Developing Multiple Literacies – 20 Year Celebration

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.

Now, 20 years later, we celebrated 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 PhD 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.

This celebration featured a panel discussion with Drs. Heidi Byrnes, Katie Sprang, Brooke Kreitinger, Joe Cunningham, and Peter Pfeiffer.