Faculty Senate
Resources for General Education Faculty
WIU's Center for Innovation in Teaching and Research (CITR) provides general instructional resources, including syllabus design.
The following links are intended to provide information more specific to general education courses.
- WIU Undergraduate Catalog (General Education page)
- WIU Advising and Academic Service Center's General Education Handbook
- Examples of syllabi from WIU general education courses -- Under Construction
- Examples of writing assignments from WIU general education courses -- Coming Soon!
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Writing and General Education: below are websites discussing writing and general education
- An Introduction to Writing Across the Curriculum. This website, sponsored by Colorado State University, provides a list of FAQs about teaching writing across the curriculum. Links from this site also take readers to more in-depth writing across the curriculum resources.
- Principles for the Postsecondary Teaching of Writing is a position statement from the Conference on College Composition and Communication on the teaching of writing at the university level.
- Framework for Success in Postsecondary Writing. This resource, created by the Council of Writing Program Administrators, outlines how professors across the curriculum can support the teaching of writing. There are links to a bibliography of scholarly sources and curricular resources. There is also an overview of the habits of mind students of writing need to cultivate.
- Writing as Situated Thinking in General Education by Yvonne Merrill at the University of Arizona. This article discusses how to assign writing tasks that offer students a chance to demonstrate critical thinking. The article includes a list of common thinking verbs: observe, describe, analyze, synthesize, interpret, apply, evaluate, and invent. It also includes a discussion of discipline-specific thinking and multi-disciplinary thinking commonalities and differences.
- Writing and General Education - A Commentary by Bob Tilton. This 2001 essay by a University of Connecticut professor interestingly mirrors similar discussions at WIU.
- Writing in General Education or in Subject Areas - Purdue OWL Site. The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) site includes all kinds of writing tools. There are sections detailing rules of writing along with documentation assistance. There are also pages which discuss how to write different genres and in different disciplines.
- Writing Tips for Different Kinds of Genres within Disciplines (University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill). This is a link to a page with four distinct headings: Writing the Paper; Citation, Style, and Sentence Concerns; Specific Writing Assignments/Contexts; and Writing for Specific Fields. This is a good resource for faculty and students.
Teaching Practices
Guides and websites that discuss the challenges and opportunities concomitant with teaching large classes plus general information on teaching in general education.
- Teaching Large Classes (Univ. of Wisconsin-Whitewater) features a tip sheet with lists of ideas for teaching in large classes. This includes sections on strategies for promoting active learning and class participation, along with incorporating writing assignments.
- Cornell University Center for Teaching Innovation. Another site with helpful teaching suggestions plus a section on writing activities for large classes.
- University of North Carolina Center for Teaching and Learning. This site offers resources including teaching guides, best practices in teaching, and course design.
Writing Assignments for Gen Ed Classes
- Writing Assignments for Large Classes (University of Minnesota). This short page has suggestions for writing assignments that are valuable for students but not onerous for teachers.
- Penn State. A helpful, short, basic article about responding to student writing.
- Ronald Lunsford, "When Less is More: Principles for Responding in the Disciplines"
Online Journals
Below are links to online journals that publish scholarly work on the teaching of writing.
- WAC Clearinghouse, which is devoted to writing across the curriculum. The site contains links to online books, journals, and other resources for teaching writing.
- Journal of Teaching Writing, a journal on the teaching of writing at all levels.
- Kairos, a journal of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.
- Composition Forum, a journal of pedagogical theory in rhetoric and composition.
ERIC database searches
Below are searches from the ERIC database of scholarly articles keyed to General Education. These searches will run automatically for WIU students and faculty and automatically update themselves.
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Writing Assignments
- Peer reviewed articles regarding writing assignments in higher education.
- The same search as before but limited to full text articles.
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Assessment
- Full text articles on General Education assessment at the program level.
- Teaching Methods
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