What we offer

The department offers courses that can help students prepare for teaching careers, for jobs as editors and writers, or for graduate work at the master’s or doctoral level. UIS students can enroll as English majors or minors by taking course work in a physical classroom or online.

Additionally, the Online English Program allows students to actively participate in dynamic, diverse, and interactive online learning communities and earn their degrees via the internet. The online format enables students to complete course work on their own time and at their own pace within the framework of the traditional semester using the latest networked information technologies. Online students are given access to educational resources, academic advisors, and other course-related materials.

“I love teaching literature because it offers so many opportunities for placing the objective realm of facts (a word on the page, a date of publication, a historical event, etc.) into explicit conversation with the subjective realms of feeling, impression, and belief.”

Dr. Livia Woods

What you learn

By the time students graduate they should:

• Write with confidence, precision, and an awareness of audience
• Perform sophisticated analysis of diverse literary texts in a range of mediums, including visual and multimedia
• Conduct professional research on a variety of academic, social, and cultural questions
• Recognize the diversity of human experience in its many forms of expression
• Create cutting edge digital texts using a range of technologies
• Take an active role in shaping the future of literature and culture