Written
Comprehensives:
All graduating seniors must pass a written comprehensive
examination and an oral examination. The procedure for writtens is as follows:
- Seniors sign up for their written examinations. Each year, the
English Department prints up a reading list for these examinations. Seniors
must select three areas for examinations—one English, one American, and a
third period, either English or American, of your choice. To do so, they
fill out a selection form and return it to the Department chair. Fall
candidates must make their selections by Monday, May 18, 2009. Spring
candidates must make their selections by Monday, September 7, 2009.
Those who take the written examinations should
prepare for them well. Students who choose to be examined in a particular
period ought to have had course work in that period or ought to have studied
the period well. Students should carefully study the reading lists prepared for
each area, since the examinations will require thorough knowledge of the works
on these lists as well as the material in the relevant courses. Each
examination will, in fact, be focused on the material on these reading lists,
but it will not be limited to this material. Each examination lasts two and a half
hours. If students have particular questions or need advice, they should
contact the members of the Department who teach relevant courses.
- The members of the English
Department will prepare examination questions and set dates for the exams.
Written examinations for December candidates will be September
23, 24, 25, 26, 2009. For May
candidates written examinations will be Wednesday, Thursday,
Friday, and Saturday January 13, 14, 15, 16, 2010. The Department will notify seniors of the
exact times and locations for each examination. If you haven't heard from
the Department chair and everybody else seems to know what's going on,
call him/her up and inquire. Each written examination will be two hours
long and students may have an additional half hour to complete their work.
Students may bring both primary and secondary texts listed on the reading
lists with them to the exams.
- Each examination will be
graded by at least two professors. Grades will be reported as "Pass
with Distinction," "Pass," and "Fail." Students
who fail have often not demonstrated that they have read the major works
or authors in the period or have only a superficial knowledge of the
period. Some fail because they are unorganized or have not adequately
addressed a question as it was asked. The chair of the Department will
mail the results as soon as all the results are available.
- Those who fail one or more of
these written examinations will have an opportunity to make up these
examinations at a later date--in the fall, usually during the week after
Thanksgiving break; in the spring, usually the Wednesday or Thursday after
Spring Break.
Oral Comprehensives:
Seniors must also pass an oral examination on a work selected by the English
Department.
- Each degree candidate is
assigned a work in an area in which he/she has completed course work. The
candidate is expected to focus on the work: criticize it, evaluate it,
tackle some difficulty in it, or relate it in some significant way to
something important.
- Presentations should be no
more than 20 minutes long. Students may use note cards or an
outline and the text as a prompt but must not read a written-out paper or
report from the cards. After the presentation, a committee composed of
three faculty members chosen by the Department will, for the remaining
35-40 minutes, use what the candidate has said about the assigned work as
the basis for further exploration and discussion. Candidates might expect
to be asked to defend their thesis, or to consider alternative views on
the work, or to comment on how the work relates to others of the same
genre or in the same period, or to go into greater depth on a particular
point than the limited time of the presentation has allowed.
- The English Department
faculty encourages you to begin preparing for your senior oral exam as
soon as possible. Your 20-minute presentation should be a detailed
close-reading of the work assigned to you, an analysis of form and content
that opens up the riches of the piece and yields insights worthy of
further discussion. Preparing a good close-reading may involve research,
too. Different literary works call for different research strategies; here
are a few you might consider:
• locate a good scholarly edition of the assigned text (e-texts may be
inaccurate or incomplete);
• consult relevant reference works (dictionaries, encyclopedias,
concordances, etc);
• read other works by the same author if they seem particularly relevant
to the interpretation of the assigned work;
• consult selected contemporary literary criticism (written since 1970)
dealing with the assigned work or related works;
• consult scholarly works on the author of the assigned work or
scholarship that illuminates the period, literary movement, genre, or
themes of the work;
• consider the work's relationship to other literary works in the same
genre, if doing so helps you to comment on the assigned work;
• ponder how one might relate the work to another culturally significant
text (e.g., the Bible, a legal or scientific document, a treatise on
architecture, a political pamphlet, etc.).
Keep in mind that all of these research strategies are means
of preparing for the business of close-reading. Don't let any of them take
over; devote yourself first and foremost to analyzing the language of the
assigned work. During the presentation, you should acknowledge any other
scholar whose work you’ve consulted but should not spend significant amounts of
time summarizing anyone else's ideas; the panel wants to hear your reading of
the text and to discuss it with you.
Here are a few other technical
details that you may find helpful to know in advance:
• The faculty members will bring their own copies of the
work, but you may provide copies if you find it helpful to do so for any
reason.
• The orals are held in seminar rooms, and faculty sit around the table; you
may choose either to sit or stand for your presentation and for the Q&A
period. Do whatever makes you most comfortable.
• The presentation should be around 20 minutes in length; the Q&A will last
for around 30 minutes. At that point, you'll be asked to step outside the room
for a few minutes while the faculty members discuss your performance; please
don't leave the vicinity, as we will emerge shortly.
• Please remember not to read your presentation from a prepared script.
4. Grades given on
this examination are "Pass with Distinction," "Pass," and
"Fail."
Students will likely pass this examination if they:
-
- Indicate that they
understand the most significant aspects of the work. Make a clear
argument or point about the work (the presentation should have a thesis,
not just give a plot summary, offer a line-by-line reading, or talk about
the author's life).
- Give an informed
interpretation about the work. Acknowledge critics found to be
useful, but do not rely excessively on secondary texts.
- Make sure they refer
to details (lines, sections) from the work but as evidence for a larger
argument (not just going through line by line or section by section
picking out various interesting things).
- Speak naturally and
fluently, with confidence, using the note cards only as prompts and
making good use of the 20 minutes allowed for the presentation.
- Address the difficult
parts of the work, show that they've looked up words if applicable, and demonstrate
clear familiarity with the work in all its detail.
- Show a willingness to
consider ideas not addressed in the presentation and an ability to think
on their feet about the work. (It's also legitimate to qualify or
reconsider the thesis or argument; indeed, discussion will often lead
students to do this.)
- The Department urges all
students to practice their presentations out loud in front of their peers
or in front of anybody who will listen. Serious problems occur when
students do not know what they are going to say, do not know how long it
will take, and expect to improvise from notes they have thrown together at
the last minute.
- December candidates will
receive their topics after the completion of written exams. May candidates
will receive their topics during the last week of the fall semester.
- Oral examinations for
December candidates normally occur during the week before Thanksgiving
break. Examinations for May candidates normally occur in mid-February and
early March.
- Students who fail this oral
examination will be given a new topic and will take another oral
examination no sooner than four weeks after the original exam (later for
December candidates). The members of the examining committee normally will
be different from those on the original committee.
Distinction in Major Study:
Students who receive Distinction on both their written and oral examinations
will be granted Distinction in Major Study, an achievement recorded on their
transcripts as "Major Exam Passed with Distinction."
Honors in Major Study:
The College Catalog lists the grade point requirements and deadlines for
those seeking "Honors in Major Study." To achieve "Honors in
Major Study" a student must have at least a 3.3 on all credits earned at
Whitman and at least 3.5 in the major. The primary task is the preparation of a
thesis--conceived, researched, and written at a level worthy of honor (at least
A- level) and prepared exclusively for the satisfaction of this program--on a
topic of genuine interest to the student. Students considering honors in major
study should ask themselves what significant topic, author(s), or text(s) they
sincerely want to explore in depth. They should consult with a member of the Department
whom they would like to act as their supervising professor and reader of the
thesis. The topic must be approved by the Department, which will then assign a
second reader, although the final grade will be determined by the supervisor.
The sooner students consult, the better; initial discussions during the second
semester of the junior year can lead to profitable summer reading and to a
smoother beginning in the busy fall semester of the senior year.
Candidates for "Honors in Major Study" must earn a B+ average on
the three written examinations with no single grade lower than a B- on the
initial try and must earn "Pass with Distinction" on the initial oral
examination. If these hurdles are not passed, then students who are
significantly along in the writing of their thesis may choose to complete it,
earning credit for Thesis (English 497), or they may decide to abandon the
thesis (if they otherwise have sufficient credits for graduation). Either
option requires filing a form with the Registrar.
The application process and deadlines established by the College follow:
- Discuss your ideas for an
honors thesis with a professor who agrees to act as your supervisor.
- Prepare a written application
(form available from the Registrar) describing the thesis project. Include
a title, a description of the project, and a bibliography of primary and
secondary works. This application must be approved by your supervising
professor, your major advisor, and the Department, so you should begin to
prepare the description well before the deadline and submit it to your
supervising professor no later than Monday, September 21, 2009, for
those graduating in May. Note that this deadline is earlier than
the College deadline. After receiving these approvals, submit the
application to the Registrar.
- Write your thesis so as to
allow your supervisor sufficient time to read it and to suggest any
necessary revisions. Establish with your supervisor such things as number
of drafts, deadlines, etc.
- Meet the English Department's
deadline for submission of the thesis to the adviser by Friday, April 16,
2010.
- Submit the final copy of the
thesis to the adviser by Friday,
April 30, 2010.
- Submit the final copy of the
thesis to Penrose Library by
Reading Day, Wednesday, May 12,
2010.
