English 700 Discussion

The Department, under the leadership of Chad Allen as Director of Graduate Studies, is considering making changes to English 700: Introduction to Graduate Study in English. As part of this project, EGO is collecting feedback from graduate students about changes they would like to see made to 700 based on their experience of taking it.

There will be a meeting Thursday, Jan. 20 @ 2 pm in Denney 311 for graduate students to discuss changes to English 700. In order to prepare for this meeting, this blog will be used for 2 purposes: 1) to collect some ideas which will be used to guide the conversation on Jan. 20 and 2) to allow people unable to attend the meeting to participate in the discussion.

These are questions Dr. Allen would like you to consider specifically in thinking about changes to make to English 700:

1. What should be the key functions of the course? What would you ideally learn? How would it best serve your academic career?

2. What types of training are most useful?
   -- literary methodologies
   -- introduction to a range theoretical perspectives
   -- professionalization (writing abstracts, conference papers, etc.)

3. What would be the best practices? What pedagogical approach or assignments would be most productive? Is having a common literary text useful?

4. Would there be any interest in a 700 part 2 course? It would likely be smaller scale (like a 2-credit workshop) that could address training in methods and bibliographies after coursework.