B.A. in Literature
with a liberal arts core curriculum
(120 credit hours, 30 courses)
Rationale
The following curriculum is based on a revision of both my current institution's core and major requirements. It assumes a conversion from three credit-hour courses to four credit-hour courses with minimal, if any, change in staffing. The liberal arts core proposes a solid and rigorous curriculum of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences, Hard Sciences, Mathematics as well as courses in writing across the curriculum, critical thinking, language, and a minor. The literature major is founded upon a sequence of Writing about Literature, Survey of Critical Theory, and Senior Capstone as well as a Shakespeare course and Linguistics course required of all students. Students choose a British Literature Survey course; a American Literature Survey course; a British Historical Period course; an American Historical Period course; a Genre in an Historical Period course; a Theoretical course; an Identity Literature course; an International, Conceptual, or Thematic course; and a Single Author course.
Core |
32 hours |
8 courses |
First-Year Writing Seminar |
4 hours |
ENGL 1000 Writing across the Curriculum [freshman only] (An introduction to college writing, taken during the first year but the opposite semester of GCSU 1000) |
First-Year Critical Thinking Seminar |
4 hours |
GCSU 1000 Critical Thinking: Special Topic [freshman only] (A special topics course emphasizing critical thinking in an area of the instructor's choosing, taken during the first-year but the opposite semester of ENGL 1000.) |
Second-Year Writing Seminar (also Major Sequence I) |
4 hours |
DEPT 1200 Writing in the Discipline [sophomores only] (Each department creates its own writing in the discipline class, which will serve both the core as a second writing course and the major as a lower-division requirement for all upper-division courses in the major; in the literature program, it will serve as the first course in the Major Sequence.) |
Humanities |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Arts |
4 hours |
Choose from either X appreciation courses, including ENGL 1500 World Literature or X creative courses like ENGL 1600 Introduction to Creative Writing |
Mathematics |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Social Science |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Hard Science |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Language |
4-12 hours |
1-3 courses |
Intermediate Language |
4 hours |
Choose from FREN 2002 Intermediate French, GRMN 2002 Intermediate German, ITAL 2002 Intermediate Italian, or SPAN 2002 Intermediate Spanish (Students either take DEPT 2000 Beginning DEPT I and DEPT 2001 Beginning DEPT II or a test to place out of the language. If a student places out of any language at the 2002 level, the course may be replaced by any elective.) |
Electives |
8-16 hours |
2-4 courses |
Elective |
4 hours |
Choose any course that does not fulfill any other requirement (Electives can be used to fulfill credit hours of first two waived language courses if necessary. The number of electives taken depends on the number of language courses taken.) |
Elective |
4 hours |
Choose any course that does not fulfill any other requirement |
Elective |
4 hours |
Choose any course that does not fulfill any other requirement |
Elective |
4 hours |
Choose any course that does not fulfill any other requirement |
Minor |
16 hours |
4 courses |
Minor |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses (See minors section of the Catalog) |
Minor |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Minor |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Minor |
4 hours |
Choose from X courses |
Major |
52 hours |
13 courses (At least two courses from each section 1-11 will be taught each semester at two different times.) |
1 British Survey |
4 hours |
ENGL 2000 British Literature I or ENGL 2100 British Literature II [freshman and sophomores only] (Currently, we offer a survey of all of British literature. We could keep the same staffing, but offer a survey of the first half of British literature in the fall and the second half in the spring.) |
2 American Survey |
4 hours |
ENGL 2200 American Literature I or ENGL 2300 American Literature II [freshman and sophomores only] (Currently, we offer a survey of all of American literature. We could keep the same staffing, but offer a survey of the first half of American literature in the fall and the second half in the spring.) |
3 Shakespeare |
4 hours |
ENGL 2400 Introduction to Shakespeare [freshman and sophomores only] |
4 Linguistics |
4 hours |
ENGL 2500 Introduction to Linguistics [freshman and sophomores only] |
5 Historical Periods: American |
4 hours |
ENGL 4000 American Literature Beginnings-1820 ENGL 4010 American Literature 1820-1865 ENGL 4020 American Literature 1865-1910 ENGL 4030 American Literature 1910-1960 or ENGL 4040 American Literature 1960-present [juniors and seniors only] (Currently, we offer three broad periods, beginnings-1865, 1865-1920, and 1920-Present; we could keep the same staffing but break the periods up further to distinguish between colonial and Transcendental as well as early Modernist and Contemporary.) |
6 Historical Periods: British |
4 hours |
ENGL 4100 Medieval English Literature ENGL 4110 English Renaissance Literature ENGL 4120 Restoration and Eighteenth-Century ENGL 4130 English Romanticism ENGL 4140 Victorian Literature ENGL 4150 Twentieth-Century British Literature [juniors and seniors only] |
7 Genre and Period |
4 hours |
ENGL 4200 Eighteenth-Century English Novel ENGL 4210 Nineteenth-Century Fiction ENGL 4220 Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Fiction ENGL 4230 Twentieth- and Twenty-First Century Poetry ENGL 4240 Development of English Drama ENGL 4250 Twentieth- and Twenty-First-Century Drama or ENGL 4260 Film & Television [juniors and seniors only] (Currently, our drama and poetry focuses on 1900-1945 and our fiction is only British; we could keep the same staffing but allow the study of post-war poetry and drama, twentieth-century American fiction, and film.) |
8 Theoretical Approaches |
4 hours |
ENGL 4300 Special Topics in Literary Criticism ENGL 4310 Theories of Composition ENGL 4320 History of the English Language or ENGL 4330 Structure of Present-Day English [juniors and seniors only] (We need to develop more theoretical approaches.) |
10 Identity Literature |
4 hours |
ENGL 4400 Literary Women ENGL 4410 Adolescent Literature ENGL 4420 Southern Literature ENGL 4430 African-American Literature ENGL 4440 Multicultural American Literature ENGL 4450 Native American Literature or ENGL 4460 Folklore [juniors and seniors only] (We could regroup a section of our offerings as identity-based literatures.) |
11 International, Thematic, or Conceptual |
4 hours |
ENGL 4500 African Literature ENGL 4510 African Women Writers ENGL 4520 Special Topics in International Literature ENGL 4530 Comparative Literature ENGL 4540 Great Books of the Western World ENGL 4550 Special Topics [juniors and seniors only] |
9 Single Author |
4 hours |
ENGL 4600 Chaucer ENGL 4610 Milton ENGL 4620 Shakespeare ENGL 4630 O'Connor or ENGL 4640 Single Author [juniors and seniors only] |
12 Major Sequence II |
4 hours |
ENGL 3900 Survey of Literary Theory [juniors only] |
13 Major Sequence III |
4 hours |
ENGL 4900 Senior Capstone [seniors only] |
Faculty
- Each course would be 4 credit hours.
- The base faculty teaching load would be 12 credit hours per semester.
- Each faculty member would teach at least one course in the core curriculum per year:
- ENGL 1000 Writing across the Curriculum,
- ENGL 1500 World Literature, or
- GCSU 1000 Critical Thinking: Special Topic
- Each faculty member would teach at least one 2000-level course per year.
- Each faculty member would teach at least one 4000-level course per semester.
- A typical literature faculty teaching load would look like this:
- Fall: ENGL 1000, ENGL 4040, ENGL 4440
- Spring: ENGL 2300, ENGL 3900, ENGL 4260
- A typical literature faculty teaching load would look like this:
- If 1000 freshmen per year need ENGL 1000 Writing across the Curriculum, which is capped at 20 students because it is a writing course, then we would need to offer 50 sections per year. If 500 freshmen per year need ENGL 1500 World Literature, which is capped at 25, then we would need to offer 20 sections. If 100 freshman per year take GCSU 1000, which is capped at 25, from English tenure-line faculty, then we would need to offer 4 sections. We would need to staff approximately 80 core courses per year. If 20 of those sections were staffed by tenure-line faculty, then we could staff the remaining 60 with approximately 15 graduate students (ENGL 1000 only on a 2/1 load) and 5 adjuncts (ENGL 1000 or ENGL 1500 depending on qualifications on a 2/2 load).