The Department of English offers valuable graduate assistantships for qualified students. The graduate assistant is awarded a $9,800 stipend for an academic year (two long terms) and qualifies for state health benefits. Students from out of state qualify for in-state tuition.

The assistantship is renewable for a total of four long terms, although a student may apply for a fifth semester. A graduate assistant must be registered as a full-time student, enrolled in six to nine hours during a semester in which she or he holds the position. 

The graduate assistant is assigned to one (or more) of the following positions each semester, depending on need and available openings:

Writing Center Tutor:

During their first term, graduate assistants are usually assigned as tutors in the Sam Houston State University Writing Center, which offers help in writing to students, staff, faculty, and members of the community. After training, Writing Center assistants typically work twenty hours a week, usually one-on-one with freshman and sophomore students who need help in planning and writing essays for classes across the disciplines in the core curriculum. But they may also give advice on writing résumés, lab reports, and job and scholarship application letters.

Teaching Assistantship:

During their second, third, and fourth semesters, graduate assistants typically work their way up the rungs of freshman English classes:

English 031 (Developmental English)
The graduate assistant helps students who have not yet managed to meet the University’s entrance-level writing standards. In remediating these students, the instructor concentrates on the fundamentals of composition—grammar, sentence construction, mechanics, and the basics of organizing and developing a simple essay.

English 164 (Composition I)
After earning eighteen hours of graduate credit, the teaching assistant may be assigned to a Composition I class, which concentrates on formulating and developing a single thesis through an essay and on English syntax, diction, and rhetoric.

English 165 (Composition II)
Some teaching assistants are given the opportunity to teach Composition II, which picks up with the basic skills mastered in English 164 but helps the students in the course develop more complex modes or patterns of writing. It also concentrates on research writing across the disciplines.

Texas Review Press Assistantship:

Some graduate assistants serve part-time editorial assistantships in The Texas Review Press office, where they gain valuable professional experience in the day-to-day editing and publishing work of a review journal. For further information about The Texas Review and The Texas Review Press, contact Dr. Paul Ruffin, Director: eng_pdr@shsu.edu  

Requirements for the Graduate Assistantship:

The applicant for a graduate assistantship must

• be a student accepted under regular admission;
• have a minimum combined verbal and quantitative GRE score of 1,000, with a minimum verbal score of 500;
• submit an Application for Assistant Instructorship

For a fall assistantship award, the deadline for submitting the assistant instructorship application is May 15; we would prefer to have applications as early as March 15.
Submit the application form to the following address:
Amanda Wallace, Secretary
Department of English
Sam Houston State University
Box 2146 Huntsville TX 77341-2146

Teaching Practicum:

All graduate assistants take English 567 (Practicum in Teaching College Composition) during their first long term. Taught by Dr. Bill Bridges, Freshman English Program Director, this practicum guides students through practical and theoretical issues involved in English pedagogy.

English 567 may be taken as either a Block II class or an elective.

A student need not be a graduate assistant to enroll in the class.