4. Course Objectives

1. Examine a wide range of genres, styles and cultural literatures.
2. Examine the traditional canon and innovative nontraditional writers and writing.
3. Demonstrate analytical skills of reading literature.
4. Demonstrate a high level of research and writing skills.
5. Write and speak in a wide range of formats appropriate to major emphasis:  fiction, non-fiction, poetry, critical essay, oral presentation.                              
6. Speak and write about issues in the discipline and how they interact with the culture at large.
7. Articulate the ongoing relation between personal habits of reading and writing and the evolving study of English.

The outcomes for this course also happen to number seven, but they aren't intended to correspond directly with the learning objectives. 

At the end of this course, you should be able to

1. Engage intellectually with peers in both formal and informal environments
   
2. Demonstrate sustained intellectual engagement with ongoing scholarly discussions about the theories that inform the discipline of English
   
3. Develop superior research skills, with which you may filter and profit from a steady stream of complex academic readings (without the benefit of online summaries or study guides)
   
4. Analyze literary works from multiple different critical perspectives (including perspectives that you would not ordinarily choose to employ in a paper), without dismissing or oversimplifying views which differ from yours
   
5. Write at an advanced college level, using the vocabulary of literary criticism, but without smothering your personal writing voice under a mass of jargon and obfuscation
   
6. Justify the critical approach(es) that you will find most useful in your future in graduate school, in your career, or in your own life-long learning process long after college
   
7. Conceptualize your academic experience as more than the accumulation of purchased credits, or the correction of errors pointed out to you by your instructors; but rather as part of the ongoing human search for truth and wisdom. Good grammar and logical thinking are vital for full participation in the intellectual life that our education prepares us to lead.