Chloe Wright
Editor-in-Chief
The English major comprehensive exam format changed to an oral exam administered by two faculty members instead of a five-hour-long written exam, following a unanimous vote by the department’s faculty in December 2025. Students will now choose the topics they will be asked to discuss instead of being required to demonstrate written knowledge of a broad spectrum of literature. The Class of 2027 English majors will be the first students to take this new format, starting in December 2026.
English Professor William Engel voiced his excitement for the new comp format. “I think it’s going to make for much more subtle insights expressed by students than the stress of a written or typed exam,” he said. “And by virtue of the spoken component, students can demonstrate their poise as articulate spokespeople for subjects they care about.”
The change grew out of faculty and student concerns with the written exam. Chair of English Professor Jennifer Michael told The Purple that students felt overwhelmed by writing within the time constraint, and faculty did not think the essay responses and questions reflected what the students truly learned. She said, “We had feedback from both students and faculty that the kind of endurance contest of the comp was maybe not the best intellectual experience…But, also, we weren’t sure that it was the best sort of transitional experience as students are preparing to make their way in the world.”
The change has been in the talks since December 2024. According to Michael, oral comps didn’t initially seem feasible because of the department’s large number of majors. So, a working group she took part in considered different interpretations of the oral comp. After continually meeting with the department and receiving feedback, the group developed the oral comp as it stands today. The Department approved the change by consensus in December 2025 with the exact format finalized on April 10, 2026.
“I think another rationale for modifying the comp in this way is that we would like for students to come out of our major feeling that they are competent to speak fluently about literature, and to apply these ideas out there in the world,” said Michael.
Instead of studying a vast array of English literature for the comp, students will now choose at least two thematic topics and literary-historical periods to speak about. To prepare, they must provide 150-word abstracts on essays they have written for classes they want to discuss.
Students will sign up for their comp session interview with two faculty members to take place the week after spring break, and they will not know which two professors will examine them until the exam starts. In order to receive distinction, students must choose more than two generic/theme topics and historical periods.
Faculty members say they believe the oral exam embodies a better method of teaching. Engel, formerly a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, thinks the oral exam reflects the importance of a variety of testing strategies: a practice Engel investigated and implemented while at the Philosophy of Education Research Center at Harvard. “You must be a more innovative and creative teacher and figure out how to test the material that doesn’t rely on as unreliable an instrument as a sit-down final exam,” he said. “So, our doing this is actually moving in step with the best teaching schools in the country.”
Students received the news about the new comp format through an email from former department chair Professor Matthew Irvin on May 6, 2026. English major Eleanor Dean (C ‘27), one of the 26 students taking the comp in the spring, said that she prefers the new format over the old one. “It’s not a huge, crushing loss…The most intellectually creative portion of the [old exam format] was the close reading, and the rest was memorization. The new exam emphasizes the student as an individual.”
Michael said she hasn’t heard many English students express concern about the change, but she has met with some who seemed nervous. “I know that whenever there’s a change, there will be anxiety,” she said, “You know, there’s an old saying about better the devil you know, right?” The English Department plans to schedule meetings with seniors over the course of the year to learn about and address any concerns they have.
Engel said he has heard that some students have worried about how to study for an oral exam when they had been thinking about a written one. “Now that we’ve announced it as of last spring, this group is saying, ‘We don’t know how to study. We thought we knew how to study for a written comp. How do we study for an oral comp?’ What I’d do is say, ‘Well, do you talk in class? When you give a student presentation, aren’t you organizing your ideas about a work of literature?’”
Dean felt like the time limit would neither benefit her learning nor adequately and accurately demonstrate her skills. “I’m not going to be happy with a paper I wrote in one hour,” she said. “I will be happy with one I took a week on.”
She said there is value in writing about a broad array of literature for those interested in graduate school, but the five-hour-long exam would not help those seeking other opportunities.
According to Engel, there was a culture for cramming and skipping class to study for the old comp, which he believes will not help the students succeed. “We used to joke that the day you take your comp was the day you were the smartest you’ve ever been because you crammed all that in you. Studies have shown time and again; cramming is no way to retain lifelong, usable knowledge.”
Artificial intelligence, for Michael, always posed a problem with developing the English comp. “One reason for continuing to have people handwrite the comp was that, ‘Okay, if we have it on the computer, it’s that much easier for people to use AI to write.’ … I mean, I know we’d all like to believe that no English major would do that, but we know the world we live in.”
So, the oral comp will maintain the human element that Michael said is so essential. “We feel that the live conversation in real time, no devices, will keep it real. Keep it human.”
The English Department faculty originally stressed about grading the exams on the weekends because of the written comp’s tight schedule, according to Engel. Professors would work on Saturdays in order to grade the blue books quickly enough and average the anonymous scores. “It was a lot of pressure on the faculty too,” he said. “As I say, not more extra work that we couldn’t handle, but everyone thought it was so much extra pressure on the students. Double that for the faculty. Triple that for the chair and the people crunching the numbers.”
Alums are intrigued by the comp change, according to Michael. “I know that, at least the alums I’m in touch with, are concerned about things like AI, and they’re also interested in how our students are prepared for the post-college world, which—let’s face it—there’s a lot more of ‘having to articulate and defend your ideas in a workplace’ than ‘writing for 4 hours in a blue book.’”
However, not all alums are pleased with the change. Andy Essenberg (C ‘25) said she was confused as to why the department updated the format. “I think that, given assignments in English literature are usually essays, a written comp is a much more natural progression of an English major’s work,” she said.
As part of the second-to-last class year to take the written exam, she thinks positively about her experience. “As nervous as I was for the comp, I was somewhat relieved by being in a room with other students as we gave our all; it helped to hear other people’s pens on paper going just as quickly as mine did. It seems like this format would remove that sense of camaraderie.”
“I hold a very high opinion of this department’s faculty and am willing to make the assumption that there’s potentially an underlying solid reason for this that’s not visible to me…I’m proud of what I did [on the written comp at Sewanee], and how my knowledge as an English major cumulated into it,” she said as her final thoughts. “Even with rose-tinted glasses, I’m not sure I could say the same for this new one.”
As an alumna herself, Michael said she was skeptical to change the comp at first. “I was less dissatisfied than some of my colleagues with the way the old comp was working. I often have a view of, ‘Well, if it ain’t broke, we don’t fix it.’ … But talking with my colleagues, I gradually came to see, ‘Oh, there could be a better way to do this.’ And if it’s not better, it’s different and we’ll figure out if it’s better.”
Michael added that the comp helps shape the English curriculum. “For a long time, we thought the comp needs to be the way it is because that’s how we enforce a certain breadth in the major,” she said. “So now that we have a new comp, students do have to identify certain periods and genres, but it’s less restrictive than it was.” Michael said the English Department will soon reevaluate the course requirements and curriculum to see if the new comp works.
Dean thinks that the oral exam will better prepare the Class of 2027 for life beyond the gates. “After graduation, we have to say ‘Why the English major?’” she said. “And the new comp will help us answer that question.”
Engel predicted the role of oral communication which will contribute to Sewanee English majors’ success. “As we move forward in our culture, tight, succinct, thoughtful oral communication is going to be the gold standard. Obviously, the written word in poetry and creative writing, very important, but in terms of the overall craft of navigating the world we live in, I think oral communications is the way to go.”
“Nobody’s going to ask you to sit down and write something in front of them. But you better have your elevator pitch ready.”