Mission Statement
The Department of English and Literature at UVU provides an innovative and stimulating learning environment to help broaden cultural experiences, improve skills in written and verbal communication, deepen and refine abilities in critical thinking, and prepare students for graduate school and/or careers. By offering courses, programs, and activities in college-level writing, creative writing, literature, technical communication, and education, the department fosters an invigorating and diverse learning community that will enhance the way students envision themselves and their world.
Students who have completed a B.A. or B.S. in English should be able to:
- Demonstrate, via portfolio, development in critical reading, critical thinking, cultural awareness, and multimodal written and verbal communication.
- Apply competitively for positions in graduate and other professional schools, teaching, or English professions associated with various fields of English Studies.
- Articulate the nature and cultural value of English Studies, such as expertise in interpreting, critiquing, and appreciating literary and non-literary texts, contributing to civic discourse, and fostering adept communication and critical thinking.
- Develop habits of mind characteristic of English Studies professionals, including a critical stance toward texts, culture, and communication; rhetorical awareness regarding motivations, contexts, purpose, and audience; cultural and global awareness; and humanistic sensibilities, values, and approaches to problems and issues.
- Create multimodal documents which meet readers’ needs and expectations and are critical, focused, well developed and supported, logical, and mechanically correct.
- Demonstrate proficiency with current research technologies and resources and with using researched materials to contribute to conversations in English Studies.
- Demonstrate familiarity with key literary periods, texts, authors, terminology, trends in literary criticism, and conversations and issues in English Studies. This familiarity should include detailed knowledge of at least one contemporary critical theory, demonstrated by its use to inform writing for literary, critical, cultural, or creative ends.
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Demonstrate track-specific experience and competencies:
- Literary Studies students have studied literature and critical thought extensively and demonstrated the ability to analyze and criticize literature in ways meaningful to the field.
- Secondary Education English students have prepared to create effective lesson plans and instruct middle and high school students in areas of literature and writing.
- Creative Writing students have studied, written, and workshopped poetry, fiction, drama, and creative nonfiction, studied theory that informs their work, and practiced preparing and submitting work for publication.
- Integrated Studies English students have learned to harmonize and articulate the relationship of their English Studies knowledge and skills to the whole of their program of study.
- Technical Communication minors have become proficient at analyzing technical and scientific communication needs and audiences, designing and producing documents that satisfy them, and keeping abreast of new communication technologies.