UC Davis English Student Learning Objectives

A student graduating from UC Davis with a major in English will be able to:

  1. Demonstrate broad familiarity with Anglophone literature in its historical contexts, including cultural traditions, aesthetic movements, generic conventions, and critical theories.

    Assessment: Final exams and applicable creative writing projects from a representative sample of lower-division courses will be reviewed every three years for literary-historical mastery based on a departmental rubric.

  2. Compose clear, well-organized, and well-supported interpretive essays that combine effective close reading of primary texts with a consideration of relevant historical and cultural circumstances and appropriate secondary frameworks (or, in the case of students in the creative writing emphasis, effective poems and stories).

    Assessment: Papers and applicable creative writing projects from a representative sample of advanced upper-division courses will be reviewed every three years in accordance with a departmental rubric.

  3. Find, assess, and correctly utilize an array of research materials from both print and electronic media.

    Assessment: Papers and applicable creative writing projects from a representative sample of lower- and upper-division courses will be reviewed every three years in accordance with a departmental rubric.