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Program Features    
“Creativity is the source of all culture. The infinite potential of creativity lies in the state of pure intelligence — unmanifest, unbounded, absolute.” - Maharishi

The Literature and Writing Department cultures seven communication competencies in each student.

Students read books, but in a broader sense, they also read and interpret the “text” of their culture, world, self, and nature. They learn to “write” in the sense of putting thoughts on paper in a logical sequence, but also in the sense of creating something new.

We prepare students to take part in the cultural dialogues of their time, so they can speak and create for the welfare of society and the planet, establishing a sustainable culture for themselves and their children.

These are the seven Communication Competencies cultured in our program:

1. Reading
Ability to read and interpret with expanded comprehension, efficiency, and insight the major works in the western literary tradition, including multicultural and minority works.

2. Writing
Ability to write in a life-supporting way in a variety of non-fiction genres such as the essay, journal, book review, film review, abstract, explication, research paper; and creative genres such as poetry, fiction, non-fiction, screen writing and radio scripting.

3. Critical Thinking
Ability to think critically and creatively, to analyze and synthesize information in order to present informed and supportable conclusions.

4. Research
Ability to do research in a library, on Internet, by interview or through other sources, and to document these sources in a scholarly way.

5. Speaking
Ability to present ideas to an audience with grace, confidence, clarity, and convincing logic. Includes the ability to make PowerPoint presentations.

6. Technological literacy
Ability to use computers for word processing, editing, e-mail, Internet, PowerPoint, web page design.

7. Vedic Science as Literary Theory
Ability to incorporate higher states of human consciousness in the study of literature and culture. This is the ability to read, write and solve cultural problems in the context of one’s own expanded consciousness. This particular competency is this department’s specialty.
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