Requirements
All sections of 1020 taught at WSU, regardless of the instructor and their length of experience teaching here, must follow the requirements of the 1020 New Common Syllabus. As mentioned in our syllabus, however, GTA’s during their first semester teaching (Winter ’12 for you) must abide by additional requirements.
Specifically, all first-semester instructors must conform to the following requirements as they are outlined in the practicum and on our model wikis:
- Teaching using a wiki: Although the precise way you configure your wiki is up to you, you must use a wiki as the primary online presence for your course (the space that hosts your syllabus, assignment information, class notes, and student writing)
- Using the required textbooks (A Little Argument They Say/I Say, The Post-American World, & War is Boring): You must submit these as required texts to the bookstore(s), list them as required texts on your syllabus, and teach at least the majority of each text in your class
- Assigning the Rhetorical Analysis and Evaluation Projects: You are, of course, welcome to use the five major projects detailed on our class model wiki as the major projects in your first semester teaching 1020 (which, in addition to the above, are the Ad Analysis, the Definition, and the Proposal). However, as long as you teach these two major projects (Projects #2 and #4 in our syllabus) and follow the NCS guidelines for page requirements, learning objectives, and research/argument ratios, you may substitute other major assignments (as well as replacing/adding to any of the short responses, smaller assignments, etc., modeled in this class). We will have experienced instructors modeling alternatives to the five model projects throughout the semester.
- Following the required objectives (marked as such in the session notes below): These objectives – more specific versions of the 1020 NCS learning objectives – must be adapted into your course, though the precise sequence in which you undertake them (and the methods used to achieve them) are up to you.
Beyond these four requirements, and all of those covered in the New Common Syllabus, you have the freedom to diverge from the model wiki session we will be covering this semester in numerous ways; these include:
- Choosing your own non-required textbook readings: the session notes below (and the model wiki as a whole) include a large number of “suggested readings” keyed to particular class sessions, but you are welcome to substitute other readings (as long as said readings achieve the objective of the session and do not conflict with the New Common Syllabus)
- Changing the order (sequence) of major projects the ordering of projects in our model wiki syllabus follow a fairly logical progression, but you may choose to alter the order of assignments
- Altering the distribution of grade values across assignments: the model wiki syllabus follows a progressive proportional weighting of grades for project, but you may alter that weighting at your discretion
- Adapting or discarding “special sessions” in the model wiki: the model wiki itinerary includes several sessions devoted to activities such as rough draft workshops (5), student debates (3), and “mid-term” and “final” group competitions (2); you may exclude such sessions from your syllabus if you have other strategies for achieving the objectives of those sessions
