Final Writing Project: Create Your Own Course Syllabus

[susan_bernstein]

Our final writing project for the fall semester is based on an assignment created in the late 1960s and early 1970s by Adrienne Rich, poet, feminist theorist, and SEEK (Search for Education, Elevation, and Knowledge) teacher at City University of  New York. The assignment comes from Professor Rich’s collected papers in the CUNY Lost and Found Series. Professor Rich imagined the assignment, in part, as follows:

Write a description of a course you would like to take some day-- on any subject, or covering any kind of material. Talk about how you feel this material could best be taught, and what you would hope to be doing in that course (Rich 8, Adrienne Rich: Teaching at CUNY, 1968-1974).

I chose Professor Rich’s assignment for two critical reasons. First of all, one of the courses I teach at City University of New York is part of the SEEK Program, one of the oldest surviving programs in the United States for students from economically undeserved communities. Mina Shaughnessy, as part of her original vision for SEEK, hired poets and other creative writers to teach students in courses called Basic Writing. Many writers participated, including Audre Lorde, June Jordan, and Toni Cade Bambara, in addition to Adrienne Rich, who wrote about her experiences in the essay Teaching Language in Open Admissions and the poem The Burning of Paper Instead of Children.

Second of all, the writing programs for which I am teaching this semester require a research paper for the final writing project. It is part of our work in first-year writing to offer tools for students to transfer knowledge across the curriculum. In creating their own syllabus, students can gain insight into how and why syllabi are constructed, and also can take part in the research needed for syllabus construction.

As a model, I offered students “Images of Women in Poetry by Men,” a syllabus found in Rich’s

collected papers (24-35). The syllabus offers Rich’s assumptions behind creating the course, as well as long and details annotated bibliographies and other sections. I suggested to students that their own syllabus could borrow from Rich’s template, which I delineated as follows:

1. Course Title: What is the course called? Why is this title significant?
2. Course Description and Goals : What will happen in the course? What will students and the instructor learn and do? Why are these goals significant?  (4-6+ paragraphs)
3. Rationale: Why is the course needed? (4-6+ paragraphs)
4. Assignments: What writing, multimedia, service learning, or other projects will students be asked to do? Why are these assignments significant? (4-6+ paragraphs)
5. Assumptions and Biases: What are your assumptions about the course and about students who will take the course? What are your biases as as a course designer? Why are this assumptions important for grounding your course?  (4-6+ paragraphs)
6. Annotated Lists of Texts (Reading, Viewing, Listening Lists): What texts should be required? Why? What texts should be optional? Why? (4-6+ annotated texts = Citation + short summary of the text)

Students have begun brainstorming course titles for their syllabus. Following are some of their favorites. An update will follow as this assignment continues.

History and Stan Lee

The Science Behind Singing

FL (Fruity Loops Music Program) Studio 101

Learning Basic Instrumental Technique and Posture

Sports Analytics (Statistics for Sports Fans)

Introduction to Cultural Contexts of Harry Potter

History of Dance (Hip Hop)

Politics and Immigration

An Outsider Comes Home: The Story(ies) of Black Panther