George Mason University

In accordance with guidelines adopted by the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, the English Department offers an honors option to its majors. The honors program offers exceptional English majors the opportunity to take advanced seminars and to produce independent work leading to graduation with honors in English. Classes are small, typically limited to fifteen students, and offer ample opportunity for discussion. The topics in honors seminars (ENGL 414) change each semester, depending upon the interests and specialties of the faculty teaching them, but all emphasize close attention to textual analysis and the role of theoretical and critical approaches in literary interpretation. Students who elect the thesis option will have the opportunity to produce an independent writing project of their own design.

To qualify for graduation with honors, students must complete the honors course sequence and receive a 3.50 GPA in all courses counted toward the major and, separately, a minimum 3.50 GPA in their honors courses. Honors courses may simultaneously satisfy concentration and distribution requirements in the major.

Students may complete the honors course sequence (and submit work for evaluation by a faculty committee) in several different ways:

• Take two sections of ENGL 414: Honors Seminar
• Take one section of ENGL 414: Honors Seminar and ENGL 415: Honors Thesis Writing Seminar
• Students in the creative writing concentration may take one section of ENGL 414: Honors Seminar and then write a creative honors thesis in ENGL 416: Honors Independent Study
• Students in the nonfiction concentration may take ENGL 416: Honors Independent Study in conjunction with an advanced course in nonfiction writing, and then complete a nonfiction thesis as part of ENGL 415: Honors Thesis Writing Seminar

Who can take honors courses? All majors who have completed their 200-level required literature courses and who have demonstrated a capacity for outstanding work in English are eligible to participate in the honors program. Qualified transfer students are also eligible to apply.

How do I apply? Ask a faculty member familiar with your work in advanced English courses to submit a recommendation for you to the honors coordinator. (A student who wishes to write a creative thesis should also submit a recommendation from a member of the creative writing faculty who is willing to direct his/her thesis.) Fill out an application (available in the main English office, Robinson A487 or print out the application) and submit with it a sample literary or cultural analysis written for an advanced English course (3-5 pages or longer).Those students in the Nonfiction Writing and Editing concentration may include a sample of their writing in another nonfiction genre in place of the literary or cultural analysis. Students in the creative writing concentration should submit an analytical paper written for an advanced English course (3-5 pages or longer) and a portfolio of creative work (10 pages).

For more information, contact Michael Malouf, Honors Coordinator.