Information for:
Assistantships: Teaching, Tutoring, Research
Mason's MFA has 34 TA slots, each of which pays a stipend between $10,000 and $13,500 for the nine-month academic year. Each position also carries a full tuition waiver. (The creative writing program waives a total of 48 credit hours of coursework for each full-time TA.)
All TA's have the opportunity to teach creative writing courses if they follow the normal sequence of TA training, which thoroughly prepares graduates to enter the highly competitive college-teaching market. The sequence begins with tutoring in the Writing Center during the first academic year, then in the second year teaching first-semester composition and second-semester undergraduate literature. In the third year, the TA would teach introductory creative writing in the fall and can teach a genre-specific workshop in the spring. Teaching preparation includes two pedagogical courses that are counted as part of the 48-credit MFA.
The 34 TA slots support about one-third of the total number of students in the Mason MFA program.
Creative writing students are also eligible to apply for a limited number of research assistant slots. RAs, unlike TAs, are often contracted for only one semester and may be part-time. Each RA position carries a limited amount of tuition waiver dependent on availability of funding and contracted hours. RA positions are advertised when they become available and interested creative writing students may apply.
Health Insurance:
MFA TAs who carry a courseload of at least 6 hours and a full time assistantship are eligible for health insurance paid for by the university. TAs who have dependents or spouses in need of health insurance may pruchase additional coverage.
Read the 2009-2010 Student Health Insurance Plan
TA Pedagogy Training:
TAs are required to take two pedagogy courses during their program of study.
ENGL 615: Proseminar in Composition Instruction focuses on the methods of teaching expository writing and includes consideration of planning courses, practice in teaching and grading papers, and study of recent developments in the teaching of writing. TAs take this course in the spring of their first year prior to moving to the classroom in the fall of their second year.
ENGL 610: Proseminar in Teaching the Reading of Literature focuses on the methods of teaching literature and includes study of methods of literary analysis, and ways of developing student responses to literature, with some classroom practice. TAs take this course in the spring of their second year.