English majors who graduate with honors write a senior thesis in close partnership with a faculty mentor. Similarly, English majors who pursue the concentration in creative writing complete a capstone project (consisting of short stories, poetry, a screenplay, or creative non-fiction) with a faculty mentor as well. Students in recent years have written honors and creative theses such as the following:
- Margaux Shearer, “Bloodshed and Brilliance: Examining Violence in Aphra Behn's Oroonoko” (2023) directed by Professor Scott Gordon
- Deborah Walters, “Servant & Leader: An Edition of The Memoir of Single Sister Anna Dorothea von Marschall” (2023) directed by Professor Scott Gordon
- Catherine Spellman, “War on Wellness: The Perversion of Wellness Culture in My Year of Rest and Relaxation” (2023) directed by Professor Michael Kramp
- Samantha Cardenas, “Beauty Recipes: A Concoction of Race, Gender, and Class in Margaret Cavendish’s Poems and Fancies” (2023) directed by Professor Jenna Lay
- Meagan Negron, “Love and Exile: Resistance in Queer Diasporican Poetics” (2023) directed by Professor Jenna Lay
- Amaya Apolinario, “Unbuilding Gender: Revisiting Le Guin's Hainish Cycle in the 21st Century” (2023) directed by Professor Amardeep Singh
- Amaya Apolinario, “To Eat at Sorrow” (2023) directed by Professor Stephanie Powell Watts
- Caroline Mierzwa, “Beyond Things Fall Apart: Expanding the Postcolonial Canon in High School English Curricula” (2023) directed by Professor Amardeep Singh
- Joe Jaeger, “Makeup and Other Stories” (2023) directed by Professor Stephanie Powell Watts
- Pia Tiimob, “Race and Religion in the Poetry of Phillis Wheatley” (2023) directed by Professor Edward Whitley