Special Teaching Assignments

Within the General Education courses, the department runs special sections, for which criteria are somewhat different than for Teaching Assistantships appointments and reappointments. These include foreign language sections, Transition sections, and Composition II sections.

Foreign Language Sections

Foreign language sections require the Teaching Assistant to be able to speak the language fluently. Students applying for such sections will of course have passed the relevant language requirement, and they will also be interviewed by History or foreign language faculty. Section enrollment and demand vary from year to year; in recent years, the department has run such sections in Spanish, French, and German. These assignments carry a total load of three sections, one in the foreign language and two regular sections. We have discontinued these sections in recent years.

Transition Sections

Transition sections help first-year students at UIUC who come with some educational disadvantages to adjust to the university environment and be successful in their academic work. One Transition Teaching Assistant is appointed per year, and is assigned to the United States History survey sequence, moving from 171 in the fall semester to 172 in the spring semester. Thus, the normal assignment is of one section, meeting twice a week. Teaching this section requires commitment, patience, intellectual energy, and the initiative to involve students with weaker academic backgrounds. Students applying for a Transition Teaching Assistantship should submit a one-page essay describing how they would draw on past teaching techniques to most effectively teach such students. This assignment, like the other special sections, gives a graduate student a boost on the curriculum vitae and a special letter from the supervising faculty.

Advanced Comp Sections

In general, the department prefers to give Advanced Composition (ACP) assignments to students who are teaching for the second or third year; we regard two semesters in either assignment as the appropriate stint.

Students wishing to teach Advanced Composition sections should write a one-page essay describing how their past teaching record, techniques, and assignments demonstrate the ability to teach such sections. Advanced Composition sections provide the Teaching Assistant with more independence and responsibility in shaping assignments.

The Advanced Composition assignments are of two sections, each of 15 students maximum, and the undergraduates in such sections are required to write a total of 35 pages, involving several drafts of papers. A total of 12 such sections (six Teaching Assistantship assignments) are usually offered per semester. These sections are created for History 141, 142, 171, and 172. These assignments can only be made to students who have completed the two-day WAC workshops, for which places are limited. Students nominated for the Advanced Composition sections are enrolled in these two-day workshops at the department's expense. The department wished to make this opportunity open to many of our best Teaching Assistants. These assignments usually require solid writing skills.   Other criteria include previous success as a Teaching Assistant (usually a successful two-semester stint, as evidenced by ICES forms and faculty evaluations); teaching portfolio if submitted, overall quality of academic work as evidenced by transcript and faculty references, and match of the Teaching Assistant for a particular assignment.

Widenor Teaching Appointments

In an ordinary year, and subject to departmental finances, the department makes approximately four awards to A.B.D. students to teach independently one of the department capstone colloquium courses (498s). We normally make two appointments in United States History and two in non-United States History each academic year. Criteria used are principally the quality of the proposal and of the student's teaching record, but the overall standard of the student's work is also taken into consideration.

Applicants should submit a copy of the dissertation prospectus, an up-to-date letter from the thesis supervisor, ICES printouts, and a course description/provisional syllabus. A complete, detailed syllabus is not required; but the material should clearly indicate how the primary purpose of the course, the preparation of a student research paper based (at least in part) on primary sources, would be achieved.

As departmental needs for History 498 instructors fluctuate, some Widenor Appointments may be made to staff History 200, Introduction to Historical Interpretation, our departmental gateway for majors.

Approved by the department, January 27, 1999; Revised January 2006