In the Study of Forms course, for example, students learn how to use language to express experience through poetic and narrative forms. In the Interpretive Practices course, students are introduced to basic concepts, methods, and practices of literary and rhetorical approaches to texts. Students move from the core to take at least two period courses designed to introduce them to the functioning of texts within specific cultural and rhetorical contexts, or to comparative texts addressing common social concerns in different periods. Period study introduces students to a range of historical and cultural texts, and to a range of methods for analyzing these texts in their local context or across contexts. To complement these skills, students take a course in Research and Argument, designed to give them training in gathering information systematically and building arguments based on that information.
Students learn how to gather information from interviews, surveys, and archives.
They learn how to make hypotheses about ways of interpreting a text or a corpus of texts, and they gain practice testing their interpretations against alternatives. They also learn how to present their research to audiences within the discipline of English. Electives at the 300 and 400 level allow students to specialize in subfields of literary and cultural studies, cross-cultural studies, or rhetoric, subfields in which they can take capstone seminars. Students should consult closely with advisors when choosing their elective courses. At the advanced level, students take two capstone seminars, which enable them to build on their prior coursework to develop their own cultural and rhetorical interpretations of a given period or a network of texts crossing periods.