In the making of my own syllabus, I took into consideration what many other English teacher's syllabi look like. I noticed that many of my colleagues talked about a hero's journey or a focus on identity formation in their own descriptions, but it was still difficult for me to commit to a specific nucleus for my own syllabus because there is no specific theme in regards to the presentation of these required texts.

As the weeks came to light, I found myself interrogating stories in the classroom. What creates tension in a scene? What interests me as a reader? How do I come to understand a scene and what do I zoom into when it comes to text? I have my students answer this in some of their in-class writing prompts. Still, remaining loyal to the implicit tradition of the school reminds me that the courses ought to guide students towards exegetic reading rather than eisegetic. Though I believe in a mix of two, I do see how freshman year is a time to reign students into literature, what it does for them and how they can view it.