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First-Year Focus


Members of Professor Jay Grossman’s BIG BOOKS first-year seminar, holding BIG BOOKS and celebrating their reading of more than 1000 pages in one quarter: both Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

 

Welcome Northwestern Class of 2027!

 

Why study English?

Words and stories surround us. We’re immersed in them. Novels, poems, plays, films—but also tweets and Facebook postings and websites and blogs. And, even more intimately, thoughts. We think in language, and its vocabularies and sentence patterns and metaphors and storylines structure our thoughts and help to determine what we think. Studying English at Northwestern means figuring out how words do the things they do, tell the stories they tell – in part so that we can write new stories if the ones we are living in and thinking with now don’t seem to be working.

Being an English literature major at Northwestern means reading literature that’s been circulating across more than 1000 years of history and nearly all the continents of the globe. It means learning whole new ways of critical thinking about the work that literature does in the world, since writing doesn’t merely reflect the worlds it comes from, but also helps to shape those worlds. Even when you re-read familiar works, you’ll ask whole new sets of questions about them, and write about them in a whole new way. We promise that this won’t be high school English.

Being a creative writing major at Northwestern means gaining a deep background in the literary tradition, since every good writer is also a good reader. But it also means learning the ins and outs of peer critique and work-shopping, finding ways to accept and give constructive criticism and sharing the insights of your reading. After all, if you already know what you’re doing before you do it, why bother doing it? The creative writing major stresses craft and technique, with the understanding that the discovery in writing creatively is intimately related to the discovery in reading.

An English major prepares you for virtually any career you can imagine. Top employers for our recent graduates range from Teach for America and Chicago Public Schools to Buzzfeed and the Washington Post to Deloitte and Google. In the last few years, our graduates have also gone on to virtually every kind of professional school—business, law, medicine, education, public policy—and have pursued graduate studies in literature at some of the best universities in the world. English majors learn to read closely, write clearly, research effectively, and think both critically and creatively – skills that are applicable anywhere words are at work, whether in the pages of a book or flashing by on a screen.

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Ten Life-Changing Skills that You Will Acquire as an English Major

  1. Learn to read.  Written texts are marvels of subtlety that contain far more than “information.”  They can reveal—and conceal—meaning in ways you might never suspect until you learn the skill we call “close reading.”
  2. Learn to write—coherently, persuasively, grammatically, and lyrically.  Writing is a universally valuable skill that surprisingly few people possess, so it is in great demand.
  3. Learn to speak.  Develop confidence in expressing arguments orally, thinking on your feet, and defending your views tactfully and skillfully against opposing positions.  Future lawyers, take note. 
  4. Learn how language works—its astonishing power and beauty, its dangers, its limits. Become an intentional master of the medium we use every day without thinking about it. 
  5. Develop empathy and insight into the minds of people different from yourself.  There is no better way to do this than by studying fiction, drama, poetry, and other literary works.  This is one reason that medical schools often seek humanities majors.
  6. Obtain a sense of the remarkable diversity, and the equally remarkable continuities, that mark human life and thought across vast gulfs of time, space, and culture.  The knowledge of human nature you will acquire from literature is at least as deep as, and intriguingly different from, what you will learn in Psychology.  If that is your interest, consider English as a second major or minor.
  7. Acquire an independent mind.  Learn to see through manipulative uses of language, such as advertising and political propaganda, to avoid becoming their victim.  Should you be so inclined, you will also have the skill to produce these forms of language.
  8. Learn how the English language has shaped, and been shaped by, the historical experiences of colonialism and postcolonial independence.  Find out how the English of Ireland, India, Jamaica, or Kenya differs from “standard English,” and discover the transformative effects of global English in business and technology.
  9. Learn the differences that translation makes, whether linguistic or cultural.  If you are proficient in another language, consider becoming a translator yourself—a skill that is in constant and increasing demand.
  10. Acquire a source of joy and pleasure that will sustain you as long as you live, and pass it along to future generations—because there is more to life than working and earning money.
© Barbara Newman, Professor of English, Northwestern University

Recommended Courses for All Students

Fall 2023

English 200: Literary Histories: Songs and Sonnets, Prof. Susan Phillips, MW 2-3:20

English 210-1: British Literary Traditions, Part 1, Prof. Helen Thompson, MW 11-12:20

English 215: Topics in Literature, Film and Media, Prof. Nick Davis, TTh 9:30-10:50, plus discussion section

English 220: The Bible as Literature, Prof. Regina Schwartz, TTh 11-12:20

English 281: Topics in Postcolonial Literature, Prof. Evan Mwangi, MW 12:30-1:50

Winter 2024

English 270-1: American Literary Traditions, Part 1, Prof. Jay Grossman, TTh 11-12:20, plus discussion section

English 274: Intro to Native American and Indigenous Literatures, Prof. Kelly Wisecup, MW 11-12:20, plus discussion section

English 277: Intro to Latinx Literature, Prof. Rodriguez-Pliego, TTh 2-3:20

English 283: Intro to Literature and the Environment, Profs. Laurie Shannon and Tristram Wolff, MW 12:30-1:50, plus discussion section

Spring 2024

English 200: Literary Histories: Journeys, Exile, Migration, and Hope, Prof. Wendy Wall, MW 12:30-1:50

English 210-2: British Literary Traditions, Part 2, Prof. Christine Froula, TTh 11-12:20, plus discussion section

English 213: Intro to Fiction, Prof. Jules Law, MW 9:30-10:50, plus discussion section

English 234: Intro to Shakespeare, Prof. Jeffrey Masten, MW 12:30-1:50, plus discussion section

English 266: Intro to African American Literature: African American Literature from the Beginning to the Present, Prof. Ivy Wilson, TTh 9:30-10:50

English 275: Intro to Asian American Literature, Prof. Michelle Huang, MW 11-12:20, plus discussion section

 

Recommended Courses for Prospective English Majors & Minors

Fall 2023

English 200: Literary Histories: Songs and Sonnets, Prof. Susan Phillips, MW 2-3:20

English 210-1: British Literary Traditions, Part 1, Prof. Helen Thompson, MW 11-12:20

Winter 2024

English 270-1: American Literary Traditions, Part 1, Prof. Jay Grossman, TTh 11-12:20, plus discussion section

Spring 2024

English 200: Literary Histories: Journeys, Exile, Migration, and Hope, Prof. Wendy Wall, MW 12:30-1:50

English 210-2: British Literary Traditions, Part 2, Prof. Christine Froula, TTh 11-12:20, plus discussion section

AP, IB, and Placement Test Credit

The English Department does not grant credit for AP, IB, or placement tests.

Questions?

Please take a look at requirements for the literature major and minor and the creative writing major and minors on our website.  You can also contact the Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Jeffrey Masten, at j-masten@northwestern.edu with questions about the Literature Program.  If you have questions specifically about our Creative Writing Program, please contact the Creative Writing Director of Undergraduate Studies, Professor Juan Martinez, at juan.martinez@northwestern.edu.