complete this assignment while taking their second seminar or their second independent study for the Honors Thesis. Your English major will not be certified as complete until a copy of this assignment is on file with the Chair of the English Department.

     NOTE: Students planning to apply for graduate programs in English or closely related fields should arrange to complete this assignment sometime before Registration during the first term of their senior year. Please discuss this with your advisor.

Purposes

The main purpose of this assignment is for English majors to reflect upon what they have learned while completing an English major at Coe College. Furthermore, the information you provide may be helpful to the English Department in planning our curriculum.

     A copy of your assignment will be kept on file by the English Department for several years after you graduate. Only English faculty have access to this document, though information derived from the collection of these papers will be reported regularly to the North Central Association.

Format

The assignment will consist of the following:

A cover page, with your name, student number, a list of declared majors and minors, and a list of the courses you have taken and currently are taking that are included in your English major.

A Letter of at least 1000 words addressed to a First Year student beginning an English Major. See below for instructions.

The package should be stapled in the upper left corner; please do not use folders or plastic covers.

You should submit two different copies to your instructor or thesis director. The paper copy will be returned to you with comments. The disk or e-mail copy will be kept on file by the English Department.

The Letter

Your letter should be addressed to a student beginning an English Major. You may consider it a sort of set of recommendations to someone like yourself, but at the beginning. Share the wisdom of your experience with that younger self.

     To prepare yourself for this writing, please review the Reflection and Evaluation materials you produced in Literary Analysis. Then look over the following requests. We would like you to deal with each of the four main topics in some substantial way.

The English Major: By completing an English major, you have given a good portion of your education to studying literature. What do you now believe are the main reasons for studying and writing about literature? What stages have you gone through since you began the major that brought you to this point in your thinking?

     If you have emphasized Creative Writing in your major, please discuss as well the relationships you have come to see between studying literature and writing it.

Liberal Arts: Near the beginning of the Coe Catalog is a "Statement of Purposes and Goals of the College." Review that statement and consider what you have done and learned at Coe. Discuss the ways in which your English major has contributed to and/or complicated your becoming the kind of graduate Coe wishes to produce. What have proven to be your best academic choices along the way? What academic choices would you now make differently?

Continued Learning: Implicit in the "Statement of Purposes and Goals" is Coe's belief that learning of all kinds continues after college. Do you feel equipped to continue to learn about literature on your own? In the near future, what do you hope to read? to write?

Advice to a New Major: Finally, what advice would you offer a beginning major? What to think about in planning the major? What internship/off-campus opportunities to consider? How to approach seminars or an honors thesis?

Revised Spring 2004
Coe College Department of English