Table of Contents - Hartwick College

writing or an emphasis in writing. They also prepare students for M.F.A.
programs in creative writing.
English majors are strongly advised to attain an intermediate-level
competence in a foreign language, especially if they plan to do graduate
work in English. Other recommended courses include Introduction to the
Bible; courses in art, music, history and philosophy; and literature
courses in the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.
No later than spring of their junior year, English majors design and
formally propose a four-course concentration in a specific area of literary
study or in creative writing. Each student presents a written rationale for
this concentration at a Junior Review conducted by the student’s advisor
and another department faculty member of the student’s choosing. These
faculty determine the coherence and feasibility of the concentration,
review the student’s writing, and help the student to plan a program
ensuring that he or she will have taken the necessary “Approaches” course
in critical methodologies prior to writing a Senior Project. The faculty
members at the Junior Review may approve the proposed concentration
as submitted, return it to the student for revision, or forward it to the
whole department for its decision. In the Junior Review, majors also
complete a formal review of their course selections and begin to plan a
senior project. The Junior Review helps to ensure that majors will
complete all college and department requirements on time and will have
taken a variety of period and genre courses.
English majors must complete a senior project, usually during January
Term. The project consists either of a long paper exploring a particular
author or subject in depth or an original manuscript of creative writing,
and an oral review by the student’s study advisor and another department
member selected by the student.
English majors who plan to earn teaching certification in secondary
English are required to take Advanced College Writing before student
teaching and to have earned a 3.0 average in their major by the start of
the semester before they student teach, with allowance for exceptions in
extraordinary circumstances. Such students should obtain a copy of the
department’s “Policy on Student Teachers” from the department chair no
later than their sophomore year. Students must meet the requirements
outlined in this policy statement to qualify for student teaching.
The department offers various other opportunities for special study
outside the classroom. Students meet and interact with prominent writers
through the Visiting Writers Series. Nobel laureates Joseph Brodsky and
Derek Walcott, Pulitzer prize winners Donald Justice and M. Scott
Momaday, Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky and such well-known authors as
Jamaica Kincaid and Joyce Carol Oates have given readings and led
student workshops. English majors also write for and edit Word of
Mouth, the College literary magazine, and Hilltops, the student
newspaper. Recommended students work as tutors at the Writing Center,
gaining valuable experience and academic credit, as well.
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