What Should I Do In College To Become A Creative Writing Teacher?
Can I major in English with a minor in creative writing and teaching? and what are all my options and which would be best because I want something for all three. Thanks!
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Well, it depends at what level you want to teach. If you want to teach high school (I live in Virginia) you need at least a masters in English a B.A. in education.
If you want to teach College at an undergraduate level, you would need at least an MFA. But so many graduatess from MFA program look to teach that usually you need an edge if you want a permanent position (not an adjunct position). It’d be best to have a B.A. In Education or English, an M.A. In an English field, and a MFA in creative writing. Usually what happens is that while you’re an MFA candidate, the college offers a few of them a Teaching Assistant Position (sometimes just a tutoring position). This means you get to teach one or two “intro level” classes while you take classes to get your MFA. Usually strong candidates get those positions. If you are lucky, when you finish your MFA the university has a open position, you can apply for it. The reason you need more than just creative writing for this, is that undergrads take creative writing as an elective, or at most a concentration, Associate professors are expected to also teach, composition, literature, and synthesis classes, along with maybe one or two creative writing classes. The bulk of the work is teaching composition.
If you want to teach at a MFA Program (graduate level) degrees won’t help you as much as publication. Here most of your teaching load will be leading workshops, sduying scene construction, and mostly creative writing topics. The thing is that most universities employ writers in residence to teach these classes. These are writers, like TC Boyle, Richard Bausch, Junot Diaz, etc. They attract students mostly because of their body of published work. You’ll need to have published at least a few books to teach at this level. Education is not as important as publication record, but you’d be expected to have both. I’ve seen times where a professor has not published much and teaches at a graduate level, but usually this is because they helped start the program and they have been with the college or university a long time. At a graduate level most of what you teach is creative writing. Some people get a PhD in creative writing, but again, it’s publication that gets you the job.
You can find information at the AWP (Association of Writing Programs)
I hope this helps.