Bedford/St. Martin's - The Bedford Bibliography

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Service Learning

690
Adler-Kassner, Linda, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters, eds. Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997.

Thirteen essays and an annotated bibliography on service-learning theories and practices. Included are Tom Deans, "Writing across the Curriculum and Service Learning"; Nora Bacon, "Community Service Writing: Problems, Challenges, Questions"; Bruce Herzberg, "Community Service and Critical Teaching" [699]; David Cooper and Laura Julier, "Democratic Conversations: Civic Literacy and Service-Learning in the American Grains" [695]; Linda Flower, "Partners in Inquiry: A Logic for Community Outreach"; and Chris Anson, "On Reflection: The Role of Logs and Journals in Service-Learning Courses" [691].

691
Anson, Chris. "On Reflection: The Role of Logs and Journals in Service-Learning Courses." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 167–80. [690]

Service-learning courses require an element of reflection that is typically served by journal writing. The complexity and personal engagement in such courses makes journals an ideal medium for recording events and personal reactions. However, with direction and modeling, journals can become quite sophisticated ways for students to engage in more focused reflection and critical examination of ideas. A direct way to do this is simply to assign students to first record reactions and then reflect on them. The reflection assignment can be enriched by specifying theoretical frameworks—drawn from readings or class presentation—for examining experience. In responding to these journals, teachers have the opportunity to deepen reflection within the framework, to shift to other perhaps more fruitful frames, or to encourage deeper reflection on social practices.

692
Bacon, Nora. "Building a Swan's Nest for Instruction in Rhetoric." CCC 51.4 (June 2000): 589–609.

Community-based writing assignments highlight the need for writing instruction that attends to matters of rhetorical variation. Students need to understand the rhetorical function of the texts they are asked to produce; they need to analyze language in a wide range of texts and contexts, academic as well as nonacademic, in order to discover the ways in which form corresponds to rhetorical function. The evolution of one teacher's community-based writing curriculum demonstrates the possibility of rendering the teaching of rhetorical awareness from the classroom a less contradictory and more manageable task.

693
Bacon, Nora. "Setting the Course for Service-Learning Research." Reflections on Community-Based Writing Instruction 2.1 (Fall 2000): 1–7.

Pragmatic issues, such as whether or not service learning actually works, have typically dominated service learning research. Responding to a call put forth at the First Annual International Conference on Service-Learning Research, future research will prove more rigorous in terms of both questions and design. An increase in empirical work focused on academics, on students' mastery of course content, will be seen, as will an increase in studies that compare service learning pedagogy to more traditional pedagogy. Further, the impact of service learning on community (in all its multiple meanings) and on faculty, as well as on particular higher education institutions, is also likely to play a significant role in future investigations of service learning. Of most significance for composition studies, however, will be the expanded role of qualitative research. As questions shift from "does service learning work?" to "how does service learning work?", methodological approaches will shift and yield new insights into teaching and learning.

694
Ball, Kevin and Amy Goodburn. "Composition Studies and Service Learning: Appealing to Communities?" Composition Studies 28.1 (2000): 79–94.

Although much of composition's literature on service learning calls for reciprocity and community empowerment, the value of service learning is still primarily argued to a peer/professional audience, rather than to the community or public being served. Furthermore, neither the learning of community participants, nor the impact such learning has on service learning's value in the classroom, is represented in most professional literature on service learning. Community perspectives as well as all participants' experiences, not just students' and teachers', in service learning endeavors might be integrated more fully into service learning curricula by conducting community problem-solving dialogues, as described by Linda Flower, and by assigning students research projects that ask them not only to study the community contexts in which they will be working but also to include community participants' perspectives in their papers and reflections.

695
Cooper, David D., and Laura Julier. "Democratic Conversations: Civic Literacy and Service-Learning in the American Grains." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997.
79–94. [690].

In a service learning composition course called Public Life in America, students examine what it means to be a member of a community and a citizen in a democracy and ask how civic, religious, economic, and social traditions shaped moral life in America. They read works by civic writers such as Jefferson, King, and Dorothy Day, study civic problems such as inequality and prejudice, and analyze the many outlets for political persuasion that flood citizens with information and propaganda. For their service work, students engage in writing projects for nonprofits in the area. Research papers focus on local issues of civic importance such as civil rights cases and include surveys, interviews, and attending public meetings. Quite often, as a result of this work and their growing ability to write for public agencies, students engage in the civic debate on the issues they are studying and thus participate in the search for solutions to problems. In this process, the vocabulary of democracy comes alive, students gain both academic discourse skills and civic literacy, and they begin themselves to participate in the conversation that constitutes democracy.

696
Deans, Thomas. Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. Urbana: NCTE, 2000.

The works of John Dewey and Paulo Friere provide a theoretical framework for setting up community writing initiatives. Such initiatives can be categorized according to where the primary learning takes place, which literacies (workplace, academic, critical, and hybrid) are privileged, and which discourses (academic, workplace, and hybrid) are most highly valued. Whether writing for, with, or about the community (the three classifications in the taxonomy of community writing paradigms), community based composition courses emphasize experiential learning, community work paired with academic study, community outreach experiences blended with research and writing projects, and a commitment to investigating social justice and community problems through writing and rhetoric.

697
Ervin, Elizabeth. "Learning to Write with a Civic Tongue." Blundering for a Change: Errors and Expectations in Critical Pedagogy. Eds. John Paul Tassoni and William H. Thelin. Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2000. 144–57.

Errors can serve useful heuristic functions. When considered as honestly and generously as student errors, teacher/researcher errors can prompt the necessary reflection and action that lead to new understandings. If service learning is to be the micro-revolution many enthuse it can be, those who practice it and record their practices must straightforwardly own up to their blunders. Only by revealing the "messy realities" of pedagogy can teachers truly practice teaching that is both radical and democratic.

698
Flower, Linda and Shirley Brice Heath. "Drawing on the Local: Collaboration and Community Expertise." Language and Learning Across the Disciplines 4.3 (October 2000): 43–55.

Service learning initiatives should work toward creating relationships that respect, nurture, and draw on local expertise. In doing so, however, student and faculty participants in service learning face the problem of not only hearing local expertise, but also of constructing an understanding of that expertise that has the power to change the participants themselves and the communities they encounter. The "rival hypotheses" that develop from a community problem-solving dialogue suggest that sustainability in service learning initiatives requires more than good intentions. Sustainability also requires stepping out of one's own discourse and framework as well as off campus; and reciprocity must come in multiple forms: recognition of a community institution's history and contributions, commitment to a relationship beyond the single semester parameter, and a respect for community expertise that shows itself via engaged dialogue.

699
Herzberg, Bruce. "Community Service and Critical Teaching." CCC 45 (October 1994): 307–19. Rpt. in Writing the Community. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. [690]. Rpt. in Critical Literacy in Action. Ed. Ira Shor and Caroline Pari [387].

Students in service learning courses who go into the community as volunteers are performing needed work. Moreover, they report a heightened sense of the reality of homelessness and need. But their perceptions of these problems tend to be personal rather than social and systemic. They see illiteracy, for example, as the consequence of not studying hard enough. Band-aid volunteer work thus masks the causes of social problems. Service learning must promote critical analysis and social change: Students must therefore do more than write about their experiences. Studying and writing about social forces and how they operate through institutions like schools challenges their long-held beliefs in meritocracy and individualism, but finally leads to deeper reflection on the nature of the problems they see in their community-service work.

700
Herzberg, Bruce. "Service Learning and Public Discourse." JAC 20.2 (Spring 2000): 391–404.

Those who contend that the composition course is truly about rhetoric and civic virtue, and about public discourse as well as academic, need to develop convincing conceptualizations about the connections between society and the academy. One approach in a service-learning course asks students to write research papers that draw on their experiences in service projects. However, while this approach enables a deeper understanding of the issues, it does not lead students into an exploration of the gap between academic research and public policy. Students need both academic discourse and public discourse; they need to practice both and to find a way to bring academic knowledge to bear in public argument. One way students can do this in a service learning course is to identify a number of ways to go public with their community service-related academic research Ñphone calls, letters, personal appearances, Web postings, interactive Web pages, fliers, demonstrations, tee-shirts, running for office, seeking organizations, and establishing organizations are some ways Ñand then to examine the rhetorical characteristics of these forms and choose one through which to go public with their arguments. This exercise teaches students to make use of arguments that they develop in academic research papers; it sharpens their awareness of the purposes of different forms, and it enables them to better recognize rhetorical dimensions of both academic and public discourse.

701
Huckin, Thomas N. "Technical Writing and Community Service." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 11 (January 1997): 49–59.

Technical-writing courses have long sent students off campus to do projects in businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. These projects successfully motivate students, help them learn audience awareness and collaboration, and develop project management skills. In addition to these benefits, students in service learning courses develop civic awareness and help the larger community. Agencies with technical writing needs abound. Instructors should, however, work with each agency to define the project clearly, establish goals, and assure agency support. Small groups for each project work well. Students will need to learn on-site consulting skills, such as interviewing. Once projects are under way, students should work independently, producing progress reports and meeting with the instructor, though full-class meetings may not be necessary every week. The instructor should monitor the projects for quality control and maintain contact with the agencies. Civic education, a major benefit, requires classroom reflection periodically and at the end of the semester. Such a course prepares technical writers for a life of active citizenship.

702
Peck, Wayne Campbell, Linda Flower, and Lorraine Higgins. "Community Literacy." CCC 46 (May 1995): 199–222.

The Community Literacy Center, a collaboration between a Pittsburgh settlement house and Carnegie Mellon, seeks to foster literacy as action and reflection. It promotes collaborative, intercultural efforts to write public texts as a form of community action. Unlike cultural literacy, which seeks to build community by minimizing difference, and unlike social critique, which seeks community through ideological struggle, community literacy seeks alternative discourses that promote social change, intercultural conversation, inquiry, and strategic rhetoric. Community literacy approaches difference with the goal of negotiating meanings as a way of responding to conflicts. In the CLC collaboration, CMU student mentors do not work to "improve" community residents' writing or help them "find their own voice." Their approach instead is rhetorical: finding ways to use writing as a tool in a literate transaction. This process, to be successful, requires intercultural conversation, problem-solving, and negotiation. Several examples illustrate the successes of the community literacy approach.

703
Roswell, Barbara. "Service-Learning and Composition: Towards an Engaged Academy." Reflections on Community-Based Writing Instruction 1.3 (Winter 2000): 1–7.

Students should learn that their education is not simply for their own personal growth or gain, that they are members of communities, and that what they do and learn can benefit fellow citizens as well as themselves. Service learning increases students' concepts of the social and personal significance of the skills which composition teaches, and can heighten students' awareness of their own sense of themselves as agents of change. Service learning courses underscore a dual responsibility: to develop effective learning strategies and to promote meaningful, productive change. To live up to both responsibilities, service learning courses should involve long-term partnerships, rather than placements that change from term to term.

704
Schutz, Aaron, and Anne Ruggles Gere. "Service Learning and English Studies: Rethinking 'Public' Service." CE 60 (February 1998): 129–48.

If students in service-learning composition courses are not gaining a critical social perspective from their service work, as some have complained, the problem may be that one-on-one work such as tutoring—a frequent type of project—naturally emphasizes a model of "caring" over a model of public policy advocacy. The "caring" approach focuses on the needs of the individual being served and displaces engagement with larger social dimensions. To gain a more public perspective, tutors would need a connection to the tutee's larger community. Students are, however, already connected to a community that they can serve: the campus. In on-campus service and research projects, students explore social and political forces and are participants in the policy issues they investigate. Writing projects can contribute to the local public debate on the issue. Moreover, in such projects, students are not "experts" serving others; they are, rather, relative equals seeking to define a public space and take social action to benefit a community of which they are a part.

690	Adler-Kassner, Linda, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters, eds. Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. Thirteen essays and an annotated bibliography on service-learning theories and practices. Included are Tom Deans, "Writing across the Curriculum and Service Learning"; Nora Bacon, "Community Service Writing: Problems, Challenges, Questions"; Bruce Herzberg, "Community Service and Critical Teaching" [699]; David Cooper and Laura Julier, "Democratic Conversations: Civic Literacy and Service-Learning in the American Grains" [695]; Linda Flower, "Partners in Inquiry: A Logic for Community Outreach"; and Chris Anson, "On Reflection: The Role of Logs and Journals in Service-Learning Courses" [691].
691	Anson, Chris. "On Reflection: The Role of Logs and Journals in Service-Learning Courses." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 167–80. [690] Service-learning courses require an element of reflection that is typically served by journal writing. The complexity and personal engagement in such courses makes journals an ideal medium for recording events and personal reactions. However, with direction and modeling, journals can become quite sophisticated ways for students to engage in more focused reflection and critical examination of ideas. A direct way to do this is simply to assign students to first record reactions and then reflect on them. The reflection assignment can be enriched by specifying theoretical frameworks—drawn from readings or class presentation—for examining experience. In responding to these journals, teachers have the opportunity to deepen reflection within the framework, to shift to other perhaps more fruitful frames, or to encourage deeper reflection on social practices.
692	Bacon, Nora. "Building a Swan's Nest for Instruction in Rhetoric." CCC 51.4 (June 2000): 589–609. Community-based writing assignments highlight the need for writing instruction that attends to matters of rhetorical variation. Students need to understand the rhetorical function of the texts they are asked to produce; they need to analyze language in a wide range of texts and contexts, academic as well as nonacademic, in order to discover the ways in which form corresponds to rhetorical function. The evolution of one teacher's community-based writing curriculum demonstrates the possibility of rendering the teaching of rhetorical awareness from the classroom a less contradictory and more manageable task.
693	Bacon, Nora. "Setting the Course for Service-Learning Research." Reflections on Community-Based Writing Instruction 2.1 (Fall 2000): 1–7. Pragmatic issues, such as whether or not service learning actually works, have typically dominated service learning research. Responding to a call put forth at the First Annual International Conference on Service-Learning Research, future research will prove more rigorous in terms of both questions and design. An increase in empirical work focused on academics, on students' mastery of course content, will be seen, as will an increase in studies that compare service learning pedagogy to more traditional pedagogy. Further, the impact of service learning on community (in all its multiple meanings) and on faculty, as well as on particular higher education institutions, is also likely to play a significant role in future investigations of service learning. Of most significance for composition studies, however, will be the expanded role of qualitative research. As questions shift from "does service learning work?" to "how does service learning work?", methodological approaches will shift and yield new insights into teaching and learning.
694	Ball, Kevin and Amy Goodburn. "Composition Studies and Service Learning: Appealing to Communities?" Composition Studies 28.1 (2000): 79–94. Although much of composition's literature on service learning calls for reciprocity and community empowerment, the value of service learning is still primarily argued to a peer/professional audience, rather than to the community or public being served. Furthermore, neither the learning of community participants, nor the impact such learning has on service learning's value in the classroom, is represented in most professional literature on service learning. Community perspectives as well as all participants' experiences, not just students' and teachers', in service learning endeavors might be integrated more fully into service learning curricula by conducting community problem-solving dialogues, as described by Linda Flower, and by assigning students research projects that ask them not only to study the community contexts in which they will be working but also to include community participants' perspectives in their papers and reflections.
695	Cooper, David D., and Laura Julier. "Democratic Conversations: Civic Literacy and Service-Learning in the American Grains." Writing the Community: Concepts and Models for Service-Learning in Composition. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education, 1997. 79–94. [690]. In a service learning composition course called Public Life in America, students examine what it means to be a member of a community and a citizen in a democracy and ask how civic, religious, economic, and social traditions shaped moral life in America. They read works by civic writers such as Jefferson, King, and Dorothy Day, study civic problems such as inequality and prejudice, and analyze the many outlets for political persuasion that flood citizens with information and propaganda. For their service work, students engage in writing projects for nonprofits in the area. Research papers focus on local issues of civic importance such as civil rights cases and include surveys, interviews, and attending public meetings. Quite often, as a result of this work and their growing ability to write for public agencies, students engage in the civic debate on the issues they are studying and thus participate in the search for solutions to problems. In this process, the vocabulary of democracy comes alive, students gain both academic discourse skills and civic literacy, and they begin themselves to participate in the conversation that constitutes democracy.
696	Deans, Thomas. Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition. Urbana: NCTE, 2000. The works of John Dewey and Paulo Friere provide a theoretical framework for setting up community writing initiatives. Such initiatives can be categorized according to where the primary learning takes place, which literacies (workplace, academic, critical, and hybrid) are privileged, and which discourses (academic, workplace, and hybrid) are most highly valued. Whether writing for, with, or about the community (the three classifications in the taxonomy of community writing paradigms), community based composition courses emphasize experiential learning, community work paired with academic study, community outreach experiences blended with research and writing projects, and a commitment to investigating social justice and community problems through writing and rhetoric.
697	Ervin, Elizabeth. "Learning to Write with a Civic Tongue." Blundering for a Change: Errors and Expectations in Critical Pedagogy. Eds. John Paul Tassoni and William H. Thelin. Portsmouth, N.H.: Boynton/Cook-Heinemann, 2000. 144–57. Errors can serve useful heuristic functions. When considered as honestly and generously as student errors, teacher/researcher errors can prompt the necessary reflection and action that lead to new understandings. If service learning is to be the micro-revolution many enthuse it can be, those who practice it and record their practices must straightforwardly own up to their blunders. Only by revealing the "messy realities" of pedagogy can teachers truly practice teaching that is both radical and democratic.
698	Flower, Linda and Shirley Brice Heath. "Drawing on the Local: Collaboration and Community Expertise." Language and Learning Across the Disciplines 4.3 (October 2000): 43–55. Service learning initiatives should work toward creating relationships that respect, nurture, and draw on local expertise. In doing so, however, student and faculty participants in service learning face the problem of not only hearing local expertise, but also of constructing an understanding of that expertise that has the power to change the participants themselves and the communities they encounter. The "rival hypotheses" that develop from a community problem-solving dialogue suggest that sustainability in service learning initiatives requires more than good intentions. Sustainability also requires stepping out of one's own discourse and framework as well as off campus; and reciprocity must come in multiple forms: recognition of a community institution's history and contributions, commitment to a relationship beyond the single semester parameter, and a respect for community expertise that shows itself via engaged dialogue.
699	Herzberg, Bruce. "Community Service and Critical Teaching." CCC 45 (October 1994): 307–19. Rpt. in Writing the Community. Ed. Linda Adler-Kassner et al. [690]. Rpt. in Critical Literacy in Action. Ed. Ira Shor and Caroline Pari [387]. Students in service learning courses who go into the community as volunteers are performing needed work. Moreover, they report a heightened sense of the reality of homelessness and need. But their perceptions of these problems tend to be personal rather than social and systemic. They see illiteracy, for example, as the consequence of not studying hard enough. Band-aid volunteer work thus masks the causes of social problems. Service learning must promote critical analysis and social change: Students must therefore do more than write about their experiences. Studying and writing about social forces and how they operate through institutions like schools challenges their long-held beliefs in meritocracy and individualism, but finally leads to deeper reflection on the nature of the problems they see in their community-service work.
700	Herzberg, Bruce. "Service Learning and Public Discourse." JAC 20.2 (Spring 2000): 391–404. Those who contend that the composition course is truly about rhetoric and civic virtue, and about public discourse as well as academic, need to develop convincing conceptualizations about the connections between society and the academy. One approach in a service-learning course asks students to write research papers that draw on their experiences in service projects. However, while this approach enables a deeper understanding of the issues, it does not lead students into an exploration of the gap between academic research and public policy. Students need both academic discourse and public discourse; they need to practice both and to find a way to bring academic knowledge to bear in public argument. One way students can do this in a service learning course is to identify a number of ways to go public with their community service-related academic research Ñphone calls, letters, personal appearances, Web postings, interactive Web pages, fliers, demonstrations, tee-shirts, running for office, seeking organizations, and establishing organizations are some ways Ñand then to examine the rhetorical characteristics of these forms and choose one through which to go public with their arguments. This exercise teaches students to make use of arguments that they develop in academic research papers; it sharpens their awareness of the purposes of different forms, and it enables them to better recognize rhetorical dimensions of both academic and public discourse.
701	Huckin, Thomas N. "Technical Writing and Community Service." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 11 (January 1997): 49–59. Technical-writing courses have long sent students off campus to do projects in businesses, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations. These projects successfully motivate students, help them learn audience awareness and collaboration, and develop project management skills. In addition to these benefits, students in service learning courses develop civic awareness and help the larger community. Agencies with technical writing needs abound. Instructors should, however, work with each agency to define the project clearly, establish goals, and assure agency support. Small groups for each project work well. Students will need to learn on-site consulting skills, such as interviewing. Once projects are under way, students should work independently, producing progress reports and meeting with the instructor, though full-class meetings may not be necessary every week. The instructor should monitor the projects for quality control and maintain contact with the agencies. Civic education, a major benefit, requires classroom reflection periodically and at the end of the semester. Such a course prepares technical writers for a life of active citizenship.
702	Peck, Wayne Campbell, Linda Flower, and Lorraine Higgins. "Community Literacy." CCC 46 (May 1995): 199–222. The Community Literacy Center, a collaboration between a Pittsburgh settlement house and Carnegie Mellon, seeks to foster literacy as action and reflection. It promotes collaborative, intercultural efforts to write public texts as a form of community action. Unlike cultural literacy, which seeks to build community by minimizing difference, and unlike social critique, which seeks community through ideological struggle, community literacy seeks alternative discourses that promote social change, intercultural conversation, inquiry, and strategic rhetoric. Community literacy approaches difference with the goal of negotiating meanings as a way of responding to conflicts. In the CLC collaboration, CMU student mentors do not work to "improve" community residents' writing or help them "find their own voice." Their approach instead is rhetorical: finding ways to use writing as a tool in a literate transaction. This process, to be successful, requires intercultural conversation, problem-solving, and negotiation. Several examples illustrate the successes of the community literacy approach.
703	Roswell, Barbara. "Service-Learning and Composition: Towards an Engaged Academy." Reflections on Community-Based Writing Instruction 1.3 (Winter 2000): 1–7. Students should learn that their education is not simply for their own personal growth or gain, that they are members of communities, and that what they do and learn can benefit fellow citizens as well as themselves. Service learning increases students' concepts of the social and personal significance of the skills which composition teaches, and can heighten students' awareness of their own sense of themselves as agents of change. Service learning courses underscore a dual responsibility: to develop effective learning strategies and to promote meaningful, productive change. To live up to both responsibilities, service learning courses should involve long-term partnerships, rather than placements that change from term to term.
704	Schutz, Aaron, and Anne Ruggles Gere. "Service Learning and English Studies: Rethinking 'Public' Service." CE 60 (February 1998): 129–48. If students in service-learning composition courses are not gaining a critical social perspective from their service work, as some have complained, the problem may be that one-on-one work such as tutoring—a frequent type of project—naturally emphasizes a model of "caring" over a model of public policy advocacy. The "caring" approach focuses on the needs of the individual being served and displaces engagement with larger social dimensions. To gain a more public perspective, tutors would need a connection to the tutee's larger community. Students are, however, already connected to a community that they can serve: the campus. In on-campus service and research projects, students explore social and political forces and are participants in the policy issues they investigate. Writing projects can contribute to the local public debate on the issue. Moreover, in such projects, students are not "experts" serving others; they are, rather, relative equals seeking to define a public space and take social action to benefit a community of which they are a part.