Writing
Academic Program Introduction
Writing is a powerful tool for building knowledge and engaging with the world. All students take one semester of First-Year Writing (FYW), working closely with faculty who offer a lively, practical introduction to college-level academic writing. Courses are designed around a wide array of inspiring topics, and they provide a supportive community in which students share their ideas, practice writing and revision, conduct research, and develop speaking and presentation skills.
Beyond FYW courses, the program offers an advanced writing workshop and tutorial as well as a selection of upper-level writing courses. It also operates a thriving peer writing-tutor program.
Learning goals
Students who have completed a first-year writing course will be able to:
- Approach writing as an evolving process that requires brainstorming, drafting, sharing, reflecting, and revision.
- Understand the mechanisms of sentence structure and writing design that produce precise and reader-friendly prose.
- Write with an attentiveness to genre, medium, and audience.
- Make appropriate choices regarding language, register, evidence, and argument.
- Locate, analyze, and evaluate different types of sources, and integrate them into evidence-based writing.
- Write with purpose and have a stake in their ideas.
Research highlights
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In Expanding Natick History (2022–2023), a project directed by Lecturer Erin Battat in partnership with the Natick Historical Society, students researched the colonization of the town of Natick, created public activities at the Natick Farmers Market, and facilitated conversations with local residents about the past and how it is remembered today.
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Senior Lecturer Heather Corbally Bryant recently published her 11th collection of poetry, The Coffin Makers (Finishing Line Press, 2023).
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Senior Lecturer Justin Armstrong’s book Anthropology, Islands, and the Search for Meaning in the Anthropocene was published by Routledge in 2022.
Course highlights
Staging Science
WRIT136
We will read a range of twentieth-century plays that depict various scientific disciplines, discoveries, controversies, and characters. We will explore how scientific themes and ideas shape the structure and performances of these plays and also what these plays tell us about the connections-and misperceptions-between the humanities and sciences. Through plays such as Michael Frayn's Copenhagen, Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, David Auburn's Proof, and David Feldshuh's Miss Evers' Boys, we will consider, for example, the intersections of science and politics, ethical responsibility, scientific racism, the gendering of scientific fields and practices, the myth of the lone scientist, and the overlaps between scientific and artistic creation. This course will likely offer the opportunity to attend a local performance of a play.
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The Value and Meaning of Work
WRIT170
In this course, we will examine the role that work plays in contemporary life and investigate how the value and experience of working get shaped by modern capitalism. We’ll start by reflecting on the character of the 21st century “gig” economy: Does working now mean something fundamentally different than it did for previous generations? Are we really working harder for less reward, as some argue? Is the recommendation to “pursue your passion” good advice? Next, we’ll examine theoretical perspectives on work, looking at how capitalism shapes the relationship between people and their work, how it structures our relationship to time and leisure, and how it codes certain forms of work as gendered labor. Last, we’ll take up questions about workers’ rights, worker power, and the extent to which we have a responsibility, as a society, to ensure stable and fulfilling work for all. This course asks students to think about the problem of work in both personal and structural terms, considering how it features in their own lives and how it reflects the larger social structures within which our lives play out. -
True Stories: Ethnographic Writing for the Social Sciences and Humanities
WRIT277
Do you like to "people watch"? Do you wish you could translate your real-world experiences into narratives that are readable and relatable, and also intellectually rigorous? If so, you probably have an ethnographic writer hiding somewhere inside you, and this class will give them the opportunity to emerge. Ethnography, a “written document of culture,” has long been a key component of a cultural anthropologist’s tool-kit, and scholars in other fields have recently begun to take up this practice. We will read classic and contemporary ethnographies to better understand the theoretical and practical significance of these texts. Students will also have the unique opportunity to be the authors and subjects of original ethnographic accounts, and at various stages in the semester they will act as anthropologists and as informants. Although this course will emphasize an anthropological method, it is appropriate for students from various disciplines who are looking to expand their research skills and develop new ways to engage in scholarly writing. (ANTH 277 and WRIT 277 are cross-listed courses.)
Opportunities
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Writing tutors
Students of all class years can meet with trained peer tutors to discuss any aspect of their writing or the writing process. Rising sophomores, juniors, and seniors may apply to work as a tutor and contribute to the strong writing culture at Wellesley.
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Internships
The Writing Program and the Department of English and Creative Writing jointly sponsor funded summer internships at Slate, W.W. Norton & Company, Maven Screen Media, Calligraph, and Speculum.
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Prizes
The Writing Program recognizes excellence through awards for first-year writing, and writing in the sciences, social sciences, and arts and humanities. These awards are generously endowed by the Three Generations Fund. The program also administers the Rebecca Summerhays Award for Growth in Writing.
Writing Program
106 Central Street
Wellesley, MA 02481