T
he third route to getting the MA degree in English at UVA, other than writing a critical thesis or taking an oral exam, is to complete a pedagogy thesis: candidates offer a secondary-school level course portfolio that demonstrates how their graduate study for the Master's informs and deepens their preparation for high school pedagogy.  The pedagogy portfolio is judged on how innovative and substantive the idea for the course is, whether or not it represents advanced thinking in the area of scholarship it represents, translated for a high school audience, and whether it clearly shows how the candidate's own MA training in critical analysis, literary approaches, and/or research methods has been applied in the development of the course proposal.   Often this pedagogy document is used, after its submission to the department for the MA, as a credential in the secondary school job search. 

The portfolio for the proposed course must include four parts to qualify as an MA degree final exercise.  First, it needs a course proposal of several pages in length, written as an independent essay, whose audience is those evaluating the proposed course (not the students who might take it).  This descriptive essay covers several key bases: it situates the idea for the course in a contemporary conversation or debate in the field of study; offers a reason for its interest or its impact; discusses what may be innovative and/or interdisciplinary about its approach; gives the context and specific resources for the course, including the critical materials it draws upon; suggests the contribution the course will make to the curriculum overall; and finally, places the course in a short history of the field or previous modes of pedagogy.  Next, a syllabus follows, divided into the standard weeks of high school semester.  Each week on the syllabus (usually between 14 and 18 weeks) should have at least one narrative paragraph delineating the main issues and texts or works to be included that week; explaining the choice of these particular works, topics, and approaches; describing any assignments and the expectations for student learning for each session; and finally, giving a sense, week by week, of how the overall idea or argument of the course as a whole is building. The third required part of the pedagogy portfolio is another brief essay that describes requirements for the actual course, specifying writing and other assignments. Again, this is significantly more detailed than the "course requirements" passage on a real course syllabus, because its purpose is to explain how the assignments a candidate proposes would fit into the pedagogical and subject-oriented aspects of the class, and why they have been selected.  Last, the pedagogy thesis for the MA degree entails an annotated bibliography.  This bibliography doesn't merely repeat the assigned works of the course; instead, it represents the candidate’s own behind-the-scenes research into the topic of the course and the critical methods used to teach it.  Not every discrete text or work needs to be annotated, but the primary and secondary sources should be separated, and the graduate-level work that has gone into learning the parameters of the field and the critical questions the course raises should be evident.  

The pedagogy portfolio ranges between fifteen and twenty pages, then, some of these devoted to annotated bibliography and the inclusion of supporting materials (whether quotes, illustrations, sample assignments, or the like).  The first criterion for a successful pedagogy portfolio is its ability to reflect the candidate’s coursework in preparation for the MA; this should be evident in the conception of the course, the critical approaches it is grounded in, the concepts it teaches.  The second criterion is its success at demonstrating that the proposed course will fit within and contribute usefully to a broader, secondary school curriculum.

The MA pedagogy thesis should be prepared and submitted in the same manner as the MA critical thesis, as specified by GSAS guidelines.