One of the first things that students use to get to know your class and you as a teacher is your class syllabus. It’s also a document that begins to outline policies and procedures for the school year! Especially with my AP class, I find myself referring back to the syllabus as it explains so much information for students there! It took me a couple of years to finalize how I like to have my syllabus set up, so I wanted to pass on how to create a syllabus to any other teachers that are creating or redesigning theirs for this upcoming school year!
How to Create a Syllabus
The Basics
Having your basic information is a great starting point.:
- Your name
- Room number
- Email or preferred contact method
- Class
- Class description
- Course Plan
- This one can be as specific or broad as you’d like. For years that I have a class as a new prep, I explain the focus of the class here and leave it at that. Then when I go over the syllabus in the first week of school, I’ll verbally state some ideas that I’m thinking about to see how students feel about different units.
- When it comes to how to create a syllabus, in my opinion, the course plan should always be more flexible for you to change it up if you feel like you want to during the year!
Policy Ideas
The bulk of my syllabus is related to my policies that I have within class. When reflecting on how to create a syllabus, this is for sure the section of my syllabus that I am always referring back to during the school year. This section also gets you starting to think about back to school and how you want your classroom to be run. The stronger your policy section is in your syllabus, the less battles you’ll have over the school year!
The policies that I have on my syllabus:
- Basic behavior expectations
- If you need ideas, mine are:
- Arrive to class on time and be mentally present.
- Be respectful to peers and staff.
- Work is to be completed by you, no one else.
- Again, extremely basic ideas that I hope students operate on every class they go to.
- If you need ideas, mine are:
- Grading policy
- What range is an A, B, C, D, F in our district.
- This is also where I lay out how much each category is within the class – which is discussed within our English department. We’ve established two categories: formative and summative, and that formative is 30% of the grade, with summative being 70%.
- Classroom materials
- My required materials are provided by the school.
- I also list recommended materials, but I make sure that I can also provide those for students that aren’t able to afford or obtain them.
- Late Work
- Oh yes, the wonderful late work policy that is always a debate for teachers everywhere. Our department has decided on our late work policy together to ensure that all English teachers have the same policy. But it is definitely a policy that you want to have set in stone before the start of the year and is a key policy to think about when you create a syllabus.
- Absences and Makeup Work
- As we know, it is incredibly important for students to come to school – and that there is a chronic absenteeism issue in schools right now. I lay out my policy about how makeup work will play out in my class.
- Technology
- When it comes to how to create a syllabus, I make sure to include the technology aspect within the classroom as it relates to phone use, our online course page, and how to check grades because it’s always nice to have that information for them.
- How to Contact Me
- This is where I provide my email and phone number (all school provided) and explain that I ask for 24-48 hours to respond because I have a life too!
- Academic Honesty
- This is where I discuss cheating, plagiarism, and AI-usage and what the consequences are for being caught doing these things.
- Name and Pronoun Policy
- This is a big policy that I have within my class about how students are allowed to be referred to by the name and pronoun that they want. I recognize that not all teachers have the ability to do this depending on where they teach, but if you are able to, I highly recommend putting this on your syllabus as it establishes a safe place for LGBTQ+ students from the start. When it comes to how to create a syllabus, remember that you are also trying to convey how you are as a teacher to students and this is one that students bring up to me every year about how they appreciated me from the start because of this.
- If you need a different policy idea, you could also put a section about resources or mental health supports within the community – I’ve done that before and students appreciate that as well.
In the end, how you create your syllabus is big document that sets the tone for the school year. Hopefully this gave you some solid starting points for how to create a syllabus and hope that you’re able to create one that you feel represents you as a teacher! If you’re looking for design ideas to create a syllabus, simply search on TeachersPayTeachers for some awesome designs – and tons of free templates too!