The Rhetoric Program is pleased to once again offer yearly awards for excellence in the teaching of undergraduate writing. We are offering three awards – the Rhetoric Program Award for Teaching Excellence for a Specialized Faculty member, the Rhetoric Program Award for Teaching Excellence for a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and the Ruth Schurman Brookens Graduate Award for a female graduate student demonstrating excellence in the teaching of first-year writing. The Rhetoric Program awards are funded through the textbook fund, while the Ruth Schurman Award is funded through an English Department gift fund.
For the Spring 2022 competition, any graduate instructor or specialized faculty member who has taught in the UIUC Rhetoric Program for at least two semesters may apply for an award by submitting a teaching portfolio containing materials from the 2020-2021 and/or 2021-2022 instructional years. Members of the 2021-2022 Rhetoric Advisory Committee, as well as past award winners, will serve as the selection committee. Rhetoric staff members do not vote on award winners. The committee will convene in early April to select award winners and will announce the award winners as soon as possible thereafter.
Each winner of Rhetoric Program awards will receive $750.00. The winner of the Ruth Schurman Brookens Graduate Award will receive $700.00. Please note the award is taxable and may take several weeks to process. Winners will be acknowledged at the first Rhetoric Instructor Meeting following the award announcements. Please note that only instructors who have not won the award in the last five academic calendar years are eligible to apply.
While not required, we do welcome nominations! Email the name of a colleague that you think is an outstanding teacher to Andrea at ajd7@illinois.edu asap so we can invite that person to apply.
To apply for the award, submit a portfolio of no more than 25 pages that includes the following:
- A two- to three-page (single-spaced) teaching philosophy as relevant to the teaching of writing, which also explains how the contents of your portfolio support and illustrate your philosophy.
- Teaching evaluation data (both statistical compilation of evaluation numbers and select student written comments), and one or more written observations of your teaching from the Rhetoric Program and/or an advisor. You can request a longitudinal ICES profile from CITL here. Then, select relevant highlights from student comments (please do not provide entire sets of course evaluations). If you do not have an updated teaching observation, please reach out to Kristi McDuffie as soon as possible as she would be happy to provide one for you.
- One to two sample course syllabi and two to three writing assignment prompts (high-stakes or low-stakes) from Rhet 101, 102, 105, or 233 that demonstrate your conscientiousness and innovation in the teaching of writing. Standard course policies may be omitted to save space. Please make sure that you explain how the assignments help students achieve the course SLOs and illustrate your approach to teaching writing in your teaching philosophy.
Submitted portfolios will be read according to the following criteria:
- How well does the teaching philosophy reflect knowledge of current best practices in the teaching of writing and demonstrate engagement with these practices in the classroom?
- How well do the sample assignments and syllabi communicate a student-centered pedagogy and a conscientious and innovative plan for writing instruction? How well do they support and engage the student learning outcomes for the course?
- What does student and peer feedback (observations, course evaluations, other materials) add to evidence illustrated by the other documents provided?
Please submit your portfolio to Andrea Dodd-Wronke at ajd7@illinois.edu by Friday, March 11, 2022. Electronic submissions in a single PDF form are preferred.
