A crucial means of critical thinking and creative expression, writing is at the heart of Gallatin’s curriculum. Students develop their academic writing skills in innovative First-Year Writing and Research Seminars, explore a variety of genres in Advanced Writing Courses, and experience writing beyond the classroom through the Gallatin Writing Program’s diverse events, publications, and civic engagement projects.
Each year, the Gallatin Writing Program hosts conferences and readings by faculty, students, and guests; educates and employs four undergraduates to serve as Peer Writing Assistants in the Writing Center; publishes the Gallatin Review, a student-edited print journal of student writing and visual art and Confluence, an online platform for writing, art, and research.
The Writing Program also sponsors two major civic engagement projects, the Literacy Project and Great World Texts. The Literacy Project includes opportunities to tutor at adult literacy sites, mentor at public high schools, and edit The Literacy Review, an annual publication that compiles the best writing by adults from about fifty countries. Through Great World Texts, Gallatin undergraduates mentor public high school students in the study of a canonical text. Since 2017, the Writing Program has offered an elective course through the Prison Education Program, publishing an annual volume written and edited by PEP students, most recently A Certain Slant of Light (2022).