College Level English

Moving from high school English to college level English is a big leap, as you might expect. You might have been able to get by without doing the reading and heading to Spark notes before, but now, you really have to buckle down and make sure you are doing the work. You might have learned the hamburger method of essay writing, where you have an opening and closing paragraph sandwiching three body paragraphs. In college, you learn to develop ideas in a more complex way.

Almost any college requires students to take English 101 in their freshman year. They may never take another English class in their four years, but the first level English class is an important foundation step in critical thinking. Once you reach college, you are expected to analyze and annotate texts as you improve the way you right. High school had simple formulas that made essay writing like a mad lib with extra filler words. That will not be the case in college. Instead of five or seven page papers, you might bump up all the way to 12-15 pages. If you were not taught MLA or APA formatting for references, you better believe you will need it once you get to the research papers.

Ultimately, English classes can be broken down into two categories: literature and writing.

Literature classes are focused on reading texts. You might find a class on Classics, which are typically the Greek and Roman texts of the old days. Another might be The Great American Novel, which could include authors such as Herman Melville, Edith Wharton, William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, and more. Classes will focus on rhetorical skills and logically putting together arguments.

Writing classes focus on your writing, although they also include a lot of reading. You will often spend a few sessions discussing texts while writing your own work using similar tools to what you read. Once you submit your assignments, it usually shifts to reading each other’s’ work, giving feedback in the form of workshops. Classes can range from poetry to fiction to nonfiction, covering specific era, geographic regions, and cultures.

When you are a high school student, everyone follows the same path, but that changes once you reach the next level. Instead of a generic English class that everyone in your grade takes, you will have a wide variety of different options to choose from. For example, University of Virginia has an entire class devoted to Game of Thrones, studying the books and TV series. Others might take Black Writers in America. Others still might take Old Icelandic Literature in Translation. There are options to explore that might excite you and others that might spark curiosity in a subject you never knew you liked.

In addition to being great for English majors, college level English classes also tie into other subjects and fields. For example, someone interested in History might take a class in Medieval Literature. An Italian major might take a class in Italian Literature. A film major might take a class in Creative Writing. For many, English classes can provide a fun escape from the more boring math and sciences.