English Assessment Committee

English Department
318 Minard Hall
NDSU

Dear Assessment Committee,

Throughout my years at North Dakota State University, I have learned a great deal through
English courses which not only contain real world applications, but will lend knowledge towards
my pursuit to Graduate school here at NDSU. I have compiled successful forms of each English
Department outcome: Outcome 2, Outcome 5, and Outcome 6 breaking down the outcome
into: familiar with literatures as culturally and historically embedded practices, familiarity with
major writers, major genres, and major periods, and familiarity with technologies of writing.
This will include projects from multiple English classes focusing on: English 315, English 318.
English 435, English 458, and English 467. These classes have been the pinnacle of my college
career and I have produced my most successful works through them. These classes not only
challenged me to be a better writer, reader, and analyzer, but gave me the ability to produce
works that are the most successful of my college career. You can find this letter and the rest of
my portfolio in electronic form at: hannahleighstevens.weebly.com
Outcome 2 for English majors is as stated: English majors will be able to read (analyze,
interpret, critique, evaluate) written and visual texts. This outcome is best employed through my
English 318: American Literature II paper entitled To Control and Be Controlled: Themes of
Flowering Judas and When it Snowed in Kitabamba. Through this paper I was able to analyze
and interpret the idea of virginity within both stories. I used Flowering Judas and further
critiqued the story as the main male character begins to court the female character in order to
'win' her virginity, the only thing that a woman has control of and the only thing that makes her
valuable in regards to the story. I interpreted this courtship as such and further critiqued the
culture surrounding the story in order to make it obvious that I did not agree. Through When it
Snowed in Kitabamba I analyzed the irony within the story as the main character searches for
control of his ceremony with the music that is played, makes a fool of himself, and his escapade
is set to his own music, as I discuss, he essentially provides the music for his own downfall- the
ultimate irony.
This assignment was early on in my English career and I think I have grown as a writer
exponentially since writing this paper. The paper is concise, but not overly and I believe there
was more that I could have added to prove my point, especially when it comes to analyzing the
irony in When it Snowed in Kitabamba. Despite irony not being a major aspect of the story, I
think in developing this idea I would have made a more directional thesis for my paper and able
to present more ideas and knowledge.

Outcome 5 is as stated: English Majors will be familiar with a variety of theoretical lenses,
learning to recognize them at a 200-level and learning to use them by the 400-level. For this
outcome, my most successful work is the final project I have produced for English 467, English
Studies Capstone Experience. My final project entitled Shakespeares Leading Lady: Juliets
Strength Mirrored in a Young Adult Novelization, was an exploration of the use of feminism in
Shakespearean plays, looking directly at the character of Juliet from Romeo and Juliet as well as
exploring how this feminism is made more obvious by pairing the classic with a contemporary
young adult novelization. Through this project, I learned to successfully analyze and locate not
only feminism within the play and the novel I paired with it, but locate instances of Gender
Criticism in identifying ways that the play is considered patriarchal and looking closely at how
this patriarchal context affects how we read the characters. This project took my ability to
recognize theoretical lenses, as the outcome states by the 200 level, and began to use them in my
400-level class and perhaps my most important work as a student at NDSU.
This project was arguably my most important in my English career and the last of my semester,
so revisions were made almost immediately. With that being said, I think I could have
strengthened my argument with more focus on feminism and perhaps less on the young adult
novelization. I struggled with having two separate projects in mind when I started writing and I
believe I may have combined two projects into one, it may have appeared rather forceful. If I
was to revise, I also believe I would consider picking a different Shakespearean character, such
as Lady Macbeth, and focus on her villainy throughout the play as well as her feminism.
Outcome 6 is as stated: English majors will be familiar with literatures as culturally and
historically embedded practices. One example of a piece that applies to this outcome is from my
English 458: Advanced Writing Workshop. For this class we wrote various pieces of digital
writing that show both the advancement of technology and the historically embedded practice of
literature. One of our final projects was a blarg assignment, which is an argument in the form of
a blog. For this assignment, I wrote about book banning and the cultural practice of such which
is still prevalent in today's society. Books are still being banned, and in understanding historical
contexts, I believe, would offset the criticism that is placed behind these books that may or may
not comment on controversial issues. In the society that we live in, I argued, it is much easier to
see these controversial pieces on the internet and be offended, rather than be offended by a piece
of literature that comments on issues during the historical time period in which they were
written. I believe this piece is successful in persuading reading and education of literature rather
than hasty banning.
I revised this piece within my English 458 class and can also be seen within my portfolio for that
class, and the most important aspect that I changed was adding more hyperlinks to my final
product in order to give my intended audience more information that wasn't readily available in
my 800-word maximum requirement for this assignment. If given more words, I would include
novels that I believe give students a wider view of the world as I discussed within the blog.
Outcome 6 part 2 is as stated: English majors will be familiar with major writers, genres, and
periods of writing. The piece of writing that I believe best employs this outcome is a piece from
my English 315: British Literature I class entitled, "Nature Before and After the Eating of the

Forbidden Fruit" in which I discuss book nine of John Milton's epic, Paradise Lost. I chose this
paper to represent this outcome because it not only looks at a particular piece by a specific
author, but also looking at a genre in the form of an epic. I believe an epic, because it has so
much content, should be looked at and analyzed different. This paper also explores how a
specific author writes his work, and this looks at how Milton describes disobedience and how he
portrays that through his imagery.
This paper was also one of the first from an English class, and though it applies to this outcome,
I don't believe it to be the impediment of my English career. I would edit a lot of the paper with
what I know now, but the paper is strong in exploring how different genres are treated and how
different authors react to this difference. Milton's epic is very well written, and I would revise
my paper to give it the credibility it deserves.
Outcome 6 part 3 is as stated: English majors will be familiar with technologies of writing. One
of the only classes that employed digital writing was my English 458: Advanced Writing
Workshop class. Within this class we studied what is contemporarily called Twitterature. This
technology of writing is taking a piece of literature and transcribing it in 180 characters in the
form of a tweet. The direction that my Twitterature took within this class focused on
characterization as a tool for readers to better understand the character Hamlet, from the famous
Shakespearean play. This was s new type of digital writing that I explored and I believe I
successfully transcribed the work through my tweets both by Hamlet and by two other
characters from the play.
In creating these tweets, I further explored how contemporary Hamlet's response is and further
developed this hypothesis in my English 435: Young Adult Literature in a Multicultural world
final project in which I mirrored a section from our textbook: Adolescent Literature as a
Complement to the Classics by Joan F. Kaywell. In this project I compared themes as well as
language between Hamlet: Prince of Denmark and a young adult novelization that I paired with
the classic, Something Rotten. Through exploring the language between the classic and the
contemporary I furthered my thesis and believe that Hamlet's response is contemporary despite
the seemingly archaic premise of the play.
Both of these assignments were some of the last of my career and I was pleased with how they
turned out. If given revisions I would add more characters to my Twitterature to characterize
Hamlet that much more, especially giving him the ability to communicate with Ophelia, and
Claudius.

Sincerely,

Hannah Stevens