Teaching Roles, Leadership, and Other Employment

This section is in progress. Some potential components include:

A List of Department Organizations and Leadership Roles

• A page outlining the roles and responsibilities associated with groups and leadership positions in the department.
  • This page would include a direct link to the group descriptions listed on the main Department homepage, but could also include more specific information than it would be feasible to include in department recruitment materials. (For example, among other things, this list might include a description of what Literary Studies Steering Committee representative does and provide a description of how to apply for this position.)

Working in the English Department and Writing Center

This section could describe some of the different professionalization experiences and positions that graduate students often pursue over the course of their time here. What might a new or early-career graduate student in our department do to start planning for a range of different roles in our department? This section might include:

• Information about what kinds of PAships are available to advanced graduate students and the basics of how to apply for these PA-ships.
• A series of short profiles of graduate students’ working careers at UW intended to illustrate the range of experiences people in the department pursue. For instance, even within literary studies, there’s a great deal of variation in people’s working experience here:
  • After the required year of teaching intro lit and year of teaching E100, some members of lit studies focus on requesting TAships with literature courses in their course preference polls each year
  • Some TAs spend most of their teaching time here as instructors of record in composition courses (English 100 or 201), planning their own syllabi and meeting with students three times per week in writing and revision-focused classes.
  • Some TAs work in the Writing Center while teaching or holding another PA-ship. These TAs may work as an instructor in the Center alone, or they might seek out Writing Center leadership and outreach positions
  • Some TAs don’t work at the Writing Center at all, but find other opportunities for professional training at places like the UW Press.

Viewing some brief profiles that illustrate this range might expand early-career grads’ sense of future opportunities at UW.

For Example

Professionalization Opportunities

• Some professors offer TAs the opportunity to guest lecture for their courses. One page in this section could provide timelines, resources, and advice for TAs interested in composing and presenting a guest lecture of their own.