The Mullett Syllabus

Interstingly enough, I believe everything for my classes is starting to come together; I feel as though I should acknowledge the recent dearth of blog posts: the last few days have consisted of me getting all of my teaching documents together--syllabus, worksheets, lists of song lyrics; I've also spent a lot of time on the road and with family in the time between Christmas and New Year's Eve (today). I've been too consumed with life and preparing for my classroom to make blogs about either. I suppose that happens. Once I get into the classroom on 11 January, I get the feeling that I'll post multiple daily entries; I can't help but think the blog-dearth has something to do with the feeling that I have said all I need to say regarding preparation to teach and now need to get down to the act of doing it.

There are only three things I need to accomplish before I can comfortably say I am prepared to start teaching: I need to pick up my office key, a copy of the writing handbook my students will be using (as a supplement to their reader), and I need to get the digital roster, gradebook and blackboard sites activated for the class. Not a big deal. I can pick up the key and handbook on the first day of class and can have the digital stuff activated (hopefully) via email next week before classes begin. It's all over but the waiting, to augment an old cliche. Did I mention I have a faculty parking tag and email address, as well as my office assignment and telephone number? Hooray! Everything else notwithstanding, I believe the first two weeks of class will be interesting for my students and me.

The syllabus ended up being eleven pages long, but I believe it will be far less daunting if I describe it as the "mullet of course documents (business up front, party in the back)." Most of the other syllabi I have consulted in making my own were, at most, eight pages. Mine is so long because of all the detail I have included regarding the nature of attendance, assignments and how I will grade the students. With any luck, the document will be of some benefit instead of a bureaucratic sort of document which they eagerly cast aside, except for the schedule of homework and reading at the end. Hence, by casting the "Course Objectives" &c section as "business," maybe I can at least suggest the idea that the course itself will be a "party." It seems almost hokey enough to work.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the first major discussion(s) in class will center around his life and work. To me, this seems fitting because MLK Day falls on the second Monday of the class. One of my teachers in sixth grade once suggested that school should not be canceled on MLK Day because we could better honor his legacy by devoting a day of study to him instead of a day of rest. I can't really buck the system and require my students to come to class. They wouldn't show and they would most likely complain and have me reprimanded. As an alternative, after we have been thoroughly acquainted with each other, the class, and the Minced Words exercise, the students will read King's "I have a Dream" speech over the long weekend; when class resumes after the holiday, we'll discuss the speech (Wednesday) and then I will lecture about the rhetorical structure and effectiveness of King's "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" (Friday). This isn't a literature class, and it isn't a class in civics, it is a class in writing and developmental rhetoric; though I want to include social and intellectual leaders like Martin Luther King, Lr., John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama, Noam Chomsky and so forth in class, my aim is to guide my students to enhance their ability with the written word. Though other instruction and activities are necessary for that development (workshops and revision, for instance), studying contemporary masters of rhetoric is a beneficial inclusion to the class: the students get to see "how it's done," so to speak, and I get to introduce them to ideas that overtly serve to enhance their ability with language, but also might influence the way in which they perceive the world around them. I don't aim to change them, rather to expose them to ideas and movements that might intrigue them enough to closely examine themselves and their world.

Here are a few other interesting authors on the list for the coming term: (essays) Garrison Keillor, Mike Rose and Andre Dubus; (fiction and poetry) Sandra Cisneros and Alice Walker. It's a sparse list of "known" authors, but it does reflect the tenor of the semester to come. I hope the students like it.