Department of English

Since its founding in 1981, the Georgetown Writing Program has shaped its signature mission and philosophy around the notion of writing as intellectual work: not simply a medium of communication, but a particular mode of inquiry located at the heart of a vital curriculum. Our Program is rooted in the conviction of its founder, James F. Slevin, that “the way students write reflects the way they think, their fundamental relation to what they are studying, the function and meaning of language in their lives.”

Undergraduate Students

Currently, Georgetown students take two Humanities and Writing courses as part of their general education requirement. Humanities and Writing I, normally taken in a student’s first year, is a small, writing-intensive seminar that encourages students to think critically about the texts they read and write. The second course, Humanities and Writing II, introduces students to written discourse in the context of a specific humanities discipline.

Georgetown Writing Seminar Pilot Courses
During the 2011-12 academic year, a select group of faculty are designing and offering a series of experimental pilots for a new course, currently being developed to replace the HUMW I seminar as the first-year writing requirement.

Graduate Students

The Georgetown M.A. program boasts a strong commitment to training students in the teaching of writing through a combination of coursework, direct individual and group mentoring from Writing and other faculty, and hands-on, practical experience in apprentice-teaching and peer-tutoring settings. Students have the opportunity to take advanced seminars, including Approaches to Teaching Writing and other topics in writing studies.

Each year we are proud to send students to leading doctoral programs in rhetoric and writing as well as to teaching positions at local colleges, public and private schools, and community organizations.

Writing Center

The Georgetown University Writing Center is a free resource open to all enrolled Georgetown students. Graduate and undergraduate students trained in teaching writing assist students from every program (graduate, undergraduate, School of Continuing Studies, and summer programs) at any stage of the composing process.

The Georgetown Writing Study

In 2010 the Georgetown University Writing Program and the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship (CNDLS) launched the Georgetown Student Writing Study to assess student writing across the university. Although the study was launched as part of a larger assessment project for our Middle States accreditation, the benefits of the project have extended beyond these original requirements. What started out as an assessment project now provides a robust forum for pedagogical and curricular design and faculty development.

Bottlenecks and Thresholds (BTI)

The BTI is a course design initiative to help faculty improve students' disciplinary thinking and deepen student engagement through writing. Faculty and graduate students from across the university participate in professional development activities to examine and assess their own pedagogy and, in consultation with CNDLS and the Writing Program, to make course interventions. In a variety of related fields and programs, Writing Program mentors work with graduate course assistants to support the teaching of writing across the campus.

Teaching, Learning and Innovation Summer Institute (TLISI)

In collaboration with CNDLS, the Writing Program supports the week-long TLISI for faculty development.

EPortfolio Initiative

The Writing Program is supporting the initial phase of Georgetown’s ePortfolio Initiative by working with faculty in various programs and departments as they implement digital archives of student work and reflection through a broad range of artifacts collected over time.

Student Writing Awards

Through the English Department, Georgetown offers a number of prizes for creative and critical writing each year.

Affiliated Programs

The Writing Program works closely with both Lannan Center for Poetics and Social Practice and the Journalism Program to support writing across the campus.

Core Faculty

Dr. Norma Tilden, Director
Dr. Margaret Debelius, Associate Director
Dr. Matthew Pavesich