Syllabus Calendars for Media Studies

Media Studies Calendars:  Knowledge-Based, Individual... and Arbitrary

Because a syllabus is shaped by the prevailing mode of instruction, it’s probably wise to divide “Studies” from “Production” in a discussion of calendar creation.

Media Studies courses tend to be knowledge-based.  That knowledge is demonstrated  largely by individual essays, individual tests, and individual speeches.  Despite the occasional group project, the grade of one student infrequently impacts the work of others.  If Mary turns in her paper a week late, it’s no skin off Ethan’s nose.

The teachers of such courses arrange lectures topically.  I’m using the old-fashioned word “lecture,” because that is what I observe.  I hear the same talk you do about edutaining alternatives to content delivery.  And then I hear lectures.  Even if lectures aren’t the only means of transmission, they remain the dominant teaching mode of theory, history, and criticism.  This probably ought to be a source of shame, given the many, many studies which indict their effectiveness.

The impact of lectures and individual achievement on the syllabus is that it renders arbitrary the calendars of most Media Studies courses.  Students stop presenting examples of  racism on the web when it pleases the professor to move on to queer theory.  No single student’s failure to master material or turn in assignments can halt or alter the progress of instruction.  I set aside three hours for German Expressionism, then it’s on to Soviet Montage.

What is the source of an arbitrary calendar?  It could be strung together by institutional benchmarks.  Perhaps a college coordinator oversees all sections of Intro to Speech.  Her job is to assure that every sophomore, regardless of professor, has exposure to instruction in each of the same five speech types.  I thus slice the pie of my semester into five wedges.  Voila, the calendar.

Or maybe I’m the only one at my small school teaching Cinema History.  I have carte blanche to design the class as I wish.  I say Documentary and Animation each deserve two of thirty precious class periods.  Why?  Because…

• I really liked my grad school classes in Documentary and Animation.  
• When I was an undergrad, my own Cinema History prof spent two class periods on Documentary.  This bears more weight than perhaps we admit.  One of my first assignments in grad school was to contact two of my undergraduate professors.  I asked them to name the two most influential professors in their college career.  Then I contacted those people and got them to do the same.  When the class of fifteen students reconvened, together we’d traced our discipline’s family tree back three generations — to the same three professors.  I’m not sure whether that makes the case for the broad strength of unity — or the weakness of myopic incest.
• I replaced a prof who taught that way.  The department’s administrative assistant had a copy of last year’s syllabus in the binder she maintains for accreditation.
• It’s the text publisher’s idea.  The book/coursepack I chose had a sample syllabus.  I didn’t get hired until July, so I was really scrambling…
• I’m team-teaching with a woman who’s an expert on Robert Flaherty and Chuck Jones.

When I refer to Media Studies syllabi as arbitrary, I mean no insult.  I feel the weight of freedom when I alone chart the semester’s course.  I’m particularly unsettled by the crystal-gazing I must do near the end of the term.  What if I choose topics or texts with little enduring relevance?

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