English Department Mission Statement and Goals
(This document is currently being revised and the following is a draft)

Mission Statement:

The mission of the undergraduate English major is to acquaint students with a
diverse range of literary texts and their cultural, historical, and aesthetic contexts;
to develop through literature, writing, and language courses their appreciation of
and respect for human values; to introduce them to some of the principal critical
and scholarly approaches to the study of literature; to make them aware of the
structure and history of the English language; to help them develop the ability to
read perceptively, think critically, and write effectively; and to guide those
students interested in creative writing to a suitable level of skill. For students who
plan to be English teachers in secondary schools, they will be prepared in
accordance with the California Public Schools K-12 Content Standards and
Standards for Single Subject Matter Programs by the California Commission on
Teacher Credentialing.

The department expects all students graduating with a B.A. in English to meet the following GOALS:

I. To be familiar with the major writers, periods, and genres of English and American literature, and to be able to place important works and genres in their historical context.

II. To be able to analyze, interpret, and compare literary works, and to write about literature in a clear, coherent, literate way that demonstrates a high level of understanding both of a text's technical merits and of its emotional impact.

III. To know that literature can be studied in a variety of ways, and to be familiar with some of these critical approaches.

IV. To have read several important works in non-western, ethnic, and women's literatures that illustrate the diversity of literary studies and the interconnectedness of literary traditions.

V. To understand writing as process and, in their own writing, to demonstrate an awareness of audience, purpose, and various rhetorical forms as well as a high level of control of the conventions of standard written English.

VI. To have some basic understanding of the phonological, morphological, and syntactic structures of English and their development, as well as to be familiar with theories of sociolinguistics and language acquisition.

VII. Students following the English Teacher Preparation Program should be familiar with approaches to teaching literature, language, and writing, and with theories of literacy and language that underlie these teaching approaches. In addition, students should understand processes of composing and analyzing texts in various media, such as public news/civic discourse, dramatic performance, and creative writing.

VIII. Students taking the creative writing track are expected to be able to demonstrate a high level of competence in some genre of imaginative writing and the forms and techniques of that genre.