English
Special Features
Elmhurst offers a variety of special features to help you build your skills, gain valuable experience, and make connections.
The Leader
MiddleWestern Voice
River Oak Review
Internships
Teaching Experience
Honor Societies
Resources
Travel
The Leader
The Leader, Elmhurst College’s award-winning student newspaper, has won national awards and routinely wins awards at the Illinois College Press Association's (ICPA) annual convention, including First Place for General Excellence among schools with enrollment under 4,000, in 2004. And it’s entirely run by students: Students write and edit all stories, shoot and choose photography, and take responsibility for all editorial decisions. It’s a great way to gain real-world experience as a writer and journalist—and to help shape your classmates’ college experience.
MiddleWestern Voice
Winning entries in our annual Carlson creative writing contest are published in MiddleWestern Voice, the College’s full-color arts and literary journal. Students also serve as editors and take full responsibility for the publication. Many students see their academic work in print, too, in Investigations, the College’s journal of student scholarship.
River Oak Review
River Oak Review is a national literary magazine housed in the English department at Elmhurst College. Students may work under the guidance of faculty editors as editorial assistants.
Internships
Through ENG 468 Internship, students may take on internships, through the CPE, with The Leader, or with other organizations related to professional communication, both on campus and off.
Hands On Experience
English majors can be trained to tutor fellow Elmhurst students through the College’s acclaimed Writing Center. What’s more, student-teaching experiences will immerse you in classrooms as early as sophomore year. Students in the writing track will complete a field experience in writing as part of the capstone course, ENG 455. Internships are also available through taking ENG 468 Internship.
Honor Societies
The Department sponsors a chapter of Sigma Tau Delta, the national English honorary society, and also organizes an annual creative writing “Gathering” where students can read their own work and hear that of others.
Resources
The English department's computerized classrooms, used on a regular basis in many courses, provide instructional software designed to enhance students' study of writing and reading. The Writing Center, located in the Frick Center, provides additional writing support for all students.
Travel
Up to three students each term travel to Oxford to study at the university’s Centre for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. Occasional January Term courses take students to Greece and London. Closer to home, students sometimes accompany faculty members to conferences such as the Midwest Modern Language Association and the Undergraduate Conference on English Language and Literature.
