What’s the Story Your Syllabus Tells?: Setting the Stage for Learning – Faculty Focus

Once upon a time, there was this brave professor, who opened a word processor app to develop one of their most important tools in life; the syllabus.  

When we design courses, we are focused on sharing knowledge that will be both informational and contextual. For this we integrate objectives, activities, and for the more technical part, assessments, rubrics, and references that make up the traditional sense of learning. Time after time we have understood that this document is a syllabus. A syllabus, as I have heard and said in faculty meetings, is the contract that binds you with the student of what is going to happen during the term. Honestly, though reflecting on the topic of the syllabus, I don’t know where my courses would be heading if I didn’t use or follow a syllabus. Even following one, I sometimes drift within the wind.  

But as I was reading Everyday Christian Teaching by Dr. David Smith, in the chapter titled Speaking, Hearing, Hospitality, in just the first paragraph he writes: “Teachers do not simply list course content for learners. They sequence it in ways that imply a story about what fits together and where it is headed.” (2025, p.73). Automatically I asked myself, what is the story my syllabus is telling students? To be completely honest, is it even telling a story at all?  

Storytelling, according to the National Storytelling Association (n.d.) is the interactive art of using words and actions to reveal the elements and images of a story while encouraging the listener’s imagination. This definition prompts me to ask; are our syllabus helping students to foster their imagination? Are the taxonomies where including prompting a learning environment of freedom is designing experiences that can build stories, history, and legacy? Or are we limiting our syllabus to inform standardization and skillful citations of the authors we love and the topics we enjoy? Is your syllabus helping your students at all?  

Connecting storytelling to syllabus preparation can be complex for our traditional learning settings. But if we were to transcend the traditional scope of our preparation process, the stories implied and exposed in the syllabus would make our disciplines less intimidating. If in an algebra course, the story would imply the adventure of problem based learning and solutions; if in a philosophy course, the story would be to vanquish the prejudice of life’s toughest questions; if in a business course, the story would present the transformation of a context to define day-to-day entrepreneurship; or in a theology course, the story would connect the divine intervention process, not as a Marvel movie but as a caring grandmother’s actions.  

One interesting factor in defining characters and their roles in the syllabus process as a storytelling process, is to define who is the author, narrator, and readers. The author is the professor. You are the author, idealist, and architect of the story line. This is an important role because this is the connection and development of a story and its direct implications for students and imagining the impact of this content. As a reader, you probably remember an interesting book, article, or just a post on social media that captivativated your attention. Could we ask ourselves as professors if our syllabus captivates our student’s attention? In the case of the readers, they’re students. They adventure themselves into the topics and depths of the content we intended to teach them. They navigate that content with the tools and experiences they bring to contextualize and hopefully impact their present and future surroundings.  

A neuralgic factor in the story of the syllabus is the Narrator. This is the subject or voice that defines the tone, context, and processes emotions into the changes of the story. In the case of our syllabus; who is the narrator? Whose voice is narrating the content of our course? This is an important part to reflect on.  

Here are some questions that can help along that process: What theories? What authors? What dates and historical facts? Which exercises define the practical sense of our course? Who’s perspective is forming our readers’ experiences and the author’s input? Only men? Only women? Only white? Only a western or oriental mindset? The narrator in the storytelling process of the syllabus speaks of our own stories. It can capture our biases, preferences, and experiences (whether good or bad) and as educators we must be honest and aware to consider the voice that moves the teaching and learning process in our course.  

The story of our courses develop with emotions, frictions, tensions, experiences, questions, and context; lots and lots of context. Here is a simple guide to help each other reframe the storytelling process of our syllabus, so our authorship can be balanced, our readers well informed, and our narrator intentional.  

Preparing a syllabus to tell a story implies that:

The course description must set the tone for the overview of the story of your course.   The objectives must present characters, both literal and metaphorical, that will be present to guide the learning experience. As well as expose the solution that your students must overcome with the knowledge they will receive.   The topics are to present the settings, set backs, and how to manage the plot.   The assessments and requirements will serve as the voice of the story, where the professor and students will be guided to discern continuously to give life, action, and solution to the conflict, in the particular setting.   The references and institutional guidelines, instead of serving as page expansions, should serve as the relationship dynamic between all of the contexts and characters that will develop and wait for a solution.  

The end.  

Dr. Daniel Andrés Rivera Rosado is the Director of the JFU Bible Institute of La Iglesia Cristiana (Discípulos de Cristo) en Puerto Rico. He is also an adjunct faculty member of Christian Education at the Seminario Evangélico de Puerto Rico. He earned a PhD in Education from the University of Arizona Global Campus, researching the behavioral intention of technology integration in theological educators’ teaching practices. Daniel is the author of four books: Misión Activa: El quehacer del liderazgo en la Iglesia local (2022), El ABC de la Educación Cristiana (2023), Influencia Intencional: Liderazgo Educativo para el ministerio (2024) y Quietud: Otra manera de vivir la misión (2025). 

References 

Smith, D. (2025). Everyday Christian Teaching: A guide to practicing faith in the classroom. Grand Rapids; Eerdmans Publishing Co.  

National Storytelling Association. (n.d.). What is storytelling? https://storynet.org/what-is-storytelling/