Welcome to the Department of English

MISSION: The English Department facilitates the rigorous study of literature and writing through Christian perspectives on ethics, imagination, diversity, and truth; informed analysis of creative literature, and advanced strategies and techniques of written communication, rhetorical analysis, aesthetic appreciation, and literary theory.  The English Department promotes spiritual development through the integration of faith and learning.

Our curriculum offers a single-subject waiver program approved by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing. Prospective English teachers who take this approved program will waive out of the California Subject Examination (English) for Teachers (CSET).

English Advising Handbook
Spanish Minor Handbook

Appreciation of Literature
A primary goal of the English Department at Vanguard University is to teach the appreciation of literature and ideas-the best that has been thought and written in the history of mankind-through extensive reading and discussion of authors, their works, and their social environment, and to develop critical skills and theories through the study of literary criticism and aesthetics. A further goal is to aid the student in the analysis of the language, its structure, its usage, its expression in creativity; and to encourage the student to write extensively, practicing all modes and styles. 

Integration of Faith and Learning
The Department is also intensely concerned with the integration of faith and learning: the critical skills necessary for an analysis of cultural history are adapted to the current times and applied in that special context of values provided by the faith. Students thus prepare to make contributions to the present culture by criticism, creativity, and Christian interpretation of social situations. The imperative of careful communication with language is emphasized, together with the power of the written word. As a Christian institution, VU also provides the organizing and clarifying framework that gives context and coherence to the disparate views and attitudes revealed in literary expression. Here, too, the great Christian works of literature receive an appreciative reading not possible in secular institutions.