english major?

Question

what books do english majors usually read in college?

I was thinking of being an editor, but I also thought about teaching British Lit. in high school.

Answer 1

Got an English degree, so can answer. First, an editorial job usually comes after experience in a writing job, so consider this. Been there and done that, too.

Concerning the books, there is no one answer; it depends on what you study, and English programs normally offer a lot of options.

In first year classes, you will have a text book and may or may not be required to do a book report. First year classes are supposed to give you mastery over the essayist art, nothing more.

Second year classes are survey courses. They normally use a text book that has two parts, one for first semester and one for second -- the parts are bound and sold separately. These courses normally take all of a major division, such as American, British, or world literature and present it in a superficial fashion that acquaints you with who the greats were and what the movements they belonged to accomplished. Term papers are normally required, but these are normally fairly short and easy research papers and require a little library time, but no extra book purchases.

Third year gets more serious. You do get some linguistics or advanced grammar at this level, but the literature courses grow much more intensive and specialized. Rather than attacking British Literature until or after the Romantics, as you would do in a survey course, you might concentrate on a single giant of literature, such as Shakespeare, or a era, school, or movement such as the transcendentalists or the Victorians. One additional type of course is common at this level: the themed course, such as Women Poets, or Politics in American Literature.

The reading loads can vary widely. Grammar and linguistics courses are only a text book. Shakespeare only required one book, a complete works edition; and we only read about seven of the plays and very few of the poems. Movement courses take maybe 6-10 books, a text which provides a good survey of the movement/period, and often a paperback copy of some particular work by each of several writers of that movement/period. Theme courses are often killers when it comes to the reading. The text is usually small compared to most others, because it is basically a large thesis by some professor attempting to tie together a great deal of material with a fairly slender thread. The meat of the course comes in the form of supplemental reading; I remember one course that required 23 books, and a complete reading of each.

Still, I haven't given a straight answer to your question because I can't. I, for example, never took a women's studies course, or a black studies course, so I read quite a number of different books from those who did. I also never got off into much written after the American Civl War and almost nothing following World War I, so again my experience is very different from those who did. My world lit experience was limited to only one course, so while I can discuss Keats in detail, I am not so up on Neruda.

One of the reasons there is no one good answer also has to do with the fact that there is not only one kind of English degree. For my explanation there are basically two types, a teaching degree and the other kind. I had to take 42 semester hours of English to get an English degree. Many of my classmates had to take only 24 hours of English for their English degrees, because they were also pursuing teaching certifications -- I always intended to be a writer, and writers need to know something worth writing with and about. I didn't think a knowledge of elementary classroom management filled that need, so I pursued psych and biz instead, but that did increase my English education. I had more upper division English courses than my teaching counterparts had total English (which my kids' high school English teachers have come to regret).

Sorry I cannot do a better job of answering you directly, but expect to read not only novels, poems, and plays. Also expect to read a lot of essays, sermons, speeches, and even advertisements. Expect to read not only what we think of when we think of literature, expect to read history and philosophy.

Whatever you do, expect to read a very great deal.

Good luck.

Answer 2

I am an english major, though I just decided on this last semester and I haven't started my next semester so I haven't taken any english classes, but I would guess it all depends on which classes you take. Generally you start with American lit or English lit which would cover classics in either genre. Also, some schools have author specific classes (I am looking forward to taking a Shakespeare class). In all I would guess that an english major would read a variety of books in many genres covering all time periods.

Answer 3

It all depends on your concentration. If you want to have a literature focus then you're going to have to read all of the classics (not to mention a boat load of Shakespeare). But if you are journalism (like I was), then you'll probably have to read editing books and things like that. Then there's the techincal or business writing concentrations and the teaching concentration (that one is like the literature one plus a bunch of children's books). I know I've left something out but I hope you at least get an idea of what you'll have to read.


Plus- it depends on the professor too! Some like the classics and some like the bizarre.

Answer 4

i'm a music important and allow me purely say, music majors can't minor- the schedule is purely too confusing center. faculties stress you into 12-14 classes in keeping with semester because of the fact maximum classes you ought to take are purely a million credit, some 0! and prefer 2 of those are properly worth 2 credit. you don't get gaps between classes and your days run 8AM-8pm today by way of Mon-fri. Weekends you commute with your ensembles. Non-music majors could properly be in band and orchestra, you purely ought to audition

Answer 5

king