My Program Policies

In a previous posting on “;unteachable students” I included a brief portion of my course policies document from one of my composition classes where I use a Q&A style format to try to give context to the content and practices of the course.

Surprisingly, and to my mind, strangely, there was a fair bit of interest in this, maybe more than the larger message of the posting itself, so I’ve been convinced to include a fuller example of this kind of course policy document.

Some disclaimers:

1.     I make no warrants that this is a good way to do things. Though I do have fourteen years of classroom experience, and often read critical work in literature, composition, and creative writing pedagogy, I am no expert. What I do seems to work for me. Your mileage may vary.

2.     I’m posting this in the interests of discussion, not to demonstrate my non-existent expertise. The development of my own practices and policies is an ongoing and ever-evolving process drawn not just from my experience, but from the knowledge and experience of others. The DNA of previous teachers and colleagues is all over this thing. I’m very interested in hearing from others how they tackle these issues.

3.     I expect that some things I have to say will meet with some disagreement. Again, I would like to hear about different approaches, but the idea of us arguing with each other about who is doing it “;right” and who is doing it “;wrong” is completely uninteresting to me, and probably others.

4.     The other post included material from a composition course. Because I still teach that course, and I don’t want my entire policies searchable on the Internet, I’m using one developed for a literature course that I’m unlikely to teach in the future. My hope is that the principles behind it are the same.

5.     I’ve offered additional comments and annotations here and there in italics, led by my initials, JW.

6.     This document is actually the basis for the first day discussion/activity for the course. At the start of class, I hand out the questions to the students, and they ask them in order. It’s goofy, but sort of fun. I usually speak extemporaneously, rather than reciting the text verbatim from the document, though the content is the same. They print off and read this document after the first class as a reinforcement of the material.

7.     It’s very long, and possibly quite boring. Proceed at your own risk.

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English 215: Contemporary Literature

JW: Boilerplate about sections and times and office hours removed for the sake of space. I also haven’t included the specific reading list because I changed it every time.

Frequently Asked Questions about English 215

Q: Who are you?

A: As the top of the syllabus notes my name is John Warner, and I am a native of Northbrook, IL, a northern suburb of Chicago, that is forever immortalized in the great John Hughes movies of the 1980’s (Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, etc…). I graduated from the University of Illinois in 1992 with a degree in Rhetoric, which is really just a fancy name for “;writing.” After a couple of years of work in Chicago, I returned to graduate school at McNeese St. University (go Cowboys) in Lake Charles, LA, where I graduated with two degrees, an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and an M.A. in English Literature in 1997. In addition to teaching I am a writer and have published several books and dozens of articles and stories. I also work as an editor of a daily humor-oriented website called McSweeney’s Internet Tendency (www.mcsweeneys.net).

This is my sixth year at Clemson, and while here I’ve taught writing and literature courses of all shapes and sizes. Prior to coming to Clemson I taught at the University of Illinois and Virginia Tech.

I am an Aries and enjoy long walks in the sand.

JW: As previously noted, I no longer work at Clemson. I include this background information because I want my students to be thinking about me as a specific human being (albeit of a teacher-type), rather than generic “;professor.” I also use it to establish my “;credentials” to teach the course. During discussion of this question during class, I often have fun making them guess what state McNeese St. is in. It usually takes a good 20 tries. The final line about “;long walks in the sand” is a joke, and at the time, I’d never taken a long walk in the sand. I’ve since moved to a place proximate to beaches and do so at least once a week, and it turns out, I really do enjoy them.

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