The senior program includes the required winter term seminar and examination (see description below) and an optional one-term essay or a two-term thesis (ENAM 700, 701, ENAM 710, or 711). Normally seniors register for one unit of ENAM 700 or 701 or ENAM 710 or 711 in the fall term and register for the winter term program in the winter term. Students undertaking two-term theses normally complete them during spring term.
Fall term and spring term senior essays must be submitted no later than the last day of classes. Late essays will receive a grade no higher than C. Senior theses (two-term projects) must be submitted no later than two weeks before the last day of classes in either term. Late theses will receive a grade no higher than C and will have no oral examination or outside reader. No one is permitted to register for the second term in a thesis program unless he or she has accomplished and submitted a substantial amount of work during the first term.
Honors:Departmental honors will be determined on the basis of course grades, essay or thesis grade, and the winter term program grade. For honors in any of the three categories (honors, high honors, highest honors), College rules specify a minimum average of B in course grades and a minimum grade of B on the essay or thesis. To qualify for highest honors the department requires a minimum of B+ in each of the three areas (course grades average, thesis or essay, and the winter term senior program). In determining the numerical average of course grades all courses designated ENAM will be counted, as will all other Middlebury courses that fulfill requirements for the major. Departmental grade averages for each level of honors are: highest honors, A+; high honors, A or A-; honors, B+.
Comprehensive Examination Program: Each year the department faculty devises a reading list of 12-15 works covering all periods and genres of English literature, and each winter term several faculty jointly teach a series of seminars exploring connections among those works. (Students will receive the next year's reading list at the end of their junior year). The course will exercise and test skills of close reading, analysis, and comparison. In addition to regular seminars, the senior program includes weekly guest lectures, panel discussions, and related social events. At the conclusion of the winter term, students take an oral and written examination. The Senior Comprehensive Exam winter term program is required for completion of the major.
To give you a better idea of what the Winter Term for senior English major entails, below is a more detailed description of the program and a sample reading list from Winter 2003.
Discussion Groups/Weekly Classes
We will have three classes each week. Classes will run for three weeks. The fourth week of the term is reserved for Oral Exams.
The classes will consist of approximately 15 students and one professor. Each two-hour class will cover two texts (generally). You will remain with that group and that professor for one week (three classes, M/W/Th). Then the second week you will have a different professor and a different group; the third week will again change. This way, each student will see three of the four professors and a variety of peers. Whichever professor you don't have for class will be one of the professors on your Oral Exam during the last week of the term.
Please note that the classes will be run as highly advanced and intense discussions. We expect that as senior majors you have honed your skills in literary discussion and will be capable of a high level of discourse. Since part of your weekly grade will be based on your performance in discussion classes, you should prepare for classes carefully. A good discussion participant is ready to help build on peer comments, forward discussion, and offer questions rather than simply answers.
Written Work
Each week we will require you to select from the readings for that week a short passage (10-20 lines) for analysis (2 pages, 400-500 words, due Friday at noon, at the English office). You should choose a passage that you find striking and analyze both the way it uses the powers of language to dramatize meaning and the way it connects with the larger issues raised by the work as a whole.
Monday Lectures
On each Monday evening (4:30-6) a distinguished scholar from another college or university will address us on one of the texts from the reading list. Questions will follow the speaker's lecture. These lectures are mandatory; your professor-of-the-week will check attendance.
Tuesday Panels
On each Tuesday evening we will engage in a variety of panel discussions. In some, the Comps staff will "model" scholarly discussion for you, in preparation for your Oral Exams. Other Tuesday panels might involve student participation as well as the Comps staff. Our guest speaker will also participate. The panels are followed by a dinner for all students and faculty. Wine is served, so bring your I.D.
Oral Examinations
The oral exams will be held during the fourth week of the term.
Orals groups will consist of four students and two faculty members. Oral exams require that you prepare a 15-20 minute intense interpretive reading of a passage of your choice. Students will present their reading to the group, and after the presentations there will be student discussion of the interpretations (faculty will be largely silent, or act as guides). Part of your Oral Exam grade will be based on the quality of your participation in the discussion period following the presentations.
Example Reading List
Although the reading list changes year to year, this list provides an example of the kinds of literature you will be asked to read. In order to complete the activities assigned during Winter Term it is necessary to read all of the works prior to the beginning of class. An updated list is distributed to all English majors at the end of their junior year.
Beowulf: A Verse Translation Translated by Seamus Heaney
Geoffrey Chaucer: The Canterbury Tales
Franklin's Tale
The Pardoner's Tale
Marlowe: Dr. Faustus
Shakespeare: Julius Caesar
The Merchant of Venice
Singh:Five Seventeenth-Century Poets
Poems by Donne, Herbert and Marvell
Donne: The Sun Rising
A Valediction: Of Weeping
A Nocturnal Upon St. Lucy's Day
The Funeral
Holy Sonnets: 10 Death be not proud,
14 Batter my heart
Herbert:Affliction (I)
Denial
The Collar
Love (III)
Marvell:To His Coy Mistress
The Garden
The Picture of Little T.C. in a Prospect of Flowers
Milton: Paradise Lost
Swift: Gulliver's Travels
Sheridan: The School For Scandal & Other Plays by R.B. Sheridan
Austen: Sense and Sensibility
Keats: The Complete Poetry of John Keats
The Six Odes
Shaw, G. B.: George Bernard Shaw's Plays
Mrs. Warren's Profession
Conrad: The Secret Agent
Heaney: Opened Ground
Digging
Death Of a Naturalist
Bogland
Personal Helicon
Punishment
In Memoriam Francis Ledwidge
The Glanmore Sonnets-all
Mud Vision
Wolftone
Alphabets
Damson
Tollund
Stoppard, Tom: Plays 5
Arcadia
Gordimer, Nadine:Jump and Other Stories
Once Upon a Time
The Ultimate Safari
Comrades
The Moment Before the Gun Went Off
What Were You Dreaming?
Keeping Fit
Amnesty