RE: SL and composition

Veronica, 

I direct our service learning office at Azusa Pacific University, and also
teach one section of Freshman Writing in the fall. I've tried a few
different things for incorporating service learning into the writing, and
found one this year that I think worked fairly well.  I followed the
Stanford idea of providing a service of writing for non-profit agencies, so
that the students would be writing something for an audience other than me,
and something that would actually be useful to the community.    

Following are the service learning projects they completed:  One group
re-wrote a volunteer handbook for a crisis pregnancy agency. Another group
actually wrote and designed a website as well as a flyer and brochure for a
food distribution agency.  The third group wrote a newsletter for an
after-school tutoring group which was included in their next grant proposal.
The final group met and interviewed Alzheimer patients and wrote biographies
on their lives that are now posted on their doors to help the seniors
remember their past.  The students also had to write research papers on
their agency and the issues that those agencies addressed, and they gave
copies of those papers to the agencies as well. 

It was a rewarding project and the students enjoyed contributing their
writing talents as well as getting to know the different agencies.  I think
it was a different experience for them in that they were not serving in the
typical way, but it made their writing very real.  It was difficult to
calculate "hours" served, since much of their service was in the work of
research and writing.  I prefer to gauge effectiveness by what students
learned rather than specific time served, so in class we discussed what was
happening with their projects and what they were learning and struggling
with.  They also answered some specific questions in a journal and self-eval
format. We ended the class with a field trip to each of the four agencies,
so the students were able to see where their fellow students had served and
how the writing was being used.  We ended it with a group dinner.  That
class really got a sense of the community around them, and gained some
confidence in their writing ability.  

My advice would be to work with both student and agency to find appropriate
writing tasks, and have the student keep a careful track of how many hours
they are putting into their research and writing.  If I do it again, I would
also have my students spend some time in the more traditional service at
those agencies in order to get a feel for the service it provides.  

Hope that gives you some ideas. . .

Joy Bianchi Brown
Director, Office of Community Service Learning
Azusa Pacific University
901 E Alosta Ave
Azusa CA 91702
626.815.6000 x3780
jbbrown@apu.edu


-----Original Message-----
From: Veronica Ros [mailto:var1@axe.humboldt.edu]
Sent: Monday, December 13, 1999 1:58 PM
To: SERVICE LEARNING NETWORK
Subject: SL and composition


Hello!

   I'm currently a graduate student in the MATW (masters in teaching
writing) program at HSU.  I teach one section of freshman composition,fall
semester being my first, and next semester I will attempt to incorporate
service learning into my course.  I will teach the the standard three-unit
course with the addition of one or two extra units that would help reflect
the community service component.  The extra units would be
project-dependent, reflectling the weekly time commitment.  I am curious if
anyone has done anything similar, and if so, has anyone run into any
problems evaluating the amount of work for units.

   I would also be curious if anyone who does integrate service learning as
an ongoing part of the semester curricullum for a freshman comp. course
would like to exchange any ideas...or offer friendly advice to someone who
has been criticized as overly ambitious.

   To my surprise, I have found a lot of published resources to aid in my
course design,  but perhaps the most valuable advice is what doesn't get
published.

   I'll give a more detailed description about my plans for the course to
those that are interested (I just deleted a paragraph that I realized may
be quite irrelevant to many and I will now stop blabbing).

Thank you
--Veronica