Mission Statement, Program Objectives, Learning Outcomes

Mission Statement

Working collaboratively with faculty, Fredonia English students explore the power of language and image in the 21st century. They discover new perspectives and develop crucial skills: strong writing, thoughtful reading, and critical thinking. Whether they choose to focus on literature, creative writing, professional writing, or English education, students personalize their paths through the flexible major in consultation with department advisors. As a vibrant community of learners, we investigate how texts respond to and shape experience in and beyond the classroom.

Program Objectives and Learning Outcomes

In light of Fredonia’s institutional goals of fostering students who are Skilled, Connected, Creative, and Responsible, students in the English and English Adolescence Education majors will develop the following skills:

1. Write coherently and effectively in various genres for multiple audiences and purposes, according to standard practices in the discipline.

Learning Outcomes:

• 1a. Develop facility with the tools and vocabulary of writing in multiple modes such as argumentation and exposition.
• 1b. Access, assess, and incorporate scholarship into their own thinking and writing about texts by effectively integrating well-chosen primary and secondary sources.
• 1c. Produce a body of work for an electronic portfolio that includes a variety of critical, rhetorical, and, potentially, creative projects (see e-portfolio guidelines).

2. Read and analyze a wide variety of texts, including traditional literary, linguistic, popular, and multimedia pieces, in depth and in context.

Learning Outcomes:

• 2a. Develop effective reading strategies for multiple contexts, drawing on skills such as close reading, intertextual analysis, scanning, summarizing, and questioning, as well as engaging the particular conventions of various genres.
• 2b. Become familiar with texts, movements, and literary traditions in Global, American, and British literatures and read texts within their cultural and comparative contexts.
• 2c. Recognize and appreciate the values of literature and the humanities as an integral part of a liberal-arts education.

3. Engage with critical lenses and apply multiple research methods and theoretical concepts to their work in the program.

Learning Outcomes:

• 3a. Recognize differences between interpretive approaches and schools of criticism and employ these tools in their own research and analysis.
• 3b. Integrate interpretive methods of study with works from other disciplines or integrate interpretive methods from other disciplines with literary and nonliterary texts.

4.  Candidates seeking initial and permanent/professional certification will also meet NCTE standards for the preparation of teachers of English Language Arts.

Further, in keeping with the institutional goals, the English and English Adolescence Education majors will provide opportunities for students to engage in the following activities:

1. Participate in applied, experiential, and/or collaborative learning opportunities, which can include:

• 1a. Experiential Learning: service learning, internships, field-based learning, study abroad or study afar learning; student teaching;
• 1b. Research/Writing Projects: student conferences, journals/publications, archive-based work, linked classrooms;
• 1c. Public Service Projects: student organizations, honor society, civic engagement opportunities.

2. Become conversant in working with and producing digital texts in a variety of media.

3. Apply their learning to the classroom and beyond by producing work utilizing diverse kinds of literary and cultural texts to represent the value of the humanities within education and/or the world generally.