The English 100 team provides support for your teaching so that it aligns with program requirements and student needs. All English 100 sections keep writing at the center, and the model syllabus (with calendar) is designed accordingly. Instructors teaching E100 for the first time are encouraged to use the model as a way to develop an understanding of the course architecture. It makes planning more efficient, too. Nevertheless, you have many choices. It might help to think about them in three categories:

Syllabus and Course Design

Even in your first semester of teaching, you can choose whether to design your course—or part of it—around a theme that provides a tighter focus for assignments and discussions. Some general topics that have been developed into E100 themes include education, the UW campus, food, animals, the environment, and place.

Relatedly, you can choose to use UW-Madison’s common read through the Go Big Read program. For 2023-2024, the book is How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney. You can find more information at https://gobigread.wisc.edu/

Note: If you teach a First Year Interest Group (FIG) section, you may design an E100 theme to align with or complement the FIG but you are not required to adopt the FIG theme nor are you required to coordinate with other FIG instructors. However, you should avoid creating a theme that may cause confusion. Using the E100 Model Syllabus which focuses on writing is always an appropriate choice.

Daily Lessons and Classroom Routines

Day to day, you choose what to do in your classroom. How can you work with your students to create a productive learning environment and help them develop as writers, thinkers, college students, and citizens? We encourage you to make your classroom a place for active learning—a place for doing and working together—but there are many ways to go about this. We do discourage too many long lectures.

To assist you with planning, we provide guidelines for classroom practices and routines, as well as sample lesson plans. Some are included in this Guide; others are located on the LessonPlan Canvas site.

Also, be sure to talk to your colleagues. Collaboration can be one of the great pleasures of teaching in a large writing program.

Your Professional Identity, Teaching Style, and Individual Development

Within a professional framework for working in this university, you have a wide range of choices for how you show up in your classroom as a teacher. Who are the teachers you admire and want to emulate? What teaching practices will help you build useful relationships with students? We encourage you to think through such questions and consider how they connect to your choices. What can you do to align your teaching with your sense of integrity? What’s your preferred teaching style? What do you want or need to learn to continue growing as a teacher?

We encourage you to use your English 100 experience as a time to learn more about yourself, especially in relation to your teaching commitments. The E100 directors are happy to talk with you about these kinds of issues as well as more urgent ones. In addition, you’ll find many choices for individual and professional development available through the E100 Program as well as the larger university. You’ll decide how you take advantage of these opportunities and how to apply your learning in the classroom.