Teaching SOP/letter for PhD applications?

[wintergirl]

Thought I'd bring this right to the source! I'm a second year MA student applying to English PhD programs--hoping to pick your collective brain about writing that "teaching statement" required by a couple of my programs.

I've got one semester teaching freshman comp under my belt and another semester as a TA in a lit survey class (plus some high school teaching). Can y'all suggest any tips/tricks for writing these? What do adcomms want to see? Is there a guide somewhere that you used in your own apps?

Thanks for any help you can offer. : )

Edited December 15, 2011 by bespeckled

[khyleth]

Unearthing this thread since I'm in a similar position. I've done one course as a TA and two years working in a university's writing center. Applying to Chapel Hill and figured I'd take a shot at a teaching fellowship. Has anyone done this before? Anyone doing this currently? Should I be quoting teacher-y books? Should I tell them about the time I accidentally taught an ELL student how to plagiarize? How about sexy headshots?

[fuzzylogician]

You routinely write teaching statements when applying to academic tenure track positions. I'm not exactly sure what a statement for a teaching fellowship requires, but assuming that it's a similar concept, I suggest you google "academic job application teaching statement." I just tried and it brings up lots of good advice, and hopefully some of it is what you're looking for. This is generally something that's hard for students to write even when graduating with a PhD, because we don't tend to have that much teaching experience as a primary instructor. You want to keep it short - one page, 1.5 max. Outline your teaching goals as an educator, as well as your strategies and how they may vary depending on the level of the class, the students, etc. If appropriate, discuss what you can/would like to teach and why teaching is important to you. Give examples and be specific, same as with the SOP; you want a "show, don't tell" strategy, though it can be very hard to do if you don't have a lot of experience. I recently re-did my teaching statement from last year: this year I am instructor of record of my own classes, but last year I only had informal experience as an instructor (in workshops and as a volunteer) and TA experience. There is a big difference in how many big (=vague) ideas I had before vs. how much more concrete I could be now. 

 

*This is all assuming that this is for a fellowship that would have you doing some actual teaching, as opposed to tutoring or TAing. If it's one the latter options, you probably want to structure the essay differently and discuss experiences and goals that relate to tutoring/TAing instead of straight up teaching.