Teaching Humanities Courses

Syllabus Content

GE course syllabi need to contain specific language about the General Education Area to help familiarize students with the GE aspects of the specific GE Area, your course, and how these courses fit within their whole program. Therefore, you need to include the rationale for the Knowledge of the Disciplines requirements, the rationale for your specific course to be approved as a Humanities course, and the Humanities Student Learning Outcomes in your course syllabus.

• Knowledge of the Disciplines Rationale Expand dropdown
  "Since each discipline offers a different perspective for understanding the world, understanding anything well requires some understanding of all of them. Students employ critical thinking skills to develop questions of inquiry that reflect an understanding of different disciplinary perspectives."
• Specific Course Rationale Expand dropdown
  To find the rationale for your course's inclusion in Knowledge of the Disciplines - Humanities go to the catalog, select the course you're teaching, scroll down to the heading "Rationale for Knowledge of the Disciplines" and copy and paste the rationale. 
• Student Learning Outcomes Expand dropdown

   "In Humanities courses, students will:

  1. Contextualize and think critically about texts, ideas, and genres in the humanities.
  2. Use and construct arguments.
  3. Reflect on personal growth with respect to imagination, empathy, or social and political agency using the methods of the humanities.
  4. Draw connections between course content and contexts outside of the classroom using the disciplinary tools of the humanities." 

  OR

  "In Foreign Language Courses, students will: 

  1. Communicate at a basic functional level in a language other than their own native language.
  2. Demonstrate a basic understanding of the relationship between culture and language.
  3. Use basic forms and structures of a language in communicating in that language."

Assessment Resources

Completing Assessment of GE Courses every semester is vital to ensuring that EMU's GE Courses are successful and that students meet the Learning Outcomes through intentional learning. Assessment is meant to facilitate evaluation of student success in reaching the intended learning outcomes of each General Education area. GE has created Assessment Rubrics for each GE Area. Students are rated as exceeding the target learning outcome, meeting the target learning outcome, or falling below the target learning outcome. Below is the Humanities Assessment Rubric which will be included in the gradebook of your Humanities course Canvas shell upon request.

The first Student Learning Outcome states that students will contextualize and think critically about texts, ideas and genres in the humanities.

The second Student Learning Outcome states that students will use and construct arguments. 

The third Student Learning Outcome states that students will reflect on personal growth with respect to imagination, empathy, or social and political agency using the methods of the humanities.

The fourth Student Learning Outcome states that students will draw connections between course content and contexts outside the classroom using the disciplinary tools of the humanities.

Please contact Dr. Laura McMahon, Head of the Humanities Working Group for the General Education Sub-Committee on Assessment, at [email protected] to have the above rubric included in the gradebook feature of the Canvas shells for your Humanities courses or with any additional questions regarding teaching a GE Humanities course. 

Humanities Learning Community - Coming Soon!

As an EMU instructor teaching a GE course, you will be invited to join an intentional Learning Community to meet other EMU instructors teaching in the same GE Area. These learning communities will allow instructors to develop, share, and facilitate student learning together. Look for the Humanities Learning Community in your Canvas Dashboard to get more information.