The Death of the English Degree, Brought on by Critical Analysis

[knitter4democracy]

33. A few thoughts from this high school English teacher:

1. Your ideas for "Twelfth Night" are what we usually do on the high school level, not on the college level. In order to do any of those projects, one needs a solid basis in critical thought and analysis, so I'm not sure why you're saying they are somehow better or better suited to the college level.

2. One thing I learned in taking a couple of 500-level literature courses for fun was that many programs really don't teach good textual analysis these days. Sure, students could cite this critic or that critic, but they couldn't do a phoneme-by-phoneme analysis, a syntactical analysis, or anything on a really close reading level--and neither could the professor. My little Christian college taught me well in that regard, mostly because the critics weren't safe to teach there, but the texts were as long as we kept our mouths shut outside of class.

3. Because so many colleges have separate creative writing degrees, it really should come as no surprise that regular English major programs require so little in the way of creative writing.

4. Lastly, I don't see why you would attack critical analysis or critical thinking as somehow less-than compared to writing. Both skills are important in any job, sure, but in all reality, critical analysis/thought is something sorely lacking in many businesses today, something we English majors can help with. When I was a temp in college during my breaks, I was offered more than one job, and I remember asking one boss why when I didn't have a business degree. He said, "I can teach you the business part, that's easy, but what most business majors can't do is write well or think for themselves." I do not think we are doing English majors a disservice in teaching them how to analyze and think for themselves as well as how to write critical analysis pieces.