English

At Kent, you'll learn to do many things well, but writing may be the most important. That's true not just because you'll have to write lots of papers in college; it's true because to write coherently, you have to think coherently. You have to understand your subject matter thoroughly. You have to be organized. You even have to tap into things like style and rhythm, things you may, at first blush, think you don't have. (You do.) In many ways, developing your writing skills is developing your intelligence, which is, of course, our purpose here.

To teach writing, we start with reading. English courses at Kent examine both American and British literature. They'll take you from Chaucer through the modern period. And in your sixth-form electives, you can jump into Jane Austen or Screen Writing.

You'll find the teachers in the English department both sympathetic and technical. One minute, they're guiding you through the passion and pathos of classic works. The next, they're teasing out the angst and elation in your work, and shaping up your grammar along the way. The assistance you’ll get in our writing lab will help too.

English as a Second Language courses are also found in the English department. As a non-native speaker, you can go through intermediate, advanced, or transitional level classes. In these, you'll improve your English as you read novels, plays, poems and stories, and even write stories and poems, learn idioms, work on your grammar, and practice for the TOEFL.