Information for Submitting Course Proposals
From the Composition Committee for current GTAs at UAF:
We encourage you to submit your themed writing course for our review. We especially encourage second year teachers to apply. The selection process for 211- 213 is competitive, but we intend for this process to help you broaden your teaching experiences. We look forward to your exciting proposals.
We welcome conversation about your ideas. Feel free to use us as a resource.
DETAILS
The deadline for submitting a course proposal for a 200-level course (211/213) is February 18 at midnight. We will be reviewing these proposals at 10:00am on the 20th. Please provide 3 copies of your proposal in the folder in Sarah’s Department mailbox.
Suggestions
A 200-word course description with a course title. Please see the English Department website for sample course descriptions, available under “student resources.’
A paragraph describing the connection your course has to the writing assignments and activities of the course. Include a handful of readings so that we can get a sense of what you would be reading in relation to the writing.
A paragraph discussing how your course will build on what a student learned/practiced in English 111x. Specifically, address how you will be approaching “information literacy’ development in the course.
A paragraph highlighting your enthusiasm and excitement for teaching the course.
Baseline Attendance Policy
There has been general enthusiasm for this policy because it is a step in the direction of making our Composition sequence more uniform. I hope you found the policy helpful last semester.
In the Fall, I attended several curricular meetings discussing our program policy in light of University policy regarding excused and unexcused absences. I met with members of Faculty Senate, Gary Gray from UAF Athletics, and the core curriculum committee. We all had concerns about students who must travel for university-related events and therefore may miss more than 80% of our classes. In these cases, please see me about how to refer to our policy early on in the semester–many times these students can find a class which allows them to attend 80% of synchronous class sessions.
My job here is to communicate this policy across the University, to advisors and teachers of these classes, so that everyone is able to easily understand and employ it. I quote from page 54 of our program guidebook:
All teachers must follow the syllabus requirements for UAF. You can access this checklist online. Include this statement on your syllabus as well:
Writing classes taught at Fairbanks campus require attendance. Because writing courses depend on class discussion and peer review of writing, in addition to lecture and presentations, our classes share a baseline attendance policy. Successful course completion includes meeting the minimum attendance requirement of 80% of synchronous class sessions.
Please see or contact me (Sarah Stanley – sarah.stanley@alaska.edu)with any questions about this policy and its use, or anything else at all.