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Faculty Senate

Resources for General Education Faculty

provides general instructional resources, including syllabus design.

The following links are intended to provide information more specific to general education courses.

  • °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼ Undergraduate Catalog (General Education page)
  • °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼ Advising and Academic Service Center's General Education Handbook
  • Examples of syllabi from °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼ general education courses -- Under Construction
  • Examples of writing assignments from °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼ general education courses -- Coming Soon!
  • Writing and General Education: below are websites discussing writing and general education
    • . 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.
    • is a position statement from the Conference on College Composition and Communication on the teaching of writing at the university level.
    • . 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.
    •  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.
    •  by Bob Tilton. This 2001 essay by a University of Connecticut professor interestingly mirrors similar discussions at °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼.
    • . 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.
    • . 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.

  •  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.
  • . Another site with helpful teaching suggestions plus a section on writing activities for large classes.
  • . This site offers resources including teaching guides, best practices in teaching, and course design.

Writing Assignments for Gen Ed Classes

  • . This short page has suggestions for writing assignments that are valuable for students but not onerous for teachers.
  • . A helpful, short, basic article about responding to student writing.

Online Journals

Below are links to online journals that publish scholarly work on the teaching of writing.

  • , which is devoted to writing across the curriculum. The site contains links to online books, journals, and other resources for teaching writing.
  • , a journal on the teaching of writing at all levels.
  • , a journal of rhetoric, technology, and pedagogy.
  • , 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 °ÄÃÅÁùºÏ²ÊÀúÊ·¼Ç¼ students and faculty and automatically update themselves.

  • Writing Assignments
    •  in higher education.
    • The same search as before but 
  • Assessment
    • Full text articles on .
  • Teaching Methods
    • Articles on .
    • .