The English Department offers a variety of courses reflecting both the traditional field of English study and the discipline’s modern, expanded range of coverage that includes pop culture, creative and professional writing, and newer mediums like film and graphic novels. Our faculty, all active scholars and writers, offer these courses in the engaging, experiential approaches of UMW’s Experience One model. With projects ranging from podcasts and video essays to original research and conference-style presentations, our English classes provide students real-world applications of the critical thinking, research, and writing skills employers in the post-college job market value most.
Dual Credit – WRITING 101 Students Click Here for how to use our library resources from on and off campus.
The primary architect of Stretch English, a course in college composition designed to help basic writers, Blankenship uses classroom time to build confident writers. She believes the best learning happens when students are fully engaged in activities like small group discussions, peer editing, and service learning projects.
Alan Weltzien is a published editor, nonfiction writer, and poet. He has published dozens of articles, two chapbooks, and nine books, most recently Thinking Continental (2017, co-editor) and The Comfort Pathway (2017), a chapbook essay. Weltzien has received two Fulbright Fellowships and one University of Montana International Faculty Exchange Award. Weltzien incorporates hands-on experiences and practical contact with the literature he teaches.
Shane Borrowman is a teacher of writing and editor/co-editor of six collections of original scholarship, including “Trauma and the Teaching of Writing,” “Rhetoric in the Rest of the West,” and “On the Blunt Edge: Technology in Composition’s Pedagogy and History.” He has also edited/co-edited three writing textbooks, including “The Promise of America” and “The Cost of Business.”
“A very inclusive program. Professors push you to succeed.”
-Victoria Smithson, English
“The block schedule gives you a very hands on experience and wonderful professors make it that much better.”
-Kacee Williams, English
“Professors make the experience both educational and interesting with one on one attention.”
-Tessa Miller, English
“The coursework has helped me develop a more open mind about the world.”
-Connlee Gray, English
