• Investigation involves close attention to the details of texts in a variety of types and literary forms
• Understanding the choices made by creators and the ways in which meaning is communicated through words, images, and sound
• Texts are powerful means to express individual thoughts and feelings
• Your own perspective is integral to the effect and success of a communicative act
• You will become more confident in recognizing key textual and rhetorical features and how they create meaning
• While you will understand that studying a text includes a close reading of the stylistic, rhetorical, and literary elements, you will also understand that a text is a complex construction that is more than just its textual features
• You will understand that as a reader, you are a part of the complex construction of a text

Conceptual Questions:
• Why and how do we study language and literature?
• How are we affected by texts in various ways?
• In what ways is meaning constructed, negotiated, expressed and interpreted?
• How does language use vary amongst text types and amongst literary forms?
• How does the structure or style of a text affect meaning?
• How do texts offer insights and challenges?

• Understanding that language is intertwined with community, culture, and history
• Exploring the context in which a work is created, as well as focusing on how those texts are read across time and space ( in other words, investigate the complexities of production and reception)
• Recognizing the role of relationships among texts, self, and others, and the ways in which the local and the global connect
• This conceptual area is meant to allow you to explore texts and issues from a variety of places, cultures, and/or times

Conceptual Questions:
• How important is cultural or historical context to the production and reception of a text?
• How do we approach texts from different times and cultures to our own?
• To what extent do texts offer insight into another culture?
• How does the meaning and impact of a text change over time?
• How do texts reflect, represent or form a part of cultural practices?
• How does language represent social distinctions and identities?

• Exploration of how the connections between and among media, text, and audience involves diverse traditions and ideas
• Focuses on the comparative study of texts
• Exploration of literary and linguistic concerns, examples, interpretations, and readings by studying a grouping of texts
• Texts can provide a critical lens to reading other texts
• A text’s interpretation can be expanded upon - or questioned - by providing a different point of view
• Studying texts with this focus can be done in a variety of ways:
• Study of texts from the same text type or literary genre
• A consideration of mode (i.e. satire, action-adventure, parody)
• An exploration of a topic or concept (i.e. fame, gender, social code, values, the hero)
• An investigation into a theoretical perspective or debate in language or literature (i.e. historical/autobiographical, feminism, Marxism)

Conceptual Questions:
• How do texts adhere to and deviate from conventions associated with literary forms or text types?
• How do conventions and systems of reference evolve over time?
• In what ways can diverse texts share points of similarity?
• How valid is the notion of a classic text?
• How can texts offer multiple perspectives of a single issue, topic, or theme?
• In what ways can comparison and interpretation be transformative?