Our English majors explore with their professors the broad and evolving sweep of English and American literature, honing their critical thinking skills as they go.

English Minor Requirements

English Minor

(six courses)

  • ENGL 150 Introduction to Literature 
  • ENGL 225 Survey of English Literature 1 or ENGL 226 Survey of English Literature 2 
  • ENGL 235 Survey of U.S. Literature 1 or ENGL 236 Survey of U.S. Literature 2 
  • ENGL 305 Literary Theory and Writing 
  • ENGL 325 Chaucer or ENGL 334 Milton or ENGL 339 Shakespeare’s Drama 
  • one ENGL elective*


English Teaching Minor

(six courses)

  • ENGL 150 Introduction to Literature
  • ENGL 225 Survey of English Literature 1 or ENGL 226 Survey of English Literature 2 
  • ENGL 235 Survey of U.S. Literature 1 or ENGL 236 Survey of U.S. Literature 2 
  • ENGL 290 The English Language 
  • ENGL 305 Literary Theory and Writing 
  • ENGL 310 Contemporary Ethnic Fiction in the United States

Special Note: Students must fulfill their Area 5 General Education requirement by taking ENGL 150 and their Area 7 requirement by taking a modern or classical language at least through 102.

*HUMA 240, HUMA 262 and CLAS 325 / WOLT 325 may be taken as ENGL electives. Students may take more than one ENGL 289, ENGL 489 or ENGL 491 course with the approval of the advisor and course instructor.

Alumna Profile

As a technical writer for the U.S. Bank trust division, Erin Nitka ’00 works with the training team to develop learner-focused training materials. She creates and maintains procedures, manuals, job aids and workflows for bank projects and technology tools, including e-learning tools for online training.

With a Master of Arts degree in literature from Marquette University, she also teaches English at Bryant and Stratton College in Milwaukee. There, she developed and taught an online literature course to help students appreciate 20th-century authors.

Faculty Perspective

“There’s a culture of scholarship among the English faculty that is pretty impressive. And it’s a good example of why the argument that teaching and scholarship are not complementary is wrong. They are.”

Michael Marsden
Dean Emeritus and Professor of English