NELP students earn 9 hours of credit. Although NELP's academic work is taught as a single integrated academic experience, the credits appear on transcripts as three separate courses:
- English 470.101: Topics in American Literature (3 cr.)
- English 317.101: Literature and Culture (3 cr.)
English 328.101: Writing and the Environment (3 cr.)
The program has long had a grounding in writing from the 19th Century--including works by Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, Frederick Douglass--but also explores more modern and contemporary writers like Sarah Orne Jewett, Robert Frost, Carolyn Chute, Louise Glück, and Cheryl Savageau.
Journal writing is required and central to NELP education. The NELP journal is both personal and academic. Every Nelper belongs to a journal group, which meets twice a week for discussion and sharing. Writing assignments of various sorts are connected with the readings, and they are supplemented by writing on topics of the students' own choosing. Student writing often explores creative expression, the natural world, and the writer's response to the NELP experience.
NELP courses are graded. The academic program requires completion of a reading list, active work in the journal, and vigorous participation in classes.
All Michigan students receive credit fulfilling the Upper-Level Writing Requirement (ULWR) and the Creative Expressions (CE) requirement.
For English majors, NELP satisfies any two (your choice) of the following four distribution categories:
- Foundations and Methods: 300/400-Level
- Regions: the Americas
- Time: 18th and 19th Centuries
- Time: Modern and Contemporary
And, of course, NELP is open to English majors and non-English majors alike—our students always bring a variety of interests and disciplines to the program.
