Syllabus Ideas

Incorporating INTD 106, Conventions of College Writing

Although INTD 106 is no longer (as of fall 2021) a credit-bearing co-requisite to INTD 105, it is still available as a writing reference for any student at SUNY Geneseo. The idea is that students self-enroll in a Brightspace "course," Conventions of College Writing, that gives them access to all the content of INTD 106, which they can then review at their own pace. Instructors (in INTD 105 or elsewhere) may also ask students to do part of this course to complement material studied in another.

The link that students can use to self-enroll in Conventions of College Writing, and which you may include in syllabi if you wish, is: https://mylearning.suny.edu/d2l/le/discovery/view/course/926681.

Supplemental or Alternative Textbooks

While They Say, I Say as a textbook for INTD 105 supports a vision and vocabulary for the writing process that can be shared across all sections, instructors may use other textbooks instead of or alongside it. One recent (as of spring/summer 2022) suggestion is…

Gerald Nosich, Critical Writing: A Guide to Writing a Paper Using the Concepts and Processes of Critical Thinking (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Emphasizes the coupling of writing and thinking, and writing as a process.

Questions to Guide Syllabus Design

The summer 2014 instructors' workshop discussed INTD 105 syllabi as reflections of the course's goals and philosophy. Leaders offered the following set of questions to consider while writing an INTD 105 syllabus. However, and not surprisingly, many of these questions really need to be considered from the very start of planning an INTD 105 section, not just when writing it up for students.

  • Do the course description, learning outcomes, etc. make clear that students are in a writing class? How so?
  • Does the book list include both a writing strategy handbook (such as They Say, I Say) and something that supports the detailed art of writing (such as the Conventions of College Writing resource)?
  • Are there clear directions about what kinds of papers students are expected to write? What about information on formatting and documentation style?
  • Is there information on the syllabus about the Writing Learning Center and about the availability of special accommodations should they be required?
  • Are special days reserved for peer-editing? For library instruction?
  • Are there clear guidelines for a research paper?
  • Are there clear guidelines for when students are allowed to revise their papers?

Examples

Here are some concrete examples of INTD 105 syllabi over the years. None of these is the definitive model of what an INTD 105 syllabus must be, but collectively they may give instructors some ideas about what to include on their own, how to organize them, and the kinds of topics addressed. Thanks to the instructors who offered their syllabi as examples! And if anyone would like to see theirs featured here, let Doug Baldwin (baldwin@geneseo.edu) know.