Course classes, teaching archetypes, and editorial authority

Separate class from archetype

Choose both:

• Course class determines what the reviewer may treat as externally verifiable.
• Teaching archetype determines the learning arc.

A procedural course can be concrete-object or open-ended. A history course can be source-bound or open research. Do not infer one dimension from the other.

Course classes

concrete-object

Use for a specific product, company, interface, workflow, institution, event, document, person, place, dataset, law, system, or supplied artifact.

Verify:

• existence and naming;
• chronology and current state;
• capabilities and limitations;
• inputs, outputs, relationships, and causal claims;
• exact UI, procedures, metrics, quotations, and attribution;
• images presented as the real object.

Correct plausible but unsupported specificity. Do not turn sparse evidence into a polished feature catalogue or causal story.

open-ended

Use for broad subjects where the model legitimately authors selection, sequence, examples, analogies, explanatory voice, and interpretation within the approved brief.

Preserve a coherent generated arc even when another valid arc exists. Correct only factual/source errors, contradictions, pedagogical failures, brief violations, material safety problems, or copyright/attribution faults. A different canon, emphasis, example, or personal interpretation is not by itself a defect.

Explicitly partitioned hybrid

Use when some parts allow authored synthesis and other parts require exact evidence. Record the boundary before creation and in the correction ledger.

Examples:

• a film interpretation may be original, while release facts, credited creators, scene details, and quotations remain verifiable;
• a company strategy lesson may teach a general decision framework while every company claim and metric remains source-bound;
• a history course may author an explanatory arc while dates, documents, actors, and quoted positions remain exact.

Do not let the flexible partition launder unsupported claims in the concrete partition.

Keep a correction ledger

Before changing model-authored content, record:

slide / field
course-class boundary
objective category
evidence or approved-brief rule
smallest sufficient change
dependent fields rechecked
resulting revision

Valid objective categories:

• factual error or unsupported specificity;
• source conflict, drift, omission, or overclaim;
• copyright, quotation, or attribution problem;
• internal contradiction or broken dependency;
• learner-promise or pedagogical failure;
• repetition that removes a distinct teaching job;
• unsafe advice or missing required caveat;
• explicit brief, audience, language, style, or delivery violation.

Invalid categories:

• personal taste;
• another equally valid example;
• a desire to make every course sound like the reviewer;
• preference for corporate framing, evidence cards, or rigid taxonomies;
• rewriting only because the generated prose is not what the reviewer would have written.

Shared arc principles

Regardless of archetype:

1. Open with the learner's reason to care or a productive puzzle.
2. Establish only the vocabulary and context needed for the next move.
3. Teach mechanisms, decisions, interpretations, or procedures—not a list of facts.
4. Alternate abstraction with worked examples, artifacts, or practice.
5. Make uncertainty, limitations, and competing explanations visible where material.
6. End with synthesis, transfer, or action rather than recap alone.
7. Give every page one distinct teaching job and one appropriate visual job.

Procedural and workflow courses

Use for tasks, operations, onboarding, support, safety, or repeatable practice.

Typical arc:

1. outcome and success condition;
2. prerequisites, inputs, roles, and tools;
3. end-to-end map;
4. one page per meaningful decision or phase;
5. failure modes and diagnostic signals;
6. worked scenario;
7. guided practice;
8. execution checklist and escalation boundary.

Prefer state diagrams, decision tables, annotated steps, and before/after evidence. Do not imply that all cases follow a happy linear path. In a concrete-object workflow, verify each UI label, role, permission, and state transition.

Conceptual, scientific, and technical courses

Use for mechanisms, systems, mathematics, science, engineering, or abstract concepts.

Typical arc:

1. observable phenomenon or motivating problem;
2. model and vocabulary;
3. components and relationships;
4. mechanism or derivation;
5. worked example;
6. boundary conditions and failure cases;
7. competing model or misconception;
8. transfer to a new case;
9. synthesis.

Prefer causal diagrams, cross-sections, system maps, scaled comparisons, and worked transformations. State assumptions and limits. An analogy must explain something and name where it breaks.

Evidence, diligence, and decision courses

Use for evaluating options, interpreting evidence, investment or procurement reasoning, and decision preparation.

Typical arc:

1. decision and stakes;
2. evaluation criteria;
3. evidence sources and quality;
4. option/mechanism analysis;
5. risks and disconfirming evidence;
6. scenario comparison;
7. decision rule;
8. open questions and next evidence.

Separate observation, inference, and recommendation. Do not invent scores, market sizes, customer counts, trend charts, or confidence levels. A balanced deck is not one with equal prose on every side; it is one that makes the evidence and uncertainty inspectable.

History and culture courses

Use for periods, events, movements, places, institutions, and cultural context.

Typical arc:

1. orient in time and place;
2. define the central historical question;
3. establish actors, structures, and available evidence;
4. trace change, continuity, and causation;
5. examine a primary artifact or concrete episode;
6. compare perspectives or historiography;
7. connect consequences without presentist shortcuts;
8. synthesize what the evidence permits.

Avoid inevitability, monocausal narratives, unsourced quotations, decorative archival imagery, and present-day labels applied without context. Distinguish period evidence from later interpretation.

Literature and language courses

Use for texts, genres, rhetoric, language learning, close reading, and writing craft.

Typical arc:

1. interpretive or communicative question;
2. essential context and vocabulary;
3. close reading or worked language example;
4. form, structure, voice, and effect;
5. alternative reading or common error;
6. guided practice;
7. transfer to a new passage or situation;
8. synthesis.

Do not collapse literature into plot summary or language into word lists. Quote only when supplied or reliably verified and keep quotations proportionate. Preserve competing interpretations when the text supports them.

Film, media, art, and music courses

Use for visual culture, performance, scene analysis, media systems, artworks, and musical form.

Typical arc:

1. viewing/listening question;
2. medium-specific vocabulary;
3. formal element or motif;
4. close analysis of a verified example;
5. relation among form, context, and audience;
6. alternative interpretation;
7. comparative example;
8. synthesis or creative application.

Analyze what the medium does: framing, editing, sound, rhythm, material, composition, performance, or circulation. Do not replace analysis with synopsis, biography, genre trivia, or generic mood. Treat frames, artworks, scores, quotations, and archival images as source claims.

General-knowledge and curiosity courses

Use for broad introductions, everyday phenomena, cross-disciplinary subjects, and exploratory learning.

Typical arc:

1. surprising question;
2. useful mental model;
3. several distinct explanatory lenses;
4. concrete examples;
5. misconception or exception;
6. connection to another domain;
7. learner challenge;
8. synthesis and next questions.

Curiosity does not excuse a trivia pile. Build a spine around explanation, comparison, or inquiry. Use an earned short deck rather than padding.

Comparative and debate courses

Use when the learning job is to distinguish positions or weigh tradeoffs.

Typical arc:

1. shared question and definitions;
2. comparison dimensions;
3. strongest case for each position;
4. governing evidence and uncertainty;
5. edge cases and values;
6. decision or interpretation under different assumptions;
7. synthesis without false equivalence.

Represent positions charitably. Separate factual disagreement from value disagreement and avoid invented symmetry where evidence is lopsided.

Compliance, policy, and internal-enablement courses

Use for approved rules, obligations, controls, or organization-specific procedures. Usually treat the authoritative documents and named workflow as concrete-object.

Typical arc:

1. scope and who is affected;
2. governing terms and source authority;
3. required behavior;
4. decision points and exceptions;
5. prohibited behavior and consequences;
6. realistic scenarios;
7. evidence/recordkeeping;
8. escalation and next actions.

Use materials_only when only supplied approved documents may govern. Distinguish legal/policy text from explanatory paraphrase, keep effective dates visible, and do not present the course as a compliance certificate.

Build a hybrid without losing its spine

Choose one dominant learner promise, then assign each page:

teaching job | archetype move | class boundary | evidence source | visual job

If a page cannot be classified, it may be padding. If multiple archetypes compete, keep the one that best serves the outcome and use the others only for bounded moves such as one case study, comparison, or practice page.