BACHELOR OF SCIENCE DEGREE
ENGLISH REQUIREMENT: 12 hours
ENGLISH COMPOSITION (6 hours)
All freshmen at the University of Mississippi (except Honors College freshmen) are required to take six hours of freshman writing. First-year students in the Honors College take HON 101-102. All other first-year students take ENGL101 and either ENGL102 or LIBA102. It is possible for students to earn AP or CLEP credit for one or both of these classes, or to transfer credit for them from other institutions.
ENGL 101. ENGLISH COMPOSITION I
This course is designed to help students develop effective writing strategies and positive attitudes toward writing through a variety of writing assignments that combine critical skills with creativity and fun. The course textbook, Writing as Drama, uses a genre-based approach to writing to give students practice in addressing different audiences flexibly and effectively, by writing letters, parables and fables, memoirs, and profiles. Students write three drafts each of several papers, and learn to peer-review their fellow students’ drafts as a guide to improving their ability to edit their own work. Students are taught the importance of the writer-reader relationship, purpose, context, and trust, and work extensively on structure, including sentence, paragraph, and argumentative structure. Sections of ENGL 101 are standardized and work from a common syllabus. This course is limited to 23 students per section.
LIBA 102. FIRST-YEAR SEMINAR
Also known as the Freshman Seminar, LIBA 102 is a writing-intensive, topic-driven course taught by faculty across campus. Only freshman students may enroll in this course. Students are encouraged to consult the current list of section topics at http://www.olemiss.edu/liba102. The reading and writing requirements are standard across sections (figured in terms of hours of reading and pages of writing), but the courses vary widely in content and reading materials. The one common book is The Curious Researcher by Bruce Ballenger. This course is limited to 15 students per section.
ENGL 102. ENGLISH COMPOSITION II
ENGL102 is modeled on LIBA102 in that each section is a writing-intensive, topic-driven course, with readings chosen from fiction, drama, poetry, and creative non-fiction. The Cooper-Hill Stylebook is required in this class, but readings vary from section to section. The course is limited to 23 students per section.
Special Notes:
- It makes no difference which composition course the student takes first. The courses are not sequential. Experience shows that whichever writing course the student takes first will be perceived as the harder course.
- LIBA102 is not offered in Winter or Summer sessions.
- First semester freshman should NOT sell back their Cooper-Hill Stylebook as it will be required in their spring writing course.
- Both LIBA102 and ENGL102 have a research requirement.
ENGLISH LITERATURE (6 hours)
The Department of English offers six literary survey courses at the sophomore level. ENGL 250 (Applied Writing) does not meet the requirement for a 200-level English literature course. Advanced courses in literature at the 300-level or above do not meet this requirement.
ENGL 221 Survey of World Literature to 1650
Starting with ancient sources, this course surveys literatures from various civilizations (Greek, Roman, Persian, Indian, Middle-Eastern, and Asian) to provide students a background in the earliest examples of imaginative writing in human history. Approaches vary; some professors treat this as a Western Civilization class, others as a comparative literature course.
ENGL 222 Survey of World Literature since 1650
Focusing on the modern world, the emphasis in this class is on the rich variety of cultures that contribute to our understanding of modern literature. This half of the world literature sequence is more likely to be comparative, but with less emphasis on British and American literature, because we have separate surveys on those traditions.
ENGL 223 Survey of American Literature to the Civil War
This course starts with colonial writing and writing by indigenous peoples, and continues as an American tradition begins to formulate in the early 19th century during what is known as the American renaissance, in the 1840s and 1850s (Hawthorne, Poe, Melville, and Stowe).
ENGL 224 Survey of American Literature since the Civil War
Usually starting with Whitman and Dickinson, this course continues its coverage of American literature into the 21st century.
ENGL 225 Survey of British Lit from the Beginning through the 18th century
This course starts with Beowulf, for example, and continues as the British literary tradition is formulated.
ENGL 226 Survey of British Lit from the Romantic Period to the Present
The opening focus of this course is the Romantics (such as Wordsworth, Byron, and Keats), and moves on to examine the developments in Victorian literature, continues into the turbulent 20th century up to the present day.