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Course
Designs
Each issue of Composition Studies includes Course
Designs, a
unique feature for writing/rhetoric faculty at all post-secondary
and graduate institutions. Course Designs presents a complete
writing or rhetoric course—from its theoretical assumptions
and syllabus to a post-course analysis of strengths and limitations.
A course design may consist of an individualized approach to
a “traditional” writing/rhetoric course as well as
a course with particularly innovative goals, structure, or approach.
In addition, beginning with the Spring 2004 issue, we welcome
discussions of a single assignment and, especially, of an entire
curriculum—a required composition sequence, for instance,
or a writing emphasis or writing major.
Online Course Designs
Beginning with Issue 31.2, Course Designs are now available online.
Search Online Course Designs
Information about Submitting a Course Design
A published course design includes,
in this order:
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A course description that briefly outlines the course.
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A description of the institutional context in which the
author briefly explains the relationship between the course
and/or its specific design and the needs, desires, or focus
of the program, department, institution, or community in
which the course is offered.
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A theoretical rationale, written specifically for journal
readers, that explains the course’s theoretical frame.
Together with the critical reflection that follows, this
section is the heart of the course design.
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A critical reflection on the design in which the author
assesses strengths and acknowledges weaknesses, reflecting
on what s/he and the students learned and why.
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A syllabus, preferably the same document distributed to students.
Purpose: As writing/rhetoric instructors, most of us are notorious “borrowers”;
indeed, we often complain that we lack sufficient opportunities
to exchange the successful activities and approaches we’ve
developed through years in the classroom. Course Designs addresses
this need in a concrete way that nevertheless acknowledges the
difficulty of transplanting a specific design into another instructor’s
classroom, given the range of experience, teaching personae,
pedagogies, material circumstances, etc. of our readers. Thus,
rather than supply a package of materials for readers to simply
reproduce in class next semester, the primary purpose of Course
Designs is to inspire, to provoke reflection, to offer new approaches,
to challenge prevailing assumptions, to suggest possibilities.
Criteria: Given the above purpose, the editors will evaluate
each course design submission according to how well it
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moves beyond “what I did in my class last semester” to
examine what students and their teacher learned and why.
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theorizes
the content of the course as well as the pedagogical approach—that
is, the ends and means of the writing instruction being presented
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adds
to/complicates/calls into question commonly held ideas about
teaching writing
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connects to a larger concern or chronic dilemma
in the field of writing studies/rhetoric
Published
Course Design Example
Course
Design Submission Instructions
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