Written Comprehensives:

All graduating seniors must pass a written comprehensive examination and an oral examination. The procedure for writtens is as follows:

1. 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 12, 2008. Spring candidates must make their selections by Monday, September 15, 2008.
   
   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.
   
2. The members of the English Department will prepare examination questions and set dates for the exams. Written examinations for December candidates will be September 24, 25, 26, 2008. .For May candidates written examinations will be Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, January 14, 15, 16, 17, 2009. 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.
   
3. 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.
   
4. 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.

1. 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.)
     
5. 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.
   
   
6. 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.
   
   
7. 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.
   
   
8. 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."

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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 22, 2008, 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. Deadline for submitting your application to the Registrar: before the end of the first six weeks of the two-semester period in which you are eligible (approximately the second week in October for May candidates, the fourth week in February for December Candidates).
  
  
• 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 Department’s deadline for submission of the thesis to the adviser: Friday, May 1, 2009.
• File final copy of the thesis in the Library. Deadline: Wednesday, May 13, 2009.