Why Study English Language and Literature at Ouachita?

The English faculty here at Ouachita believes that through your diligent study of the English language and of English literature, you will gain practical skills. You will learn to read carefully and analytically, looking for ways the parts relate to the whole. You will wrestle with complex ideas, ambiguity and multiple interpretations. You will learn more words, and you will learn more about words--their histories and complexities and mysteries. In short, you will learn to read complex texts and you will learn to write more clearly. Whether your future holds law school, Sunday school, high school, or homeschool, your diligent studies in English will enrich your work for God's kingdom.

To these very useful skills of analysis, synthesis and verbal expression, studying English will increase your appreciation for beauty and design. You will study the forms of language and literature in a way that will allow you to move beyond impulsive reactions to works of art; you will gain an appreciation for whatever is truly lovely, and you will discriminate between the tawdry and the genuine, the false and the true, the mediocre and the excellent.

Because literature by its very nature explores what it means to be a human being, it confronts the questions that humans have always faced, questions about fate and free will, about our place in the cosmos, about our relationships with each other. Literature does not merely tell us about these questions; rather, literature presents human experiences in a concrete form. Thus, if we as readers willing submit ourselves momentarily to the premises and demands of the work before us, then we can safely encounter a limitless number of human stories. We agree with C.S. Lewis, who describes the expansive effects of reading by saying "I become a thousand men and yet remain myself."

Above all, while there are many skills we gain from studying language and literature, we believe that such study changes us; we study literature not merely for what it will do for us, but for what it does to us.

On behalf of the English Department faculty, I hope you will be enriched and challenged by your studies in English. God be with you.

English 2013: English Studies
Dr. John Wink 10:00-10:50 MWF Lile Hall 200

Required for all English majors and minors.

The purpose of this course is to introduce fledgling English majors and minors to the discipline of the literary scholar, and the primary goal to equip students with every tool needed for a successful completion of a major or minor in English. To achieve these ends, we shall explore the major genres of literature, learn the terminology and techniques associated with those genres, and acquire the basic skills needed to conduct the type of research practiced by the literary scholar. While using X. J. Kennedy’s Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama as our primary introduction to the genres, we shall take particularly close looks at the genres of narrative and verse by reading the Norton Critical Editions of Charles Dickens' novel Hard Times and Lord Tennyson's verse elegy In Memoriam. For these studies, we shall also employ three reference texts essential to the library of any student of literature: The Harper Handbook to Literature, Poetic Meter & Poetic Form, and The MLA Handbook. The grade for the course will be based on daily quizzes, recitation of memorized lines of verse, two examinations, three literary essays, and a research paper.

English 2023: Advanced Grammar
Dr. Susan Wink 2:00-3:15 TTh Lile Hall 338

Prerequisite: English 1033 or English 2013.

Following an intensive review of traditional grammar using an adaptation of the Reed-Kellog diagram, we will consider the insights provided by generative-transformational grammar into the fascinating and challenging questions regarding how the English language-–indeed, human language--works. Do not be intimidated by either of the following:

1) thinking that you "hate grammar"–-most people who think they hate grammar don't; even if they do hate something they call grammar, it's almost always what is properly called usage-–how to make verbs agree with subjects in Standard American English, when to use semicolons-–stuff like that. This course is NOT a usage course.

2) the reputation that this course has for being difficult–there's no question--it IS difficult, but you shouldn't be intimidated by that; grades in this course are generally higher than in any other course I teach, and it's not because I grade leniently; it's because students rise to the challenge and love doing it.

We will have three or four exams.

This course is a structured approach to writing poetry and fiction through an examination of formal verse, free verse, and the basic elements of narration. The course is conducted primarily through a workshop approach.

Through reading and analysis of selected prose models, this course provides instruction in forms and styles of writing for various technical and/or professional purposes. The course is tailored to match the specific writing needs of the students; for example, students can work on individual research projects or compose and compile materials for a job search. The course culminates in a formal presentation at the end of the semester.

The purpose of this course is to introduce you to samples of writings which occurred in parts of North America from the days of the conquistadors to Walt Whitman. Since some of you have had American Letters in the CORE, we will try to select those writings which you have not read. You will read the texts assigned, and take reading quizzes and factual exams on them. Periodically, you will be asked to submit short essays on the material read, essays which will show interpretation and research.

In this course, we will take an exhilarating romp through the first 1000 years or so of English/British literature, pausing to admire the likes of Beowulf, Chaucer, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Malory, Spenser, Sidney, Marlowe, Shakespeare (very briefly since an entire course is devoted to his works), Jonson, Donne, Herbert, Milton, Marvell, Dryden, Swift, Pope, and many others. We will read a great deal of poetry, drama, fiction, and non-fiction and discuss as much of it as we can get to in class.

Daily or weekly reading quizzes will help you keep up with the reading as will either a journal or weekly responses (haven’t decided yet). There will be two major exams and quite possibly an additional writing assignment (short scholarly paper).

One of the brightest and liveliest of our recent graduates told me a couple of weeks ago that, although it had a lot of tough competition (Advanced Grammar, music, and literature courses among them), this course was finally the one she enjoyed the most at Ouachita. We will study the origins and development of the English language from its Indo-European roots through Anglo-Saxon (a.k.a. Old English–the language in which Beowulf was composed), Middle English (the English of Chaucer), Early Modern English (the English of Shakespeare), to Modern English.

Not only should this course give you a deeper understanding of and appreciation for English, but it will also give you a clearer notion of how all human language is interconnected. Furthermore, where else are you going to learn to dazzle your friends by reading passages from The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in Old English!

We'll have a couple of exams, almost daily workbook exercises to prepare, and one project/paper that I think you will very much enjoy doing.

This course is designed to provide at least four services for the student of letters. To begin with, we shall survey, in a regrettably condensed form, the history of literary criticism, providing as stable a foundation as possible by which to understand what may often appear to be the babble of the present age. Secondly, we shall examine, in more thorough fashion, eleven basic schools of twentieth-century literary theory and criticism, employing Charles E. Bressler's Literary Criticism: An Introduction to Theory and Practice to set each school in its historical and philosophical context. Thirdly, we shall enjoy a brief respite from such theoretical matters by reading a great nineteenth-century novel by one of the century's greatest novelists, Charles Dickens's Great Expectations. Lastly, we shall see what modern literary criticism makes of such a novel by examining Great Expectations through the lenses of five modern critical approaches: psychoanalysis, deconstruction, feminist criticism, gender criticism, and cultural criticism. Along the way, you will have the pleasure of taking daily reading quizzes, writing two scholarly papers, and performing any number of impressive feats on two examinations, the first administered at midterm, the second at the close of the course. Prerequisite: English 1033 or English 2013.

Course Syllabus