Concentration in Public and Professional Writing
The Public and Professional Writing concentration emphasizes the critical analysis and production of writing and written discourse in professional, academic, and civic contexts. This concentration provides English majors with a strong core of abilities in reading and writing, as well as an opportunity to build rhetorical knowledge in a variety of modes, sites, and genres of language use.
Successful completion of the Public and Professional Writing concentration will prepare students for effective participation in language-intensive professions. Its guiding aim is two-fold: 1) to foster critical literacy—the ability to see and intervene in the cultural forces that shape the conventions of language use in the many professions and fields that students will enter upon graduation; and 2) to encourage an understanding of how the spaciousness of language helps us describe the workings of written communication in different modes and contexts.
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Completing the track requires 30 hours of course work according to the following distribution.
WRITING COURSES
Twelve hours of coursework should be in the following areas:
W231 Professional Writing. W231 provides a clear introduction to the genres and practices of writing in organized communication environments. This general focus makes the course ideal for broadening student thinking about writing beyond its academic contexts and purposes. Prerequisite: English W131 or other successful fulfillment of first-year composition requirement. (3 hours)
W350 Advanced Expository Writing. The one required "advanced" writing course of the concentration, W350 most thoroughly engages students in the theoretical study and practice of composing analytical prose for a range of specific purposes and audiences. Prerequisite: English W131 or other successful fulfillment of first-year composition requirement. (3 hours)
Six hours from any of the following courses.
- L240: Literature and Public Life
- W240: Community Service Writing
- W270: Argumentative Writing
- W280: Literary Editing and Publishing
- W321: Document Design
- G205: Introduction to the English Language
- G302: Structure of Modern English
- L498: Internship in English (with approval)
LITERATURE COURSES
Eighteen hours of coursework should be in the following areas:
L202 Literary Interpretation. Required for both the minor and the major, L202 ensures that majors in the writing track are conversant in basic issues of literary interpretation. Prerequisite: English W131 or other successful fulfillment of first-year composition requirement. (3 hours)
L371 Critical Practices. Required for the major, L371’s aim of granting "study . . . and practice in using contemporary critical methodologies" enhances student skill and sophistication in the analysis and appreciation of language. Prerequisite: English W131 or other successful fulfillment of first-year composition requirement. (3 hours)
Historical-Distribution Requirement. This is satisfied by taking at least one approved course in each historical period from the following list:
- Beginnings through the Sixteenth Century (3 hours)
- Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries (3 hours)
- The Nineteenth Century (3 hours)
- 1900 to the Present (3 hours)
One course from each of these four periods provides the coverage required for students to understand the developing history and importance of literature.
COURSES SATISFYING HISTORICAL-DISTRIBUTION REQUIREMENT
Beginnings through the Sixteenth Century:
- E301: Literatures in English to 1600
- L305: Chaucer
- L306: Middle English Literature
- L307: Medieval and Tudor Drama
Sixteenth through Eighteenth Centuries:
- E302: Literatures in English, 1600-1800
- L308: Elizabethan Drama and Its Background
- L309: Elizabethan Poetry
- L313: Early Plays of Shakespeare
- L314: Late Plays of Shakespeare
- L317: English Poetry of the Early Seventeenth Century
- L318: Milton
- L320: Restoration and Early Eighteenth- Century Literature
- L327: Later Eighteenth-Century Literature
- L328: Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Drama
- L347: British Fiction to 1800
- L350: Early American Writing and Culture to 1800
The Nineteenth Century:
- E303: Literatures in English, 1800-1900
- L332: Romantic Literature
- L335: Victorian Literature
- L348: Nineteenth-Century British Fiction
- L351: American Literature 1800-1865
- L352: American Literature 1865-1914
- L355: American Fiction to 1900
- L356: American Poetry to 1900
1900 to the Present:
- E304: Literatures in English, 1900-Present
- L345: Twentieth-Century British Poetry
- L346: Twentieth-Century British Fiction
- L354: American Literature since 1914
- L357: Twentieth-Century American Poetry
- L358: American Literature, 1914-1960
- L359: American Literature, 1960-present
- L366: Modern Drama: English, Irish, American, and Post-Colonial
- L380: Literary Modernism
- L381: Recent Writing
- L383: Studies in British and Commonwealth Culture (when subject is 20th Century)
Unless otherwise determined by the Director of Undergraduate Studies, courses may not be repeated for credit. Students may also request that the Director of Undergraduate Studies allow elective credit for courses other than those listed that incorporate a substantial focus on writing (with writing being more an object of inquiry than just a means of inquiry).
