The Work of the Syllabus Is Underway

I've been up for hours, but I've been working on the syllabus for my English 102 classes which start on Tuesday--Tuesday, gulp!  Actually my English 102 classes start Wednesday, but by Tuesday, I need to have all syllabi done for my in-person Spartanburg Methodist College classes and loaded into course shells.

I had been feeling this discontent as the morning progressed, and I took a moment to try to figure out why.  Were the readings a bit too traditional?  Maybe, but for this semester, I need literary works that won't need a lot of prep work from me; I want literary works that I've taught before.

I decided to try to move the research paper earlier into the schedule.  We'll do "Antigone," write about it, and then do the research essay, which I've divided into several writing assignments.  All of them will be done by early February, when students are still fresh-ish.  Saving all of this until the end was what was making me anxious.

What this approach sacrifices is letting students pursue a wider possibility of interests.  But I'm OK with that.  What I'm hoping to gain is to have fewer students crash and burn at the end of the semester when the research essay takes center stage in a traditional approach.

As I teach this class, I want to be alert for ways to make the class even stronger.  For example, I'd love to include a graphic novel, or a book about creating comics, but this term, I'll just let those kinds of ideas percolate.  I'll be sure to write down any ideas that sound promising.

For now, I must forge onward.  I've got an American Lit Survey syllabus to create.  I may wait to create a complete syllabus for my Nonfiction Writing class until after I meet with them on Tuesday.  There are only three of them, and it would be good to know what they would like to achieve this term.  Of course, they may be taking the class because of a lack of options.  There are only three of them, so we could do all kinds of interesting projects (go eat out together and write a review!  Create a graphic novel that explains a process!  write for the school's PR department!).

I love this time of the semester, before the work has gotten underway, when there's still so much possibility and hope!