The English Major Portfolio

Students who began the English major in the fall of 1994 or after (catalog 9/94) will submit a portfolio as a requirement for the English major. The portfolio will be used as one means of assessing the knowledge and skills the student has acquired in the course of study prescribed for the English major (and will also help the department assess the quality of its program). The student will find the portfolio valuable for employment and graduate school applications as a demonstration of competencies.

1. The portfolio will include the following items:
   • Three formal papers, two of eight or more pages and one of four or more pages. The papers are to be clean copies of papers originally written in three different English classes above 102. Papers in most cases will be revised after the class in which they were written. One paper must incorporate secondary sources.
   • A list of courses taken for the major.
   • A personal reading list from the college years. The list should include at least fifty titles and may include class texts.
   • A reflective statement of two or more pages, in which the student evaluates his/her development during the years as an English major. The student might ask, "How has my knowledge/understanding and writing ability changed since I started the English major?" The statement might include discussion of one or more experiences involving reading/writing/creativity that had a significant effect on the student's understanding of his/her purpose as an English major.
2. The faculty advisor will guide the student through the preparation of the portfolio. (Note for Extended Programs Students majoring in English.) The student will submit a preliminary portfolio to the advisor in January of the junior year. The final portfolio will be due on the last class day of November of the senior year. At least two English Department faculty members assigned by the chair (other than the advisor) will judge the portfolio, and the decision will be communicated to the student by February 1. Portfolios deemed unacceptable can be revised by April 1. (For December graduates, the chair will determine appropriate dates.)

List of Competencies for the English Major

1. Ability to identify the formal properties of literary works and to incorporate analysis of these properties into critical papers
2. Familiarity with the language of literary criticism
3. Familiarity with a range of genres and historical periods
4. Ability to explicate texts without the use of secondary sources (trust in one's personal responses)
5. Appreciation of the diversity of literary works (by ethnic minorities, by men and women) available for study and enjoyment
6. Ability to evaluate critical arguments and to construct one's own
7. Knowledge of the history and structure of the English language
8. Demonstration of competence in writing
   • structure: thesis, support, and logical organization
   • proper documentation
   • style: awareness of audience, clarity, varied sentence patterns
   • editing: grammatical correctness, punctuation, spelling

The Portfolio will be evaluated upon criteria established by the English Department. This criteria will be reviewed regularly.

• Link to HTML criteria
• Link to MS Word criteria