Finishing up EC Lit In English major

perrik · #1 (**permalink**) 05-02-2009, 09:37 PM

Okay, so I scored at the 78th percentile on the Lit in English GRE. According to the chart Alissa kindly posted back in March (http://www.degreeforum.net/excelsior...tml#post51537), this gives me 27 credits. The final class/exam, going by the chart, is supposed to be on a single author.

Excelsior's course search turns up three Ohio University credit-by-exam options which qualify, which are separate courses/exams on Shakespeare's comedies, tragedies, and histories.

I could settle down for several weeks of intensive study on a selection of Shakespeare's plays. Or I could pick up a heavy lead crystal vase and bash it again my foot until the vase or the foot breaks. The choices are equally appealing.

I respect and admire Shakespeare, but darn it, I just don't enjoy his work.

Has anyone been in this spot, with one additional class/exam to take to finish off the Literature in English major? Am I required to do the singular author, or would any of the level II categories be allowed? (I've sent this question to my advisor, but I doubt she's working on a Saturday night!) OU has credit-by-exam for some literary period classes, and I'd happily take one of them instead if EC allows it.

There is the alternative of switching to the liberal studies option, but I'd prefer to stick with the major option.

alissaroot · #2 (**permalink**) 05-02-2009, 10:51 PM

Congratulations on your great score! Mine was a 530, 54th percentile. I'm happy with that!

Old Dominion has a 400-level course on Chaucer's Canterbury tales: Department of English and of course they have Shakespeare courses..

BYU has an Independent Study Shakespeare course:BYU Independent Study - Distance Education Courses - Online Learning

That's all I could find right now! Shakespeare sure is popular.

perrik · #3 (**permalink**) 05-02-2009, 11:47 PM

In the test thread, okiemom linked to a listing of distance courses offered by the University of Missouri (which happens to be on my list of possible grad programs). Not cheap, but a number of classes can be done online in as few as 6 weeks - and there's a single-author class about Jane Austen. If EC insists that I get the last three credits as an author course, I'll shell out the $$$ for the Mizzou class. It would be the easiest A ever - I'm a huge Austen fan!

cookderosa · #4 (**permalink**) 05-02-2009, 11:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by perrik

In the test thread, okiemom linked to a listing of distance courses offered by the University of Missouri (which happens to be on my list of possible grad programs). Not cheap, but a number of classes can be done online in as few as 6 weeks - and there's a single-author class about Jane Austen. If EC insists that I get the last three credits as an author course, I'll shell out the $$$ for the Mizzou class. It would be the easiest A ever - I'm a huge Austen fan!

>>

I have no idea if it works at EC, but TESC also has a 3 credit class on Jane Austin. It's over 3 works if I remember- I think they have an exam or independent study option, but I'm not certain.

alleycat · #5 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 06:41 AM

University of Idaho has an independant study class on Shakespeare and it fairly affordable at $100 per credit.

Independent Study in Idaho

perrik · #6 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 08:54 AM

Did I mention I'm trying to avoid Shakespeare?

cookderosa, thanks for the tip about the TESC class. Unfortunately, unless I enrolled at TESC, it would cost $1005 for the 3-credit class ($335 per credit hour for non-enrolled out-of-state students). At $200 less and with a more flexible course schedule, Missouri is still the top option.

Wow alleycat, the Idaho courses are a bargain! I might ditch the Vietnam War DSST and take the ISI East Asian history class instead. Doesn't help with the major, but history is my second depth.

alleycat · #7 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 09:48 AM

Did I mention I'm trying to avoid Shakespeare?

Sorry about the Shakespeare reply. But Idaho does have alot of classes and they are priced pretty reasonably. I took two Museology class with them.

NAP · #8 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 11:26 AM

Congratulations on your great scores! I hope you are very proud of yourselves!

MaieJaie · #9 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 12:42 PM

Congratulations on your excellent score! That's impressive.

If your advisor will let you take the Ohio U genre courses, I'd encourage you to do so. I took OU's English 203 Critical Approaches to Drama as credit-by-exam, and it was pretty straightforward. I just read the plays (doesn't have to be the exact edition listed). The essay questions were just basic literary analysis type of questions, and they weren't expected to be too long of essays. You get to choose among essay topics. Besides, for you to have scored that high on the GRE Literature means you're probably already familiar with some of these plays, anyway. On the other hand, you may be more interested in the Critical Approaches to Fiction course since the drama course includes one play by...Shakespeare.

My only advice to you is to definitely get your advisor's written approval before registering for the Ohio U class. My credits for Ohio U's Critical Approaches to Drama were not accepted for credit at Excelsior because they were considered duplicative of the GRE Literature. Pretty much every English literature course I've taken was considered duplicative and not accepted. The exception to this was the UCLA Extension Prize-Winning Authors class... which is offered by the department of Comparative Literature, not the department of English, and therefore not considered duplicative.

If, however, your advisor says no to the Ohio U class, there are other options. If you're not a Shakespeare fan, there are other alternatives for the major authors requirement. Adams State College offers a course on Chaucer, and another entitled Studies in Major Authors which just studies Melville. UCLA Extension sometimes has classes that meet the requirement, but their offerings change each quarter; I took Prize-Winning Authors through them which I found fascinating, studying winners of the Nobel Prize for Literature and other prestigious literary awards. The UCLA Extension website gets a little difficult to navigate sometimes, though... and they've just made it worse, not better. The University of Georgia offers a course entitled People of Paradox: American Colonial Voices (if you can find the textbook), which seems like it may count for the major author requirement based on the list of example courses in the EC Liberal Studies catalog. The Adams State courses cost $375, and the UCLA and University of Georgia courses cost around $500-$600.

perrik · #10 (**permalink**) 05-03-2009, 01:21 PM

Thanks for the detailed info, MaieJaie! Melville, eh? Much more appealing than old Billy S. I may have to do the syllabus reading on the Colonial Voices class even if I don't take it for credit, as so far I've read very little American lit that pre-dates Hawthorne.

That GRE score came from years of reading the classics for pleasure - the only English credit on my transcript is from the AP English Language & Composition test. It's a pity I didn't read literary criticism for pleasure too, or else I might have hit the 81st percentile mark and wouldn't be searching for this final class. Oops. (bet it was the poetry that really tripped me up, though - my brain froze on identification questions, even the fairly basic ones)

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