Departmental Learning Goals

Department of East Asian Languages and Culture Learning Goals

1) Thesis: State clearly a research question and original central argument in relation to others’ views/scholarship

2) Perspective: Understand scholarly and native perspectives on East Asian peoples and cultures

3) Source: Identify and use appropriate sources and cite them appropriately

4) Support: Use sub-arguments, analyses, and interpretations to support thesis (central argument)

5) Evidence: Analyze, explain, and interpret evidence to support arguments

6) Organization: Cohesive and logical structure with paragraph topic sentences

7) Significance: Communicate the significance of the thesis (So what? Who cares?)

8) Academic English: Have control of standard American English for academic audience

Mapping of departmental learning goals onto Bryn Mawr learning outcomes

1. writing in formal academic style that clearly presents an argument and supports it using evidence from the text. By graduation, the EALC major will be able to write critical and analytical “close reading” essays (critical thinking) in response to primary source texts and to write research papers that give contextual evidence and support to those critical and analytical close readings, including using proper citation skills in Chicago or MLA style;
2. research and the ability to access materials, especially original language materials, digitally (information literacy and digital competencies) that are reliable, that do not violate intellectual property and copyright laws, and to understand how to discern between different types of sources. This includes understanding what constitutes a peer-reviewed academic source, that there are multiple perspectives that can be applied to their arguments, and developing the ability to make discerning judgments (problem-solving skills) in assessing these sources; and
3. oral communication skills are essential to our major. These skills range from careful listening skills to communicating feedback in a productive and constructive way to delivering a formal academic presentation that incorporates a slideshow (digital competencies)
4. As a purely humanities based department, we do not emphasize the ability to use and understand quantitative tools as a department learning goal. Nonetheless, individual members of the department, because of their work as historians, do frequently offer classes that give our students the opportunity to see how humanists use quantitative tools in their research and teaching.