Writing and Rhetoric

Preparing graduate students as successful instructors who work effectively with student writers is another priority of our program. We offer the following methods of teacher training:

• Interdisciplinary Writing Teaching Assistant training program, a Provost Strategic Initiative aimed at putting well-trained instructors from a variety of disciplines into the first-year writing classroom, thus better preparing future faculty to work with student writers
• English Department TA training, for teaching assistants in Literature, Linguistics, and Creative Writing
• Graduate courses in teaching college writing
• Hybrid-Based Practicum, in which teaching assistants shadow experienced full-time faculty who mentor them in classroom teaching, conferencing, grading, and providing feedback and
• Mentoring Program, which provides TAs with two years of mentoring once they begin teaching their own classes

We also provide ongoing support and professional develop for all writing program faculty via our Professional Development calendar, brown bag events and peer-to-peer feedback system. Consult our program handbook for policies.

• Cultivating a growth mindset, a culture of risk-taking and viewing failure as opportunity for learning
• Taking a strengths-based approach, including valuing and using diversity as a strength
• Creating a classroom culture of acceptance, kindness, and respect to encourage a strong sense of belonging
• Encouraging intrinsic motivation, through pursuit of student autonomy, mastery, and purpose
• Promoting self-efficacy
• Facilitating collaboration
• Utilizing project-based learning
• Preparing students for changing workplace (divergent thinking)
• Valuing responsible writing and informed citizenry
• Promoting positive/productive disposition toward writing as a craft, as a process of discovery, as a thinking tool, and as a socially situated practice
• Awarding process, not just product
• Prompting meta-awareness and reflective practice
• Providing sufficient professional development for all instructors

• Ongoing workshop series for Miami-Dade public school language arts teachers;
• Professional development and mentoring for dual enrollment teachers
• Service learning: For example, students in ENC 3354, Writing as Social Action mentored more than twenty 10th graders from Miami Northwestern Senior High School. Learner-centered activities designed and facilitated by the FIU students helped Miami Northwestern students develop concrete writing skills and a view of writing as a tool for social action