MA Program Teaching Assistantships
In the first year, TAs must earn 18 hours toward their degree to be eligible to teach in the second year. MA TAs typically take at least nine and no more than 12 hours of academic credits (courses counted for the degree) in each semester of their first year. In the second year, TAs must take a minimum of nine hours in the fall and a minimum of three hours in the spring to remain eligible for GSSP support.
All TAs receive teacher training and experience in the college classroom, even if they do not start by working directly in the classroom. During their first year, TAs accumulate the required 18 hours of graduate credit while also assisting teachers in several possible ways, based on the department's needs and their experience: as either a discussion leader and grader under the supervision of the professor in a large survey class; as an assistant to a program or its operations (for example, the linguistics lab, the Film Studies Program, the Director of Undergraduate Studies); as an assistant to one of the department's academic publications, including the John Donne Journal, Renaissance Papers, Obsidian.
TAs assigned to teach composition are required to complete two stages of training:
- Taking two required courses (ENG 511, Theory and Research in Composition and ENG 624, Teaching College Composition). ENG 511 is taken in either the fall or spring of the first year, and ENG 624 starts as a week-long workshop in the summer following the end of the first year's spring semester and continues as a series of weekly meetings in the fall of the second year;
- Serving an apprenticeship during the spring semester of the first year, assisting an experienced instructor in composition, and preparing to teach their own sections of composition (ENG 101) in the second year of the assistantship.
Reappointment to a second year of an assistantship requires successful progress toward the degree as measured by maintaining a 3.0 or higher GPA, the completion before the fall of the second year of 18 hours of credit in courses carrying letter grades, and the recommendation of those who have taught and supervised the TA during the initial year.
