Objective: In keeping with Principia’s mission to serve the Cause of Christian Science, the English Department is committed to uplifting and healing humanity through the development of empathetic, critical, and transformative reading and writing as well as independence of thought.

Reading: Principia’s English department focuses on reading unfiltered texts—texts produced within a culture as opposed to textbooks summarizing a given area of study.  As a result English majors will be able to:

• make inductive observations of patterns and disjunctions within texts
• produce close, in-depth readings of texts by applying knowledge of the way literary language such as irony, metaphor, voice, and genre work to create meaning
• sustain engagement with difficult texts and defend a position in critical debate  about interpretative issues within those texts
• identify and comprehend points of view different from their own and articulate the cultural contexts that have shaped the ethics of style in order to question culture and make connections with contemporary issues

Writing:  Implicit in reading experimental and imaginative texts is an invitation to write with precision and vigor.  Consequently, English majors will be able to:

• articulate likes and dislikes within the broader critical discussion of taste
• argue a specific stand about a text using strategies of persuasion
• identify and analyze differing critical theories underpinning texts and apply critical lenses in the written analysis of texts
• research and assess a history of criticism surrounding a text or a textual debate
• demonstrate the complex concepts of critical and creative voice, with awareness of the role self-knowledge plays, both in their own writing and in the works of others
• practice the formal elements of prose and poetry and move beyond them to invention