Celebrating 20 Years – Developing Multiple Literacies
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Healey Family Student Center – Herman Room
Roundtable Discussion at 4:00 pm, Reception at 5:00 pm
In 1997, the members of the Georgetown University German Department made a big decision to accept the challenge to reinvent the foreign language curriculum in a way that no other department had ever done and to do it whole sale. In a crucial February 7, 1997 meeting, the faculty committed themselves to moving ahead and, in a daring moment of rational exuberance, to begin to develop and implement the new curriculum starting with the fall of 1997.
Today, 20 years later, we celebrate the anniversary of that decision and the successes it has had and the lasting ways it has influenced us, our department, the cohorts of students that have experienced it, and the field of second language studies. The “Multiple Literacies” curriculum has directly impacted curricular reform and renovation of foreign language curricula in numerous institutions around the country and around the world. Our Ph.D. students, colleagues, and visiting scholars have incorporated aspects of our curricular thinking directly into their educational work at Emory University, Mt. Holyoke College, the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), the University of Texas (Austin), the University of North Carolina (Greensboro), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the George Washington University, as well as to other institutions and organizations such as the Goethe Institute (USA) and the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute.
We invite you to join us in celebrating the success of the curriculum with the Professors and students instrumental in its development!