Secondary Concentration
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The Concentration in Secondary Education is carefully designed through collaboration between the Education and English Departments. The curriculum is aligned with the requirements set by the Pennsylvania Department of Education.

As a way of preserving the excellent reputation enjoyed by the teacher certification program at Saint Vincent, the English Department and the Education Department hold you to a high standard in course selection and professional development. The breadth of the content areas, including Shakespeare, History of the English Language and a Senior Project, along with an upper-level writing course, will give you a solid background for the time when you enter a classroom that is your own.

Students usually declare their intentions to prepare for a career in teaching by registering for ED 100 Foundations of Education. Toward this end, the English Department requires:

EL 206 History of the English Language 3
EL 234 Young Adult Fiction and one other genre course 6
EL 314 Shakespeare's Histories OR
EL 315 Shakespeare's Comedies/Tragedies 3
1 300-level British/European Literature course, 19th Century or later 3
1 300-level British/European Literature, 18th Century or earlier 3
1 American Literature course 3
English Elective 3
EL 400 Senior Project in Literature 3

There are also extra Concentration requirements for the English Education Concentration (37)

Students must complete the Minor in Education by taking

PY 115, 214, 290 9
ED 100, 205, 220, 301 10
ED 101, 400, 410, 411 15
MA 102 for teachers (2nd course) 3
No free electives

These courses are to complement the general requirements for all majors, which are:

EL 200 Literary Criticism I 3
EL 201 Literary Criticism II 3
EL 202 Intermediate Writing 3
EL 310 Junior Seminar 3
EL 400 Senior Project 3
One minority/multi-cultural literature course 3

Beyond the course sequence, your training to be a teacher will be directly addressed in the Junior Seminar and the Senior Project. In the Junior Seminar, you will complete a proposal for a senior project. In this Concentration, this project is to be a Critical Essay of 20-25 pages that pursues a fresh analysis of one or several related primary texts. These primary texts should be print literary texts, but exceptions may be considered. This paper will follow a stated and well defined critical perspective, review relevant secondary source criticism, and analyze the primary texts from the established critical perspective. If the paper pursues a historicist or cultural studies perspective, relevant non-literary texts may be included. This paper should be documented in the most recently updated MLA style.


Guidelines for Proposal
State Problem
What is the problem, conflict, or issue? What exact discrepancy do you see?
Is this an old or new problem?
If old, how has it been addressed in the past?
How significant is this problem?
How can this problem be broken down into its parts?
What are the causes of this problem?
What are its effects?
State Purpose in light of this problem
What is your proposed thesis?
How does this address the problem as stated?

State the Plan
What is the structure of your argument?
What is the logic of this structure?
Review Sources: include a brief bibliographic essay that reviews the state of secondary source scholarship.

Proposal Approval Process
During the course of the Junior Seminar, you should secure a First Reader from the faculty who has taught a course that covers the topic or writer you are choosing. That faculty member should be consulted regarding your topic choice and must ultimately place his or her signature on your ungraded proposal, indicating that this is a viable topic. That faculty member, though he or she may not grade your proposal, will be involved in the assessment of the final project.


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