Opportunities
Certificate in Public and Professional Writing
Learn about our new undergraduate Certificate in Public and Professional Writing.
Writing Awards
CAS or CGS students enrolled in any course offered by the Composition Program are eligible to enter a piece of writing for consideration in the Composition Program Writing Awards. The deadline is the second Friday in May each year, and winners (who receive cash prizes) will be announced in The Pitt News in September.
CAS students are eligible to enter a piece of writing for consideration in the Ossip Awards for Undergraduate Writing. The deadline is the second Friday in May each year, and winners (who receive cash prizes) will be announced in The Pitt News in September.
Get further information and use the online submission form at www.wac.pitt.edu for either competition.
Any student enrolled in Intensive Workshop in Composition may be nominated by his or her teacher for the Koloc Award, named in honor of long-time Director of Advising, Fred Koloc. Teacher nominations should be submitted with student portfolios following the End-of-Term-Review in December.
Teaching and Administrative Opportunities
All first-year graduate students in the PhD program spend their first year on a non-teaching fellowship that offers the opportunity to become acclimated to graduate study without the pressure of learning to teach. A limited number of first-year non-teaching fellowships are also available to graduate students in the MFA program.
Graduate students begin their teaching assistantships by teaching a section of Seminar in Composition, the introductory composition course required of all undergraduates in the College of Arts and Sciences. During this initial year of teaching, TAs work from a common syllabus and sequence of assignments, while taking the Seminar in Pedagogy and participating in a series of colloquia and class observations organized by faculty and graduate-student mentors. In their second year of teaching, TAs may propose their own syllabus and sequence of assignments for Seminar in Composition.
After their second year of teaching, TAs have the opportunity to teach a wide range of courses in composition, literature, film, or creative writing. They may also choose to tutor in the Writing Center in place of teaching a course; to serve as a mentor for first-year TAs; or to serve in an administrative capacity as an assistant to the Composition Program.
Teaching and Writing Awards
The Department of English offers a Distinguished Teaching Award for graduate students who demonstrate excellence in the classroom. Students interested in being considered for this award should notify Gerri England in the chair’s office.
The Composition Program will hold its first annual Graduate Writing Award in Composition, Literacy, and Pedagogy at the end of the
2004–05 academic year. All graduate students are invited to submit a paper they wrote in a course during the fall or spring term this year. Papers will be judged by a committee of faculty in the Composition Program and should be submitted to Nicholas Coles, along with the course title, instructor, and the assignment to which the paper responds, by February 1, 2005.