Department of Writing, Literature & Publishing
Graduate Student Teaching
Students In Emerson's MA and MFA programs have an opportunity to gain experience and credentials in the study and teaching of college composition as an instructor in the Emerson First-Year Writing Program (FYWP). Graduate student teaching is not considered a form of financial aid but rather a part of graduate education and preparation for the academic job market. The selection of graduate-student instructors is administered by the WLP Department, through the FYWP, independently of the Office of Graduate Admission. Instructors are paid per section and teach no more than two sections per semester.
Instructors in the First-Year Writing Program are required to take WR 600 Teaching College Composition before they teach. Students wishing to teach should take WR 600 in either the fall or spring semester of their first year in the program. At the end of spring semester, students who have taken WR 600 are eligible to be interviewed for a position as a FYWP instructor the following academic year. In the past several years, the ratio of the number of WR 600 graduates being interviewed to the number of teaching positions available has remained close to 2:1.
Those who are chosen as FYWP instructors can expect to teach the full two-semester sequence: WR 101 Introduction to College Writing in the fall semester and WR 121 Research Writing in the spring semester. Instructors also participate in a weekly one-hour non-credit teaching practicum during their first year of graduate student teaching.
Part of a newly conceived program called EmersonWRITES, 11 Emerson graduate students volunteered to teach high school students on a few Saturdays this fall. The free five-week writing workshop offers high school students the opportunity to write a story in a college setting.
First-Year writing Program Blog
Sharing resources, ideas, assignments, and strategies, and thinking about writing's role in liberal arts, higher education, and culture at large.
