Sigma Tau Delta today! And Writers Club Next Week!

Don't forget we have a meeting of Sigma Tau Delta, the English honors society (open to everyone, members or non-members) today at 2:00 in Faust 159 (next to the Honors Office). Come meet fellow students and professors for casual conversation about all things English! 

Next Thursday we'll also have a meeting of the Writers Club at 2:30 in Horace Mann 331. Among other things, we'll be discussing one of Bryce Clark's short stories! Please e-mail jgrasso@ecok.edu if you want a copy of the story prior to the meeting (we encourage everyone to read it before hand if possible). 

Our next Writers Club meetings will be: March 19, April 9 (possibly), April 16, and April 30. 

Hope to see you at one or all of these events! 

A Poem for all English Majors...

In preparing a class about Percy Shelley's poetry, I remembered a funny poem I once read (using Shelley's poem, "Ozymandias") talking about how a math major became an English major for life. The poem is below--and I think most of you can relate to the sentiment! So much crazy stuff happens on the Third Floor!

Prof of Profs, 

by Geoffery Brock

I was a math major—fond of all things rational.
It was the first day of my first poetry class.
The prof, with the air of a priest at Latin mass,
told us that we could “make great poetry personal,”

could own it, since poetry we memorize sings
inside us always. By way of illustration
he began reciting Shelley with real passion,
but stopped at “Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!”—
because, with that last plosive, his top denture
popped from his mouth and bounced off an empty chair.

He blinked, then offered, as postscript to his lecture,
a promise so splendid it made me give up math:
“More thingth like that will happen in thith clath.”

See you in class...and watch out for flying dentures! 

Capstone: Not an End, a Beginning

For many English majors, the ENG 4883: Publications and Portfolio Capstone course represents an end, not a beginning. And there’s something to that, to be sure. It’s called capstone for a reason. ENG 4883 is designed, in part, to facilitate the assembly of students’ senior portfolio. However, it does much more than that. In fact, it does things that are far more important than the assembly of the portfolio. 

Dr. McMahon and her Capstone Students at the Capstone Showcase last December 

Arguably, ENG 4883’s most critical function is not as a capstone, but as a foundation, or better yet, as stepping stone. ENG 4883 is designed to help ready English majors for the opportunities they will face after graduation. It helps them prepare resumes and write cover letters for jobs. It helps them understand how to present themselves effectively in personal statements, with an eye to the different situations for which those statements are produced, and the different audiences that will assess them. It helps students develop their confidence and competence as scholars. It acquaints them with the basic practices and expectations associated with attending conferences, giving conference presentations, and publishing in scholarly journals. It helps them locate these scholarly options. Moreover, it provides the supportive platform off which students can seize these opportunities. 

Not only does every student present original work in an on-campus showcase similar to an academic conference, students are encouraged to take their work on the road. And the majority of them do! For instance, in Fall 2019, seven of the eleven students enrolled in the class presented their work at an undergraduate or professional conference. And since the end of the fall semester, four more capstone students have had works accepted for conferences in 2020. 

Capstone isn’t just the pinnacle of your English coursework at ECU; it’s your step up to the place you want to go.