Course Information
Here we provide information on course requirements, course descriptions and an Academic Rhode Map for each program, a semester-by-semester plan to help you toward graduation in four years.
Whether you choose to pursue our English BA or our English Minor, the focus of these programs is literary studies. You will explore and analyze literature, as well as other texts from the past and present, through a variety of perspectives and historical periods. You will:
Emphasis will be on effective writing in several modes, while employing a variety of theoretical approaches in your critical analyses.
Though not required, students pursuing the BA program may choose to pursue a concentration in creative writing or professional writing. Likewise, a student may choose to minor specifically in either creative writing or professional writing, as opposed to the more general English Minor.
Get started today, by applying to Rhode Island College via the Common Application.
Here we provide information on course requirements, course descriptions and an Academic Rhode Map for each program, a semester-by-semester plan to help you toward graduation in four years.
Upon completion of this program, students will be able to:
Writing is central to all aspects of the discipline of English. It is a means of thinking about texts and how writers create them, of reflecting on learning, of discovering and demonstrating new knowledge, of applying critical and creative ways of thinking to disciplinary issues and problems, of understanding oneself and the world, of developing intellectual agency and of working for social change.
The B.A. in English has the following WID courses:
ENGL 200: Reading Literature and Culture
ENGL 300: Introduction to Theory and Criticism
ENGL 460: Seminar in English
These courses were chosen because they represent key moments in each program where you will learn and demonstrate writing knowledge and skills. We would add, however, that virtually all courses in English, and especially those in creative writing and professional writing, are writing-intensive, where writing is assigned, taught and evaluated.
The range of genres or forms of writing in which you will engage and practice is too extensive to list in its entirety and depends, to a significant extent, on your chosen concentration within the major. Having said this, we offer a few examples of the writing students do in different concentrations below.
Within the literature concentration, students produce literary/cultural analysis papers that require skills of close reading and knowledge of and dexterity with applying critical and analytical approaches to texts.
Within the creative writing concentration students practice the writing skills that inform key literary genres such as fiction, poetry and nonfiction.
Within the professional writing concentration, students produce reports, proposals, analysis papers, research papers and various digital and multimodal texts.
Students in each concentration must take courses in the other concentrations, so they will range outside the genres described above to experiment with and practice a variety of academic, creative and professional genres of writing.
The English Department has long prided itself on engaging in “best practices” when it comes to the teaching of writing. We will engage you in scaffolded writing assignments that initially include low-stakes or informal writing to help you make sense of challenging readings and materials; in this way you write to learn as you learn to write. You will also practice key moves in lower stakes writing assignments that inform higher stakes writing projects for midterm papers and final projects. Small group workshops and tutorials are a regular part of our practice and provide crucial feedback for effective writing. In virtually all of your courses we provide models and exemplars of the work we ask you to produce. We often hold one-on-one conferences to guide you in individual challenges and difficulties. In sum, we engage in the full-range of practices that research in the teaching and learning of writing has shown helps students learn to write well.
When you have satisfied your department’s WID requirement, you should be able to:
Declaring a minor allows you to explore other areas of interest and make interdisciplinary connections. Minor areas at RIC complement and reinforce all major areas of study. By declaring a minor, you can set yourself apart as a candidate for job, internship and volunteer opportunities.
In the Department of English we explore texts through a variety of perspectives and teach students to write effectively in several modes.