Traditionally, the purpose of the English Department is to teach American and British Literature as well as to teach students basic writing skills, literary analysis, and critical thinking Some English Departments also have sub-majors like ESL and Applied Linguistics which was what I majored in. Three new developments are occurring--more STEM related writing classes, more job related writing classes, more multi-ethnic literature classes, and more of a focus on Digital Literacy--such as learning how to write web content, blogs as well as teaching students Public Speaking skills.
In the many English Departments I have been in, I teach ESL, English Composition, Critical Thinking and American Literature. For many years, my role was to teach the basic 5 paragraph essay structure, and help create ESL classes.
Now, there is a shift away from just teaching the standard academic essay or just teaching Literature. English Departments want to be more '21st century' or more job oriented.
More STEM-Related Technical Writing/Business Writing Classes
Instead of teaching more specialized literature classes, we seek to teach to a more diverse audience, to accommodate the needs of employers who want better writers, to teach different kinds of writing associated with different jobs--Business Writing, Technical Writing, Writing For Journalists, Writing for Science Majors, Writing for Social Science Majors.
Even what we minor in as an English major has changed. It used to be if you were an English major, you majored in your Literature period--19th Century Literature English major, Medieval LIterature English Major--now the trend is to offer more STEM or job oriented minors to make English majors more marketable in the job market.
You now have minors like Technical Writing, STEM Writing, and Grant Writing. In the school where I worked, they were putting together a minor in Technical Writing. Also, in the school where I worked, they put together a brand new Teaching English in the Disciplines class to help students of other disciplines learn how to write papers in their discipline.
At Michigan Technical University for instance, they have a new degree program called Scientific and Technical Communications. This program has hundreds of majors that teach students how to write for STEM. At MTU, Toby Fulwiler's English Department stepped outside the traditional boundaries of teaching literature to create a community of scholars with faculty of other departments by learning about the writing needs of other departments and by supplying classes to help students write not only academic essays, but also help students learn to write in the science, math, social science and engineering fields.
By making the English department more relevant to the 21st century, English Department Faculty are making the English major more attractive to the students of the Digital Age.
Diversity classes through Multi-Ethnic Literature
Besides offering STEM related writing, English Departments are offering more diverse literature classes by focusing away from the traditional Shakespeare classes, but looking to offer more multiethnic literature classes to teach students how to deal with diverse people in the workplace. Learning the culture and literature of other cultures helps equip students to know how to deal with different cultures when students go to work.
Now, English departments offer classes in Asian American Literature (my specialty), African American Literature, Hispanic American Literature, Gay and Lesbian Literature, Transgender Literature, Women Writers, and many more diverse classes that did not exist when I went through the English department to become an English major.
My very favorite class to teach was teaching the Asian American Literature class, the Cultural Diversity class and I loved comparing Far Eastern cultural values with Western values. My students loved learning about different cultural perspectives which will help my students as they enter the workforce and encounter workers from other cultures.
Multimedia assignments focused on Digital Literacy
The last interesting development I have seen in English Department is the focus on integrating traditional academic research assignments in an English class with more 'multimedia' assignments with 'multimedia' being the new buzz word.
In the beginning of the 'multimedia' assignment movement, teaching students how to do Powerpoint presentations was considered cutting edge. When we assigned Power Point assignments, we required students to make a speech about their Power Point. We gave students pointers on how not to give a boring Powerpoint speech, but how to engage listeners and how to create a visually engaging Powerpoint slide with big enough font that everybody can see.
Teaching students how to write using multimedia is called multimodal composition. I will write in more detail in a later post about the advantages of teaching students multimodal composition in a Freshman Composition class. I myself love to integrate infographics into my blogging. If students can learn how to write on the web and create web graphics, they will truly be ready for the 21st century!
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