Digital Writing and Literature Cognate

Many jobs nowadays require not only solid reading and writing skills; but also the ability to deploy and adapt these skills in a variety of electronic, professional, public and semi-public platforms. This cognate builds students' ability to comprehend and interpret difficult texts (including complex instructions); to edit, proofread and frame their work for different audiences and contexts; and to navigate rudimentary markup (code) and varied electronic interfaces with confidence and independence.

Contact the Department of English, 230F Hamilton Smith Hall or (603) 862-1313, with questions.

Credit toward the cognate will only be given for courses passed with C- or better, and a 2.00 grade-point average must be maintained in courses for the cognate. Courses taken on the pass/fail basis may not be used for the cognate.

In consultation with a program advisor, students may choose to pursue a "track": e.g., courses like ENGL 623 Creative Nonfiction and ENGL 712 Multimedia Storytelling may serve as a "creative" track for students interested in honing their digital storytelling and audio skills; while ENGL 693 Special Topics in Literature and ENGL 739 American Indian Literature may offer students a way in to cultural heritage management or nonprofit careers. Alternatively, students already focused on a particular course of study (e.g., journalism) may wish to learn how digital tools work in parallel fields (thus taking ENGL 631 Digital Reporting to enhance their digital reporting skills while also taking ENGL 739 American Indian Literature to learn how to edit Wikipedia).