English 405: Senior Exercises
In the spring semester of
senior year, Wittenberg English majors will register for English 405: Senior
Exercises, a one-credit course.
Designed to allow graduating seniors to demonstrate their mastery of
foundational concepts and skills in the major, English 405 consists of two
parts:
* A written comprehensive examination, and
* An oral presentation at the Senior Symposium.
Because there are no class meetings for English 405, course credit is granted
after the successful completion of these activities.
The Goals for English Senior
Exercises
*
To celebrate the academic accomplishments of our seniors.
*
To encourage intellectual dialogue and community across the department.
*
To assess the core critical thinking and research skills of the English major.
*
To model academic engagement for younger students.
The English Comprehensive
Examination
The English Comprehensive Exam is generally administered the third Saturday in
January and is a four-hour long exam consisting of three parts.
Part One will prompt you with questions about the common text for that
year. This first section is
open-book. Part Two involves close
reading of a poem, short story, prose passage from a larger work, or an excerpt
from a play. In Part Three you will
address a broad “synthetic” question that will ask you to think of literature in
a variety of examples across periods, nationalities, and genres.
Senior Comprehensives will be held this semester from 9:00 AM-1:00 PM on
January 19, 2008 in Hollenbeck Hall, Rooms 124 and 131.
The Senior Symposium
On Friday, April 11, 2008,
senior English majors will each give a 20-minute oral presentation based on an
essay originally written for one of their 300-level literature classes.
The audience for each presentation will be a panel of three Wittenberg
English professors, at least three other seniors who are also presenting, and
any other Wittenberg students who would like to attend.
(We assume that all senior English majors will be in attendance at panels
other than their own). The faculty
panel will have a chance to ask questions after the presentation and discuss
ideas and reactions with the student presenter before assigning a grade.
Although the choice of the essay is up to each student, the English
department has set the following guidelines:
* The presentation must be
based on a critical analytic essay (rather than a work of fiction, poetry,
journalism, professional writing, or autobiography).
* The presentation must
pose an arguable thesis about a work of literature.
* The presentation must
include some close attention to specific passages in the literary work that
support and illustrate the thesis.
* The presentation must include at least three scholarly sources discussed
within the presentation itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I decide which of my essays to present?
The Coordinator of English 405, Professor Scot Hinson, will be offering an
evening workshop for senior English majors on Thursday, January 24 at 7:30 PM in
Hollenbeck 124 to help students answer just this question.
In the meantime, think of an essay you’ve written in a 300-level
literature class at Wittenberg that you have strong feelings about and would
enjoy revising and polishing for the Senior Symposium.
Your professor’s response to your original essay can help you judge its
quality (although the grade on the essay will not be disclosed to the faculty
panel at the Senior Symposium). You
may decide to present an essay based on a class you’ll be taking the spring
semester of your senior year, but keep in mind that the Senior Symposium falls
several weeks before the end of the semester (when most research essays are
due).
May I use an essay from a
200-level literature class?
No. We want the Senior Symposium
essay to reflect the research and critical thinking skills that develop in
upper-division literature classes.
How about a portion of my
Honors Project?
Absolutely. But remember that the
length of the presentation is only 20 minutes, so you’ll need to present only a
portion of your project.
What do I do once I’ve
decided on an essay?
The deadline for submitting the title of your essay and a brief abstract is
Friday, February 15, 2008. (They
both go to Professor Hinson at shinson@wittenberg.edu).
The title and abstract will be included in a booklet announcing the
topics of the senior presentations as well as their times, locations, and the
names of the faculty panel members.
All Wittenberg English classes will be cancelled on the day of the Senior
Symposium to accommodate the presentations and allow interested students to
attend.
What’s an “abstract”?
The presentation abstract is a carefully written summary of your essay that
captures the main point you want to make about
a work of literature and includes a correctly formatted Works Cited page.
Although brief (no more than 150 words), the abstract provides a written
snapshot of your project for your audience.
Professor Hinson will also conduct a workshop on writing the abstract on
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 7:30 PM.
Do I just read my essay at
the oral presentation?
Probably not. The Senior Symposium
is designed along the lines of an academic conference where scholars from
various fields share their research.
A conference presentation is based on a written text (rather than an outline or
series of note cards) but not slavishly tied to that text.
This means that presenters at the Senior Symposium should bring a more or
less complete essay to the podium (which helps relieve some performance
nervousness). But they should know
their manuscripts well enough to look up from the page, make eye contact with
their audience, and use voice and body language to make ideas come alive in the
room. Think of it as a teaching
opportunity, a chance to draw your audience in to the excitement you feel about
the text you’re studying. We’ll
schedule a workshop by the Oral Communication Center for you to help with
presentations.
Will there be accommodations
for students with special needs?
Can I invite my friends?
Absolutely, your friends are welcome.
Also, the English department will host a party at the end of the Senior
Symposium to honor graduating seniors and acknowledge their work in the oral
presentations. We’d love to have
friends and family members join us for this celebration.
Will I be the only presenter
for my faculty panel?
No. Once we know the topics for the
Senior Symposium, we’ll organize presentation groups based on similar themes,
national literatures, or literary periods.
In most cases, each presentation group will consist of four student
presenters, three faculty members, and several other interested students.
This is very unlikely—given that you’re presenting one of your best essays as an
English major—but it could happen.
The grade for English 405 is based on the average of the written exam and the
oral presentation. In the oral
presentations, each of the three faculty members will fill out a grading rubric
(see below) and assign a score to each presenter.
Those three scores will be averaged to establish the grade for the
presentation. That grade will then
be averaged with the grade of the written comprehensive exam to establish the
final grade for English 405—which will appear as a one-credit letter grade on
the student’s transcript.
Where can I get help with my
presentation?
Professor Hinson will be lead two evening workshops during the spring semester
of 2007 and the Oral Communications Center will lead a third.
The preliminary topics for the workshops are as follows:
* Selecting and Revising the Senior Essay (Professor Hinson):
Thursday, January 24, 2008 at 7:30 PM, Hollenbeck 124
* Writing the Abstract for the Senior Essay (Professor Hinson):
Tuesday, February 5, 2008 at 7:30 PM, Hollenbeck 131
* Tips for Presenting the Senior Essay (Oral Communications Center):
To be announced.
You may also want to work with your academic advisor or the professor of the
course in which you first wrote the essay.
In most cases, that professor will be an excellent resource for you as
you consider how best to revise and develop your original essay.
That’s hard to say. In some cases,
students will need to revise aggressively to fit a longer essay into the time
limit of a 20-minute oral presentation (that translates to a 10 page
manuscript). Some students may need
to restage or reposition the essay’s thesis to make it more accessible to an
audience that’s hearing (rather than reading) the essay for the first time.
Some may choose to take the end comments of the professor who originally
read the essay to heart and strengthen weak points, tighten loose transitions,
develop new insights, or refine lumpy prose.
Again, Professor Hinson will address these issues at the first Senior
Symposium workshop in January.
Am I required to meet with
the professor for whom I originally wrote this paper?
No, but it is strongly encouraged.
Moreover, you are encouraged to meet with your professor before midterm.
Am I required to turn in a
copy of my paper?
Yes, This is new this year. You must
submit a copy of the paper you plan to read to Professor Hinson by 4:00 PM,
Friday, April 4, 2008, one week in advance of the actual Symposium.
Critical Dates and Deadlines
for English 405
Saturday, January 19, 2008,
9:00 AM-1:00 PM, Hollenbeck 124 and
131
Senior Comprehensive Examination
Thursday, January 24, 2008
7:30 PM, Hollenbeck 124
405 Workshop on Selecting and Editing an Essay for 405
Tuesday, February 5, 2008,
7:30 PM, Hollenbeck 131
405 Workshop on Preparing the Abstract for Senior Symposium
Friday, February 15, 2008,
4:00 PM, Abstracts due to
Professor Hinson (electronic submission to shinson@wittenberg.edu)
March
To be announced.
405 Workshop on Effective Presentations, by the Oral
Communication Center.
Friday, April 4, 2008
4:00 PM,
Copy of Symposium Paper due in Professor Hinson’s Mailbox
Friday, April 11, 2008,
Senior Symposium
Friday, April 11, 2008,
Awards Ceremony and English Department Celebration for the Class of 2008