First Impressions: Expectations and Tone in Syllabus Construction
By Russell Johnson, Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Religious Studies Program & Associate Pedagogy Fellow in the CCTL
The syllabus and first day of class play important roles in developing students’ expectations for the kind of course they’ll be taking. These expectations, in turn, inform students’ understanding of what kind of class they are in and the way they will participate in the class.
We can think of the syllabus and first day like a movie trailer. If a trailer makes a movie seem like a high-octane action thriller (like The Fast and the Furious), but the movie you see is a ponderous, artistic meditation on grief and how we can’t run away from our own problems (like 2 Fast 2 Furious), viewers aren’t going to think, “I thought this was an action movie but it turns out it’s a drama.” They’re more likely to conclude, “This action movie is boring.”
As a student, if you’re given the impression that a course is going to be introductory and you find out it’s quite advanced, you won’t feel motivated—you’ll feel lied to. If you’re given the impression that a course is going to be tightly structured and it’s more freeform, you won’t feel liberated—you’ll feel confused.
A syllabus communicates what we expect from our students and what they can expect from us. Many of us have taken courses where there’s a set schedule and the instructor adheres closely to lesson plans each day. We’ve also taken courses where the students are actively involved in steering the course, and the professor is highly responsive to the students’ expressed interests. Both courses may help students to learn, but it’s important that the syllabus conveys to students what kind of course they’re taking.
What Kind of Class Is This?
If we want students to drop into office hours to talk informally about how they’re processing the readings, we should communicate that in the syllabus. By contrast, if we expect that students should only come to office hours when there’s a problem, we should communicate that in the syllabus. But if a syllabus just says, “My office hours are on Wednesdays,” students won’t know what is expected and might operate all quarter under the wrong impression of what office hours are for.
If we want students to interpret the texts as historical documents that inform us about their time period, we should put that in the syllabus. If we want them to think with the texts about the nature of forgiveness or liberation, we should communicate that instead. But if a syllabus just says, “We will read and discuss Exodus,” students won’t know what kind of engagement is expected. It’s good to be explicit about these expectations when possible, while also paying attention to the implicit messages sent by the tone of the syllabus.
What Kind of Instructor Is This?
Beyond articulating clear expectations, a syllabus’s tone gives the students an impression of the instructor and their teaching style. Two psychologists of education, Harnish and Bridges (2011), did a controlled experiment on the effects of syllabus tone, and what effects it has on students when a syllabus is written with a warm tone and with a cold (not mean, but detached) tone. The six characteristics of a warm tone are:
using positive or friendly language
providing a rationale for assignments
sharing personal experiences
using humor
conveying compassion
showing enthusiasm for the course
The authors concluded, “We found that presenting students with an effective syllabus written in a friendly, approachable tone can influence perceptions of the instructor and the course.... Care should be taken in developing the syllabus with particular attention to its tone, because impressions are made that may facilitate faculty engagement with students. Such impressions, in turn, may set the stage for a more rewarding educational experience for those on both sides of the lectern.”
Simple choices in framing can make a syllabus tone warmer. In my syllabi, for example, I explain why participation in class discussions is important and then specify that the goal is to contribute insightfully to the conversation rather than to get answers right. The section on participation ends with the sentence, “If you have difficulty participating in class discussion, please contact the professor and we can talk about strategies.” This reinforces the facts that I want students to succeed, that success requires engaging in discussion, and that I am the student’s ally in this effort.
Harnish and Bridges’s study focused on whether students perceived instructors as warm or cold, but there are more dimensions to one’s pedagogical persona and how it shapes expectations. It’s a good question to consider what pedagogical persona one has, whether this means cultivating a particular pedagogical style or being self-aware of how one already presents in the classroom. For example, my usual pedagogical persona is one-third “there are no bad ideas in brainstorming; tell me what you think and I’ll write it all on the board and then we’ll see how ideas connect and which ones work best,” one-third “these are the really important questions that define the human condition. Justice, hope, and truth are not just ideas—this is relevant to your life,” and one-third “I’m not like the other moms, I’m a cool mom.” I’m not saying this is the best approach, or even that this is the kind of teacher I try to be. This is just what happens when I teach. I’m honest with myself about it and I make sure my syllabus reflects it.
By contrast, I have a colleague whose pedagogical persona is fifty percent “It’s time for me to lecture about Hegel” and fifty percent “I’d like to talk about Hegel now.” His syllabus reflects these priorities. It foregrounds the readings above all else and it is spartan and austere, with an unforgiving font.
I’m not saying one teaching style is better than another, just that the tone set by the syllabus and the activities on the first day of class establish expectations which then guide behavior. How we act has much more to do with subtle cues we pick up from others than from explicit instructions and policies. From my Hegelian colleague’s syllabus, students know they can sit behind their laptops and stare at them while he lectures, because the absolute movement of Geist doesn’t depend on them. They get the impression that they should only raise their hands if they’re saying something polished and erudite about philosophy. From my syllabus and first day for the Humanities Core, students get the impression that they will be arguing with one another and working with me to steer the course toward topics that matter to them. Students know they can say “This line from The Iliad reminds me of a scene from Game of Thrones” and I’ll say, “Please elaborate.”
Why Is This Class Worth My Time?
Finally, one of Harnish and Bridges’s six features of a warm syllabus deserves special attention: providing a rationale for assignments. For a student, the difference between begrudgingly doing what feels like busywork and investing your energy into an assignment depends on whether you trust that the person who assigned it genuinely believes it’s a worthwhile use of your time.
A syllabus that shows attentiveness to student concerns, anticipates student needs, and connects assessments to course goals lets students know that the course was designed with intentionality. This builds trust, not just in the instructor, but in the course itself. In general, we want the students who are reading our syllabi to think, “This professor is someone who cares about my learning and has put a lot of thought into helping me reach these course goals. If they say that these readings and these exercises are valuable, then I believe them.” That outlook can give students an entirely different attitude about the course, one that is more conducive to learning.
Russell Johnson (PhD’19) is Assistant Director of the Undergraduate Religious Studies Program at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on antagonism, nonviolence, and the philosophy of communication, and his courses include “Truth, Half-Truth, and Post-Truth” and “Villains: Evil in Philosophy, Religion, and Film.” He is the author of the book Beyond Civility in Social Conflict: Dialogue, Critique, and Religious Ethics (Cambridge, 2024).
