How to Write a Syllabus: 10 Commandments for a Better Semester

A syllabus is like the Ten Commandments: delivered from on high as a rule for life (or at least for one semester). It seems chiseled in stone, yet—at best—is imperfectly followed.

More seriously, a syllabus is a foundational document for academic courses at any level. They should be written thoughtfully and carefully. The syllabus sets the tone for the class, clarifies expectations, and answers basic questions about course operations, allowing you to focus on teaching.

Here, you will find my own Ten Commandments for writing and refining a syllabus. With these, you can properly guide your students from the moment you lay down the law, through the semester’s wilderness, to the end of term’s Promised Land—with a minimum of grumbling.

Ten Commandments

1. Rely on what others have done
2. Be strategic with the size of your syllabus
3. Explain yourself (briefly)
4. Shepherd your students
5. Provide your students a pathway to success
6. Give a syllabus exam
7. Don’t use AI
8. Reference the syllabus throughout the semester
9. Clarify classroom values
10. Identify where your loyalties lie

1. Rely on what others have done

Take Jethro’s advice. Stop trying to do it all by yourself.

If you are a new instructor, start by thinking about your favorite professors and how they did things. Then, take advantage of the wisdom of the faculty where God has put you. Meet with the more experienced. Find out why they construct their syllabi the way they do. Assess what has worked for them, and what hasn’t. And consider using a syllabus template.

If you are a more experienced faculty member, meet with younger faculty who are trying new things. Pick their brains for new ideas, and help them to refine theirs!

2. Be strategic with the size of your syllabus

Chisel two tablets. Syllabus minimalists are sensitive to the fact that students read a lot. They don’t need a twenty-five-page syllabus in each of their five courses this semester! Your goal might be to condense content down to just two tablets pages for your graduate assistant to carry down the mountain.

Short syllabi can be simple, standardized, and require little-to-no updating from year to year. They contain just the essentials, such as the course description, objectives, and outcomes. Minimalists delete instructions for assignments and course policies (except when the institution or department requires it to be included). They might even eliminate the course schedule!

But even if you are a minimalist, be sure to include your contact information, as well as content that orients the student to the philosophy of the course. Also, use the course LMS site to provide the elements you’ve left out of the syllabus—such as, importantly, the course schedule—so students can easily find and follow it.

Or write five books. Syllabus maximalists believe in putting all the necessary information in one place. They’re probably also using the syllabus to address a lack of information or clarity that has burned them in the past.

The advantage of a long syllabus is that it is a one-stop-shop for course information. Ideally, students can find an answer to nearly any question they might have about course operations—if only they will look!

So, it is critical for syllabus maximalists to take advantage of clear, attractive, easy-to-follow formatting. Consider:

• text (e.g., size, font, color, indentation, etc.)
• content (e.g., clear headings and sub-headings)
• visual aids (e.g., bullets, tables)

Use a consistent, organized format so that students can easily find the information they need. Ensure that the most important information is highlighted at as high a level in the headings as possible. Don’t bury key points in the fine print.

3. Explain yourself (briefly)

Go beyond laying down the law. Consider including explanations of the following:

• Why you chose these textbooks
• What the assignments are intended to accomplish (e.g., why have them memorize a creed; why learning vocab is important to the course objectives; etc.)
• Why assignments are structured the way they are
• Who the assumed audience for the assignment is (e.g., scholars, pastors, church members, the general public)
• How assignments are related to future ministries students might have
• Why you construct tests the way you do (e.g., what T/F, multiple-choice, and essay questions are intended to demonstrate)
• How your course connects with a degree, department, and the academic mission of the institution

4. Shepherd your students

Demolish the golden calves. Explain why grades matter—and how they don’t!

Exhort students to offer God their best. Yet remind them that their value and identity is secured by Christ, not by their grades.

One wise professor used to encourage his students, “For some of you, not making an A is a sin. For others, making an A would be a sin!” Students need to learn to balance their responsibilities wisely. Excellence should be valued without becoming an idol.

Excellence should be valued without becoming an idol.

Remind students that while they are your reason for being there, they should not be their own reason for being there. The goal of their education is not merely a grade, a degree, greater knowledge, or even preparation for a career. Students are there for every person God is calling them to serve in the future, and ultimately they are there for God’s glory.

5. Provide your students a pathway to success

Don’t let them wander aimlessly through a wilderness. Even with a pillar of cloud by day and fire by night, students can wander aimlessly. Like Israelites trapped between Pharaoh’s chariots and the Red Sea, many students will eventually find themselves stuck between their poor planning and a course deadline.

Here are some suggestions for how to remedy this:

i. Make plain the course schedule

Regardless of where you provide it (course LMS or in the syllabus), include day-to-day info on reading, lectures, assignments, and exams. Additionally, highlight due dates and exam dates so that students will be reminded to look ahead and see what is coming.

ii. Break up large assignments (e.g., research papers, exegetical studies, or presentations)

Divide them into parts, then use these steps to walk students though a best practices research and writing process. Help them begin their work early enough and do their work efficiently enough to achieve the quality you expect. This will be especially helpful in settings where many students have not been taught how to write research papers (like the undergraduate level, or seminary contexts which don’t assume undergraduate preparation).

iii. Schedule assignments carefully

Consider these four key criteria:

1. Keep the calendar handy. Remember holidays, breaks, and other events on the students’ calendar—and yours!
2. Avoid congestion. Spread things out so that students aren’t overwhelmed with multiple items that are due around the same time. This will also help you (or your TAs) avoid being overwhelmed with items to grade!
3. Leave space to incorporate feedback. Think about how quickly you can provide quality feedback, and be sure to give students enough time to incorporate feedback into future assignments.
4. Connect assignments with course content. Where possible, schedule assignments to correlate with reading and lecture topics. Assignments might build on classroom time. They might also prepare students for in-class learning.

6. Give a syllabus exam

Provide accountability. For undergraduates, particularly freshman-level classes, consider including an auto-graded “syllabus exam” on the course LMS site to ensure they learn key information in the syllabus.

Make the exam “open syllabus,” and require students to retake it until they earn a 100 percent. This undercuts later claims that “I didn’t know that requirement, rule, or policy!” (A syllabus exam also gives students a “free” A+ grade as they acclimate to your more rigorous course requirements.)

7. Don’t use AI

Beware of false prophets. Don’t use AI to write your syllabus, including (ironically) your own anti-AI policy.

False prophets come in many forms, some with the pretense of righteousness. One such prophet assigned students to explain why using AI in writing corrupts critical thinking. A student put the instructions through an AI detection site—and found that the instructor had used AI to create the assignment!

Whatever their AI policy, it is folly for faculty to put burdens on students that they are unwilling to bear themselves. Promise your students that if they won’t use AI in your class, you won’t use AI to grade their papers or write their recommendation letters!

8. Reference the syllabus throughout the semester

Speak of it when you go in and when you go out. Don’t let the syllabus become a scroll lost in the temple of learning. Refer to the syllabus throughout the semester.

Remind students of the syllabus’s instructions for assignments, explanations of exam structures, grading rubrics, and assignment goals. At each new course segment, review the syllabus to preview and summarize what will happen in the section and why.

9. Clarify classroom values

Meditate on it day and night. The syllabus offers a wonderful opportunity to explain the values which you as an instructor are committed to model. Cast the vision for the academic community that you hope to form. Emphasize that the classroom culture is something that we create together.

A colleague of mine offers this example of classroom values.¹

• We will be committed to becoming Great Commission leaders
• We will be concerned about the Spiritual Vitality of each participant
• We will maintain Theological Integrity as we investigate various types of literature
• We will emphasize the Community of Learning
• We will practice Transformative Learning
• We will utilize a Dialogical Approach

10. Identify where your loyalties lie

Hear, O students! All instructors approach the classes they teach with convictions that shape your approach to your discipline as well as that course. These may be theological, philosophical, methodological, or practical. Identify these commitments for your students.

If you are at a confessional or denominational institution, your school’s confessional document would certainly appear here. You may also locate yourself within a tradition that distinguishes you from others. Mention where you embrace a particular school of thought relevant to the course. Identify key methodological commitments (e.g., surveying the Old Testament in the order of the Hebrew rather than the LXX/English), and give a brief explanation regarding why you use that approach.

Yet avoid making this section of the syllabus a box-checking exercise or a defensive maneuver. Acknowledge that there will be different views in the class. Affirm that you will hold your views deeply but generously. This kind of transparency will communicate to students that they are free to expose their own perspectives within the class. Assure them that they will not be ridiculed or demeaned for doing so.

A Deuterocanonical command

Allow me to offer one bonus command: Let the Word be very near you; that is, integrate Logos into your course.

A couple of years ago, the College of Christian Studies at Charleston Southern University adopted Logos Inclusive Access. This program ensures that every student in a Christian studies course receives not only their textbooks, but also a supplemental biblical studies library through Logos. Additionally, it provides them with Logos’s rich suite of powerful research tools. Where textbook rentals take books back at the end of each semester, Logos provides a package that belongs to students for the remainder of their academic study—and for the rest of their lives and ministries after graduation.

Integrating Logos into my courses has allowed me to:

1. Embed links to all my Logos-based readings in my course LMS site
2. Create sharable notebooks in Logos to provide students my commentary on assigned text, include reading prompts and questions, and mark where readings end
3. Build assignments that use Logos tools to support my course goals

I even teach students how to save their course notes as a Logos Personal Book. In advanced courses, I present everyone’s research papers to the whole class as a Logos Personal Book. Creating Logos Personal Books ensures that what I’ve taught my students will be accessible to them throughout their ministries.

Conclusion

A new semester sets before students a choice: If not of life or death (Deut 30:15), at least of satisfaction or frustration. Students stand at a fork in the road between knowledge and ignorance, wisdom and folly.

A well-written syllabus is an invitation to enter a land flowing with the milk of knowledge and the honey of wisdom.

Ben Phillips’s recommended resources for instructors

• Small Teaching: Everyday Lessons from the Science of Learning by James M. Lang
• What the Best College Teachers Do by Kevin Bain

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