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For teaching in secondary school in Oregon, the requirements state I must have an undergraduate degree in my subject area. That means a degree in English.
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Yeah, same at my school system in the backwards, redneck south. If you wanted to teach English, you had to major in English... AND education. It wasn't a course load for the faint of heart. And then you had to pass the NTE general and English.
My English degree required Chaucer or Shakespeare, American Lit, British Lit, Contemporary Lit, Greek and Norse Mythology, Business Writing, Rhetoric of writing, a few creative writing classes, Pop Culture, two semesters of a foreign language, linguistics, journalism classes, and marketing. Additionally, for some reason the head of the department came up with a plan for ENGL majors to write a thesis for a B.A. instead of taking the exit exam. The exit exam was akin to the SAT - a couple hours, get above STUPID and you get your diploma. For my thesis, I wrote a comparison of Blake and Wordsworth.
Thesis - 20 pages, without source notes.
Thank God I didn't have to read Silas Marner. I hate that book.