For Our English Literature Courses:
We investigate the design, purpose, meaning, modes of production and reception, and the uses made of literary texts. We carry out these investigations by closely examining texts in themselves and by bringing to the texts knowledge of relevant literary, historical, philosophical, and biographical contexts. We examine texts for their complicity in the construction of social norms and for their attempts to oppose or undermine such norms. The courses are designed to impart the skills of reading and writing and they have other goals as well.
However, our general English courses and our many writing courses address more directly these core skills. The department believes students should understand the "meaning" of literature in terms of social, cultural, aesthetic, and intellectual movements that are also the provinces of the social sciences. In addition, we have several courses devoted to studying theories of literature. Several others discuss literature as a realm of experience that reflects aspects of the social and cultural contexts in which it is embedded.
For Our ESL Programmes:
An Action Research Seminar cum Workshop was conducted in April 2010 to implement enquiry-centred curriculum compacting to maximize outcome-based initiatives. As James McKernan rightly asserts in Curriculum and Imagination: process theory, pedagogy and action research (2008) “a teacher’s voice is essential for action research.” Accordingly, all the course teachers participated in open ended and free discussions to recontextualize learning intensive paradigms within a new competency-based curriculum to innovate a real-world syllabus. The free and impartial discussions ensured a proper understanding of contentious issues and facilitated collaborative decision making which in turn optimized process-based staff empowerment.
The Department decided on six poems and five essays to be taught throughout all the four semesters. Additionally, a play, a novel and six short stories were to be taught in the first, second and third semesters respectively. Furthermore, in addition to the routine writing units being taught throughout the first three semesters it was decided to implement a mastery-focused writing module during the fourth semester to prepare the students for the campus placement tests. Moreover, during the first semester it was also decided to incorporate a remedial component to leverage performance-driven scaffolding to integrate the linguistically challenged learners into outcome based mainstream instruction.