Starting in Fall, New Course Required for English Majors

Correction appended.

Starting this fall, English majors will be required to take a new class, Critical Reading, Critical Writing, to hone their literary analysis abilities.

The class is a modernized version of an English course that has existed in the past. Faculty designed the course with the input of student representatives.

According to English professor and undergraduate advisor Michael Rosenthal, Columbia's department of English and comparative literature brought the retooled class back because of a "lingering feeling and a desire of some students." He said the restructured course would better equip students with basic skills such as being able to critically interpret literature as well as write well-structured and focused papers. Rosenthal stated that he is "confident that it will be popular."

Students also expressed their belief that the course would fill a need.

English major Patrick Jarenwattananon, CC '07, said that the new requirement will give English majors basic tools that will help them with their studies.

English major Swetha Regunathan, CC '07, called the implementation of the revised class "a good move," saying that she hoped "the course won't teach students how to read theory, but rather how to read a text and write thoughtfully and elegantly about it."

Rosenthal said that the course's previous structure consisted of individual sections being taught by individual faculty members. The revised version will have faculty members giving one lecture per week with graduate students directing smaller seminars.

Regarding the expectations for students within the course, English professor and associate undergraduate advisor Erik Gray said that it "is up to the people teaching it." Each term, graduate students will choose their own assignments, and sections will vary from one teaching assistant to another.

Gray said that the course is designed to help students learn how to read secondary sources as well as training them to read original texts more carefully and critically. He said that Literature Humanities and University Writing do "not specifically teach students to write a paper" and that their focus is different from that of Critical Reading, Critical Writing.

As opposed to University Writing, which addresses structure and approaches to writing, the English course will focus on reading literature.

Rosenthal said that English majors need a class that is more advanced than Lit Hum, saying that the Core course is like an "introduction to the English major" that, depending on the professor, may or may not focus on critical analysis.

Besides giving students the ability to critically read and write, Gray said that Critical Reading will serve as "a connection between you and your classmates."

CORRECTION: This article incorrectly implied that all English majors would have to take Critical Reading, Critical Writing. The class will onlly be required of majors in the class of 2010 and subsequent classes.