Though writing is fundamental to the careers of most scholars, too few programs teach graduate students how to write in their respective disciplines and even fewer teach faculty how to teach writing to their graduate students. Meanwhile, the university offers few writing services specifically for graduate students and their writing needs. Given these facts, the value of writing mentorship training for faculty and their graduate students cannot be overstated.

The Graduate Writing Mentorship Program is designed to improve the effectiveness of faculty members to support graduate student writers: to conceptualize their writing projects, create arguments, engage in deep revision, and strengthen their daily writing practices. Not only will this program outline essential principles to support graduate students in making the difficult transition from student writers to writers of academic scholarship, but it also explores the nature of the student-mentor relationship, time-efficient instruction, and the nuts and bolts of drafting, revision, and publication. This program may be of additional interest given that many departments are enrolling significant numbers of international students and English language learners.

The program is sponsored by the Division of Graduate Studies, the Teaching Engagement Program, and the Center on Diversity and Community.

The Curriculum

The program consists of six two-hour workshops over the course of the Fall and Winter terms. Specific workshop themes include:

• The Essentials of PhD Writing
• The Writer-Mentor Relationship
• Dynamic Assessment of Student Writing
• Helping Students Create Arguments
• Margin Commenting vs. the Live Edit
• Effective and Efficient Revision Strategies

Workshop Materials

SPAM AVenue Worksheet - this schematic helps writers identify, articulate, and interconnect the core pieces of the writing process 

Student-Mentor Writing Plan - this outline helps mentors and students plan an iterative process to support students' writing development and progress over time

Student Writing Assessment Tool - this outline identifies a process and key activities for assessing graduate student writing

Argument Acquisition Tool - this outline identifies common strategies for finding an argument and several different types of arguments

Revision Tool - this guide provides a map of all the pieces of a complete writing process, from prewriting to drafting to revision to refinement

Participants

We value a diversity of opinions, levels of experience, and disciplines to be represented, and we focus on forming a cohort of faculty members who will share their experience with departmental colleagues. The program is especially suited for:

1. Mid-career faculty who are interested in rethinking/rebooting their current graduate writing instruction;
2. Junior faculty; and
3. Faculty of any rank who have or are considering teaching  graduate writing courses in their department.

We encourage all interested faculty to apply.

Stipend

Currently, participants can choose a $600+OPE stipend or $600 for their Academic Support Account. To signal interest in this group, please indicate your preference at the time you apply.

The Schedule

The six workshops will be scheduled at the beginning of each term, with three sessions in fall and three in winter. Barring any changes to current university policy, these workshops will all be in-person trainings with no online options.

Application

The 2022-2023 cohort is now full. Stay tuned for the application for the 2023-2024 academic year.

For more information, please email Mike Murashige at mmurashi@uoregon.edu.