Writing (WRIT)

In this course we will study a number of language-related injustices that curtail the rights and wellbeing of people, and we will learn how language and multilingualism provide crucial vantage points into understanding and supporting social justice. A big focus of our course will be on social (in)justice related to the language diversity of multilinguals in three communities: immigrant groups, Indigenous peoples, and Deaf communities. Our journey will take us through a variety of languages, geographies, identities, inequities, institutional settings, and historical contexts, in the U.S. and the globe. We will examine visual landscape in public spaces, media (e.g., film), literature (poetry, novels), and research studies (often ethnographic and anthropological, but some survey methods too).

This academic writing course is designed to help students of international affairs grasp the fundamentals of writing and research in an interdisciplinary context. In this course, students will come to understand writing as a process of complex interactions of critical investigation, discussion, reading, and writing. Because learning to write effectively requires practice and develops over time, students will be given opportunities to revise papers after receiving informed feedback. By engaging in research driven by critical inquiry, students will learn to integrate outside sources effectively and position their voices among other academic voices. Students will also learn to critically read a variety of texts (including their classmates’ drafts) in order to analyze their content, structure, argumentation, purpose and audience, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Students will develop rhetorical agility by learning to identify rhetorical situations and compose in a variety of genres. Throughout this course, students will gain facility with the conventions and mechanics of grammar, syntax and academic style, but they will also have opportunities to use writing to learn, engaging in low-stakes assignments such as journaling that will not be graded on grammar.

The writing studio model is based on active pedagogy where students meet in class twice per week, and then additionally in small groups in a ‘third space” outside the classroom to work on their assignments under the guidance of writing center tutors and staff. This approach is designed to provide both academic and social support for first-year students as they transition from high school assignments to college-level writing.

This course focuses on life writing, or how we remember and record our lives and the lives of others. We will ask: how do we write about lived experience, and furthermore, what role might writing itself play in our lives? How do different forms of life writing shape the way we understand people’s lived experiences, as well as our own? We will focus on both the critical reception and production of genres under the umbrella of life writing. We will also explore how authors mobilize different life-writing genres – such as memoir, family history, or autoethnography – to illuminate and navigate the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and class in their lives and societies. Finally, we will sharpen our tools for critical analysis and consider our own writing process through journaling, drafting, workshopping and revision.

This academic writing course is designed to help students of international affairs grasp the fundamentals of writing and research in an interdisciplinary context. In this course, students will come to understand writing as a process of complex interactions of critical investigation, discussion, reading, and writing. Because learning to write effectively requires practice and develops over time, students will be given opportunities to revise papers after receiving informed feedback. By engaging in research driven by critical inquiry, students will learn to integrate outside sources effectively and position their voices among other academic voices. Students will also learn to critically read a variety of texts (including their classmates’ drafts) in order to analyze their content, structure, argumentation, purpose and audience, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Students will develop rhetorical agility by learning to identify rhetorical situations and compose in a variety of genres. Throughout this course, students will gain facility with the conventions and mechanics of grammar, syntax and academic style, but they will also have opportunities to use writing to learn, engaging in low-stakes assignments such as journaling that will not be graded on grammar.

The writing studio model is based on active pedagogy where students meet in class twice per week, and then additionally in small groups in a ‘third space” outside the classroom to work on their assignments under the guidance of writing center tutors and staff. This approach is designed to provide both academic and social support for first-year students as they transition from high school assignments to college-level writing.

Writing and Culture is an interactive seminar, enrolling no more than 15 students, that should be taken in the first year. The Writing and Culture Seminar helps students develop their ability to: 1) experiment with diverse strategies for planning, drafting, and revising writing; 2) adapt writing to respond to, engage, and persuade audiences; 3) employ rhetorical strategies for analyzing, designing, and communicating in writing and other forms of media; 4)engage in writing as a form of thinking, inquiry, and learning.

Literature & Writing for International Students This course is designed to give international students a broad overview of American Literature within a cultural and historical context. The fall semester covers 20th century poetry, drama, and short fiction with an emphasis on academic writing. Students are expected to read and discuss classic literary works in the original; the course focuses on the elements of writing critically; students produce essays, reflection papers, research papers/presentations, and critical analyses. This American literature and academic writing 3-credit course fulfills the undergraduate humanities/writing requirement—WRIT-015.

An interdisciplinary writing-intensive seminar limited to first-year students in the Community Scholars Program. Weekly writing and reading assignments will coordinate with other courses. Permission of instructor required..

An intensive seminar, enrolling no more than 15 students, focused on developing students’ ability to use writing as a tool for inquiry, to develop their writing through an iterative process, and to practice writing in different rhetorical situations. Students should take this course as early as possible and no later than the end of the sophomore year.

The Writing and Culture Seminar helps students develop their ability to:

• read critically in ways that are attentive to language, context, and form

• write in ways that are appropriate for different rhetorical situations, with awareness of genre, context, and technology

• deploy language’s many resources, including its figurative power as well as conventions of grammar, punctuation, syntax, and semantics, to shape and communicate meaning with clarity and fluency.

On the surface, social media promises connection: a tool that lets us communicate across physical, cultural, and generational divides. In practice, however, it's much more complicated. This semester, you’ll hone your critical reading and writing skills by diving into those complications. We’ll unpack what happens when a new form of communication springs up within the space of a single generation - with a specific focus on the challenges and problems social media has brought. We’ll think about how we navigate these social spaces, and how our behavior and identity differs across different digital spaces, as well as how it compares to how we present ourselves in the physical world. Just as importantly, I'll be challenging us to think about why those differences matter, and what they mean for us as citizens (and, for some of us) future designers and gatekeepers of the ever-expanding digital world.

An intensive seminar, enrolling no more than 15 students, focused on developing students’ ability to use writing as a tool for inquiry, to develop their writing through an iterative process, and to practice writing in different rhetorical situations. The Writing and Culture Seminar helps students develop their ability to: • read critically in ways that are attentive to language, context, and form • write in ways that are appropriate for different rhetorical situations, with awareness of genre, context, and technology • deploy language’s many resources, including its figurative power as well as conventions of grammar, punctuation, syntax, and semantics, to shape and communicate meaning with clarity and fluency • research, evaluate, and synthesize appropriate evidence in order to build and support effective analyses and arguments Students in this course will demonstrate rhetorical agility by composing in a variety of genres. Because learning to write effectively benefits from sustained practice along with informed feedback, students will be given opportunities to revise papers. In addition to formal assignments, writing will also be used as a tool for inquiry in frequent low-stakes writing opportunities such as reflections and response papers. While a variety of readings may be assigned, WRIT 1155 is not intended to be a literature-based course.

This academic writing course is designed to help students of international affairs grasp the fundamentals of writing and research in an interdisciplinary context. In this course, students will come to understand writing as a process of complex interactions of critical investigation, discussion, reading, and writing. Because learning to write effectively requires practice and develops over time, students will be given opportunities to revise papers after receiving informed feedback. By engaging in research driven by critical inquiry, students will learn to integrate outside sources effectively and position their voices among other academic voices. Students will also learn to critically read a variety of texts (including their classmates’ drafts) in order to analyze their content, structure, argumentation, purpose and audience, and to evaluate their effectiveness. Students will develop rhetorical agility by learning to identify rhetorical situations and compose in a variety of genres. Throughout this course, students will gain facility with the conventions and mechanics of grammar, syntax and academic style, but they will also have opportunities to use writing to learn, engaging in low-stakes assignments such as journaling that will not be graded on grammar.

The writing studio model is based on active pedagogy where students meet in class twice per week, and then additionally in small groups in a ‘third space” outside the classroom to work on their assignments under the guidance of writing center tutors and staff. This approach is designed to provide both academic and social support for first-year students as they transition from high school assignments to college-level writing.

This writing course is an elective that fulfills the HALC requirement (Humanities: Art, Literature, and Culture). While WRIT 1165 is intended for first year students who could benefit from more practice in writing in the various genres assigned across GU-Q’s curriculum, second year students are also welcome to enroll if seats are available. Some instructors of WRIT 1145 and 1155 may recommend a student take another semester of writing, so WRIT 1165 was created to meet this need with the goal of increasing students’ chances for success in their future writing courses. WRIT 1165 aims to create a community of inquiry in the classroom that begins by posing the following questions: What does it mean to be human—in the past, present, or future? In what ways have writers, artists, thinkers, and theorists from various cultures, traditions, and disciplines imagined or critiqued the human experience? Is there even such a thing as a universal human experience—or does it vary depending on time and place, circumstance and status? What are the enduring or “wicked” problems facing humanity? How might we develop our understanding of difference and our approaches to conflict across culture and contexts? What has been our experience of “othering” and being “othered”? How do we recognize and respond to the “politics of unpeace”? This course will teach the use of writing as an effective tool for creating case studies and interdisciplinary research projects whose methods include gathering primary data (interviews, surveys, field notes) as well as integrating secondary sources. As students develop their interdisciplinary research topics, they will be encouraged to incorporate and build on readings and sources they have previously encountered in their academic courses. In addition to a few texts chosen by the instructor, students will also contribute to the curriculum by suggesting texts to include in this course.

This course focuses on writing for a variety of public audiences in order to implement social change. We will learn not only how to define and investigate complex social problems relevant to our lives and the lives of others, but to engage with wide and varied audiences by writing about those problems persuasively and accessibly. What does it mean to reach different reading publics and to create change through writing? How might we mobilize research and use different forms of writing to target specific audiences or to reach a variety of different stakeholders? How do writers bring the complexities of academic research, personal experience and social organizing to the page to communicate with and compel their readers to action? We will examine the conventions of different forms of publicly engaged writing, exploring how a wide variety of writers identify and analyze social problems and propose and argue for solutions. To this end, we will encounter texts ranging from op-eds to policy white papers to audio podcasts. Students will produce persuasive public writing in the course, and will collaborate on group writing projects.

A first-year seminar exploring contemporary ideas and research about writing. Along with reading and discussing examples of Writing Studies research, students will conduct and write about their own research.

Why do we work? That question will become increasingly urgent in the age of driverless cars, waiter-less restaurants, and mass automation. This course will use imaginative, journalistic and essayistic writing to explore the role work plays in our lives--and to consider the possibilities of a world without work.

This writing-intensive course is devoted to analyzing the spaces and places of Washington DC - public and private, majestic and mundane. By turning a critical eye not only on the design and history of the spaces themselves but also on the discourse surrounding them, you'll deepen our understanding of the city as a whole, and of how to use the spaces we move through to their and our best advantage. You'll also sharpen your ability to communicate clearly about space and place, particularly in writing. This course is part of the Capitol Applied Learning Labs and will be taken place at the Capitol Campus located in 500 1st NW. CALL students receive priority registration. If you are not a CALL student, and you want to take this course you may join the waitlist at https://forms.gle/3d7xZcAhdADNsUmm7. If you're a CALL student, you will be manually enrolled in the course. For more information, visit http://thecall.georgetown.edu or contact thecall@georgetown.edu.

This 1-credit course is designed to help students turn their ongoing writing in other courses + professional contexts into a digital portfolio suitable for public presentation. Students will receive one-on-one advising about how to integrate existing writing with digital and multimodal elements, and ultimately create a digital business card showcasing their work. In addition, they will have opportunities to explore and analyze digital communication in a range of professional contexts, building their ability to recognize and learn from strong digital writing wherever they encounter it.

In this one-credit course, students will practice both analyzing and creating professional writing in a range of contexts and genres, as well as translating content from one format into another. Drawing from students' experiences in their ongoing internships as well as other real-world contexts, the course aims to provide practice in applying existing writing skills to professional communication.

This course is the Writing Center tutor training course which is required for all incoming tutors. Limited to Writing Center tutors ONLY.

Used ethically and with savvy, AI is a valuable tool for professional communication. Yet even in academic settings, where there are explicit policies and expectations governing its use, it can be difficult to understand how best to harness AI’s potential. In the professional world where such policies are often more ambiguous or even absent, navigating when and how to best make use of AI tools can be even more challenging. This course examines how AI is used in a range of professional settings, helping students understand how to evaluate workplace norms surrounding its use, how to navigate the transition from academic expectations for AI use to professional ones, and how best to capitalize on its potential in their post-college careers.

Activists, researchers, organizational leaders, and other professionals fund their work through grants. Writing a good grant proposal is an essential skill, and while it rests on some core principles and practices that apply to most kinds of writing, it is also a specialized skill. In this course, you'll learn about how grants work, how to find potential funders, and how to align your ideas with funders' interests and expectations. We’ll focus on grants for supporting arts, humanities, education, and social services projects, though the basic principles also apply for science and research grants. We’ll start by talking with experienced grantwriters, but this is a learning-by-doing course: you’ll learn about grantwriting by developing a project, identifying a funder, and writing a proposal.

This 2-unit course is designed to support the writing experience of students completing honors theses, certificate capstones, UREPs, or other independent research projects for which the intended outcome is a long piece of analytic writing. It will cover topics in writing practice and strategy; that is, it will focus on both the methods successful researchers use to get words on paper and the techniques of structure and style that result in clear, compelling writing about research. Throughout the semester, we will also conduct draft workshops focused on specific writing topics–so the course will also provide students with a further source of supportive feedback, as well as a sense of writerly community during the often isolating process of independent research. Building on GU-Q’s broader writing curriculum, the course should ultimately help students develop the advanced writing skills necessary to produce and potentially publish original research. In that sense, while any student working on an independent project is welcome in the course, it should be of particular interest to students who intend to pursue graduate study.

How do we write ourselves into being? In this upper-level course, students will explore the dynamic interplay among genre, identity, and performance, developing expertise in professional, technical, and personal non-fiction genres, from cover letters to grant proposals. Grounded in Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS) and informed by key theories from Judith Butler, Irving Goffman, and Roz Ivanic, this course examines writing as a performative act that constructs and communicates identity in diverse contexts. Students will analyze and practice genres central to professional and personal advancement, including personal statements, cover letters, and project proposals, while critically examining how these texts shape and are shaped by identity. Through readings, discussions, and workshops, we will consider questions such as: How does writing perform identity? How does genre mediate the representation of self in writing? How can we leverage this knowledge to write effectively and authentically for post-graduate audiences? The course culminates in a portfolio that demonstrates students’ genre knowledge and prepares them for real-world, post-graduate applications. By integrating theoretical insights with practical experience, this course equips students to navigate the complex rhetorical landscapes of professional, academic, and personal writing with confidence and skill.