Syllabus James Seitz (bio) "Syllabus" emerged in English in the mid-seventeenth century, when it referred to a concise table of contents. It wasn't until the mid-nineteenth century that the word took on its current meaning as a document describing a course of study. Derived from a misreading of the Latin sittybus, from the Greek for "title slip" or "label" … Et cetera, et cetera. As I returned time and again to composing this piece, I kept finding myself bored with what I thought would be an enjoyable exercise. It wasn't just the rather tedious history of the genre but more significantly the difficulty, once I started looking, of locating a contemporary syllabus that could serve as a stimulating, innovative example. Like many faculty members who serve as chairs or program directors, I've reviewed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of syllabi over the years: syllabi from graduate students whose classes I've observed, syllabi from applicants for faculty positions, syllabi from colleagues going through third-year and tenure reviews, syllabi from candidates for teaching awards. Yet rare is the syllabus that departs from standard form or content, though the range of tones, from gushing ("Welcome to EngLit 2500!!!") to militant ("You WILL submit all work ON TIME in MLA format!") can be considerable. Perhaps most conspicuous is the extent to which so many of our syllabi these days attempt to reassure students that their education will be a pleasant, secure, and agreeable experience, with multiple support services should the situation become difficult. I'm not suggesting that students shouldn't receive assistance when needed—just that the contemporary syllabus reflects the anxiety over student comfort so characteristic of the corporate university. Creative, inspiring syllabi are surely there to be found—but where? Most of the online examples posted by centers for teaching and learning at various universities strike me as highly conscientious but not very imaginative. So, too, with compelling literature on the subject. I'm not claiming it doesn't exist, but my search led almost exclusively to rather obvious tips on how to design a syllabus instead of to scholarly interrogations of its function in various approaches to education. And when I tried to articulate my own thoughts on the art of the syllabus I wound [End Page 457] up sounding either didactic ("Here's what we should do!") or contemptuous ("Syllabi are dull!"). Surely there was another way. Looking to my own experience as a student, I recalled the most inventive syllabus I received as an undergraduate: a seventy-page document for a creative writing course that invited us, in weekly assignments, to try our hand at every genre from epigram to dithyramb, complete with illuminating examples on which we could model our efforts. I then realized this elaborate text probably wasn't the best model for a journal issue called In Brief. I also remembered a syllabus I once encountered from a colleague that began: "This is a freewheeling course in the poetry of the past century." Now that was a way to launch a wide-ranging, open-ended, big-spirited inquiry! Ruminating on my colleague's refreshingly unguarded discourse, I wondered how I'd want to start my own syllabus were I to address my students so openly, rather than hiding behind the self-protective banalities that attend this genre in its usual forms. Appended below, then, is a syllabus for a course in first-year writing (the most frequently taught course in American higher education) that finally says, after years of my own rather bland, bureaucratic productions, what I want a syllabus for such a course to say and how I want to say it. I should add that I do so at a time when our gargantuan culture of assessment continues to expand its reach, so that educators increasingly imagine the syllabus as a legal contract rather than an implied statement of pedagogical philosophy. My syllabus seeks to resist that culture, partly through directness and brevity—I wanted no more than one page—but more importantly through an articulation of what I think a first-year writing course has to offer beyond the usual cant about preparation for other courses...