Mentoring Program Overview for New Students
UWM provides a unique and intensive mentoring experience for all new English Department Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) throughout their first year. New GTAs comprise an interdisciplinary cohort where they connect with other teachers and are mentored by experienced UWM GTAs and the Director of Composition.
Mentor groups are formed during orientation and meet weekly throughout the fall semester. These meetings are intended to be a safe, constructive space for new GTAs to ask questions, work out teaching problems, plan classes, share ideas, and collaborate. Spring mentor groups take a variety of different shapes depending on instructor and curricular needs.
Who are the mentors?
Graduate student mentors are part of the Writing Program Administration (WPA) team and work closely with the Director of Composition and the Course Coordinators to support new GTAs in the composition program. Mentors are graduate students from a variety of fields of study. They help plan orientation, develop teaching materials and demonstrations, co-teach the required fall course English 700: Teaching Practicum, and serve as mediators for classroom concerns.
Mentors often participate in the Special Emphasis in Writing Pedagogy and Administration and take courses in Rhetoric and Composition to broaden their knowledge of current pedagogies.