An Example: PAGOS Plan for ENC 3213 Syllabus

I’m not sure I have an immediate purpose. Students are already enrolled in the course and I don’t expect this document could change that.(unless it was awful). I guess my immediate purpose is to let students know where they can find the course material.

My larger or overarching purpose is to clearly outline the coursework, breakdown of semester grades, and course policies very clearly… in such a way that students have no questions or confusions (not at the beginning of the semester, nor at the end).

Drawing on my past experience teaching professional writing and teaching online courses, I expect that 75% of my students are full-time “traditional” undergraduates, and the other 25% are returning students who have come back to school after having careers, having a family, or taking some other time away from school. Often, most of my students are from accounting, finance, or business, but I’ve had all of the majors at one point or another.

For most of my students, 3213 is a required course (or at least one that fulfills WAC requirements), but one “outside” their majors. I expect that while students may be excited to take upper level courses in their field/in their home department, they are not eager to take this course.

Some members of my audience may have taken online courses before, but I don’t assume that everyone has.

Students already know how to write (Or they wouldn’t have made it to my class) and they are probably already familiar with major professional genres. They also know – are getting to know – a body of knowledge within their field.

They know what a syllabus is, and so they probably have expectations about what they will find in the document.

To some degree, the syllabus is an extension of (or perhaps an overview or intro to) the course. This course can benefit their careers as most employers value good communicators. Unless a student works from home and never has any contact with anyone else, they will have to communicate with others. I also know that this class is required by many majors, so my students might not be as interested in it as they might be in other courses. Often, students see writing as something their secretaries or assistants do, and thus, may be resistant to practicing writing. Finally, students are sometimes resistant to “real-life” writing (writing that is clear and consise) because they are so used to traditional academic writing (writing that isn’t always clear or concise).

Just in terms of the syllabus, the benefits of clearly outline course policies are clarity, fairness, and reasonable expectations of what’s to come.

My secondary audience may include other professional writing instructors with whom I may share my work.

My gatekeeper audience is my department chair, director of writing programs, and administrators in the English department.

Syllabi have various watchdog audiences. At FAU, watchdog audiences include the office for students with disabilities (OSD, for statements about accomodations) and the Provost’s office (for university required statements on disruption, academic integrity, etc.)

Common items that appear on syllabi are contact information, course objectives, course policies (absences, late work, plagiarism, etc.), and a course schedule. Because I want to keep this course flexible, I’m not going to include a course schedule on the syllabus, but rather, include it on Blackboard.

[I’m responding to all the prompts at the same time]

Syllabi conventions suggest that I should put course and contact information, as well as a course description and credit/degree requirement information on the very first page. That sort of information is usually on the first page of a syllabus, so that’s where students will expect to find it.

Besides that, I will organize according to importance.

I don’t anticipate that the syllabus will contain any “good” or “bad” news, so I won’t be frontloading or buffering anything. Because rules for the syllabi genre are pretty common, I’ll probably follow those rules. I’ll put contact information first, followed by course objectives/description, and then include detailed policies, organized into readable chunks of information.

I don’t have a lot of choices to make here because the genre of the document prescribes its organization (and content).

I won’t use any clip art (too unprofessional), but I will use some small design elements to demonstrate good document design to my students. Those design elements won’t be big because I don’t want them to distract from what’s written. The design elements should facilitate usability and readability and demonstrate professional document design without taking away from the content.

It’s really important that my syllabus is neat and professional because it should be a good model of professional communication in writing and through design.