Type: Part-time (2 Saturdays per month)

Wage: $20.00/hr

Contract: September 2021 – May 2022

Location: Long Island City for freshmen classes; online for sophomore and junior classes.

Company Description:       

Legal Outreach is a non-profit organization that prepares urban youth, grades 9-12, from underserved communities to compete at high academic levels. Our mission is to foster vision, develop academic and professional skills, enhance confidence, and facilitate the pursuit of higher education. Please see www.legaloutreach.org [legaloutreach.org] for additional information about our services, and view our website prior to applying for the position.

 

Job Description:

The Saturday Writing Classes are a core component of Legal Outreach’s College Bound, a rigorous academic program that prepares students for competitive colleges and universities. We are seeking grammar and writing instructors with experience teaching at the high school and/or college levels who can set high expectations for and inspire underserved minority youth. Instructors must be conversant with the fundamentals of expository, creative, and persuasive writing and be able to implement writing pedagogy creatively and rigorously in the classroom. Teaching applicants must be college graduates with professional experience in writing, teaching, editing or a related field. This is an excellent opportunity for a teacher, Masters or PhD candidate, or professional writer to join a team of dedicated writing staff and make a difference in the lives of New York City youth.

Job Responsibilities: 

• Attend paid staff training dates online in August or September 2021.
• Commit to teaching on every Saturday Writing Class date and completing year end student evaluations. Class dates for the 2021-22 academic year are September 11 & 25, October 9 & 23, November 6 & 20, December 4 & 18, January 8 & 22, February 5 & 19, March 5 & 19, April 9 & 30, and May 14 & 21. Candidates should not apply if they cannot commit to teaching on all of these dates.
• Teach one class in the Saturday Writing Program from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. (meets every other Saturday). Those hours will generally include teaching to a group of 10-12 students and individual meetings with selected students from that same group. There will also be paid staff meetings with the Director, either before or after class.
• There are five to six classes per grade (some of these will be taught by returning instructors).
• Effectively implement a comprehensive writing curriculum in the classroom.
• Provide formal, edited feedback on essays throughout the year following a rubric (sophomore and junior instructors).
• Provide end-of-the year evaluations of students’ progress. The final paycheck for the year will be issued after completion of all evaluations and grading.
• Be available for in-person consultation or online correspondence with the Director of Writing & Academic Development to discuss specific student issues, essays, and writing pedagogy.
• Freshmen grammar classes will meet in-person at our building in Long Island City, Queens, with appropriate COVID precautions. Sophomore and Junior writing classes will meet online.

 

Instructor Openings

 

Freshman Grammar (3-4): In person classes – Applicants for this class should be grammarians at heart with high expectations and solid classroom management skills. Beyond providing our students with well-developed grammatical toolkits, the goal of this course is to instill good study habits. The course follows a student-teaching model whereby all students prepare lessons for each topic prior to class. Instructors serve as facilitators who provide correction, reinforcement, and further instruction as needed. Instructors must be comfortable with basic grammatical rules for sentence diagramming and also fluent in identifying, editing, and instructing more advanced grammatical concepts: verbals, adverb clauses, misplaced modifiers, etc. All instructors will be provided a textbook as well as curricula. Applicants should have ideas about how to infuse class with energy and excitement. Editors are encouraged to apply.

Sophomore Essay Writing (2-3): Online classes – Sophomores transition from the sentences they examined during freshman grammar to building paragraphs and, eventually, structuring an essay. They will plan, write, and revise two academic essays based upon personal experience, using readings to learn about different tactics for good essay writing or as thematic inspiration for their own essays. Instructors will be provided with extensively developed curricula; however, applicants must bring creative ideas about writing pedagogy to invigorate class instruction.

Junior Essay Writing (2-3): Online classes – Juniors focus on strategies for effectively supporting theses and arguments. Students will plan, write, and revise three essays over the course of 17 sessions. The junior year curriculum prepares students for the senior year research paper. Applicants should be able to help students understand and explore the rhetorical strategies and essay types that are used in academic and professional persuasive essay writing. Instructors will be provided with an extensively developed curricula; however, applicants must bring creative ideas about writing pedagogy to invigorate class instruction.

 

To Apply:

Send an email to dbautista@legaloutreach.org that follows the guidelines below:

1. Use APPLICATION FOR SWC INSTRUCTOR as your subject.
2. Attach a cover letter, resume/CV, writing sample (3-5 pp. only), and references list as a Microsoft Word (.doc) or PDF document.
3. Confirm that you can commit to teaching on every class date listed in the job description.
4. Indicate your teaching preferences in your cover letter.