In the last ten years, projects designated as “service-learning” experiences have become enormously popular. Unfortunately, that popularity has also led to a certain amount of confusion about what service-learning is. Service-learning is different from “community service.” At its core, it involves linking the subject of a class with work in a nonprofit community organization and… Continue reading Service-Learning at a Glance by Linda Adler-Kassner

Two problems catapulted Wendy Rihner into service learning: Hurricane Katrina’s destruction of Louisiana’s coast and the lack of context plaguing so many college composition courses. Rihner undertook a service-learning project with an English Composition II course in the spring of 2007 that radically changed her pedagogical philosophy. “Providing Context” discusses Rihner’s desire to provide her… Continue reading Providing Context: Service Learning in a Community College Composition Class by Wendy Rihner

Two years ago, I took a community-based service-learning course (required at CSUMB) that connected me with the Rural Development Center (RDC), a local small farm education program. The RDC teaches Spanish-speaking individuals and families how to start and manage their own organic farming businesses. It’s an incredible empowerment program here in the Salinas Valley where… Continue reading Terreno by Zachary Knapp

Based on the belief that students produce better writing when they are personally engaged in the writing topic, the University of Arizona’s Composition program is working to integrate service-learning into a variety of the courses it offers. Research to date suggests that composition students and instructors feel a greater sense of purpose and meaning when… Continue reading The Impact and Effects of Service-Learning on Native and Non-native English Speaking College Composition Students by Adrian Wurr

In the past few years, many English departments have welcomed the burgeoning area of service-learning into their curriculums, a development which Adler-Kassner, Cooks and Watters consider a “microrevolution” in the area of college-level composition (1). While compositionists have become increasingly thoughtful about different models for community-based writing – in Tom Deans’ schema, writing for, about… Continue reading Broadening the Community: Service-Learning Connections to the Writing Classroom by Risa P. Gorelick,

In the service-learning writing courses I teach at Wright State University, my academic goals seem simple. I want my students to improve their writing skills and to develop civic literacy. The special challenge of achieving these objectives begins to come into focus in defining civic literacy. In my courses, I define it as having the… Continue reading Juggling Teacher Responsibilities in Service-Learning Courses by Cathy Sayer

The State of Maryland requires students to complete 75 hours of service-learning in order to graduate from high school. The mandate also requires that preparation, action and reflection be part of that service. I am a ninth grade English teacher at Sherwood High School in Sandy Spring, MD and the school’s volunteer coordinator. I believe… Continue reading Infusing Service-Learning into the Language Arts Curriculum by Kathy A. Megyeri

This essay describes a series of assignments that I have used in Writing and Social Issues, a first-year writing course that features service-learning. These assignments should prove useful to those interested in the relationship between community-based writing instruction and first-year courses that focus on the student’s transition from high school to college. Link to Full… Continue reading Community-Based Writing Instruction and the First-Year Experience by Mary Vermillion

Reflections: What prompted CCCC to create a national service-learning committee? Deans: There were short-term and long-term goals. As for the short term, last spring Campus Compact issued a request for proposals to national disciplinary associations offering the possibility of grant money to support teaching and research in service-learning. A committee officially sanctioned by NCTE and… Continue reading CCCC Institutionalizes Service-Learning by Tom Deans

The article describes two service learning projects that engaged our Delgado Community College students in a sense of community that transcended their personal trials. A regional accrediting agency afforded local conference registrants the opportunity to participate in a Habitat for Humanity construction project; more than a hundred volunteered. What had been a diaspora of historical proportions… Continue reading What Then Must We Do by Nancy Richard

Community is a tricky word: although it often connotes an inclusive and harmonious collaborative space, too often it signifies a site of struggle and negotiation, an attempt to find a common framework for conflicting and seemingly contradictory impulses. One of the marks of those active in “community literacy studies,” “service-learning” and ‘”engaged scholarship” is the… Continue reading Reflections: Defining Community/Building Theories by Steve Parks

In the past fifteen years, American colleges and universities have embraced service-learning with active enthusiasm. Campus Compact, the national service learning organization of university presidents, began in 1985 with three members; today, it has almost 700 member campuses where students annually engage in an estimated 22 million hours of service activities linked to their academic… Continue reading “Welcome to Reflections” by Nora Bacon & Barbara Sherr Roswell

Carol Weinberg, who passed away this summer after a courageous battle with cancer, played a crucial role in preparing the soil for Reflections to grow and flourish. She was the first professor to hold the France-Merrick Chair of Service-Learning at Goucher College and was nationally recognized for the interdisciplinary service-learning senior capstone course she designed.… Continue reading Remembering Carol Weinberg by Megan Cooperman

Writing Partnerships is an unusual mix of enthusiasm and scruple. Thomas Deans writes as an advocate of service-learning in writing courses—and also as a scholar who explores a number of differing ways in which “service” is imagined as part of the work students do in the community and in the classroom. The result is a… Continue reading Review of Writing Partnerships by Joseph Harris

When service-learning educators of future generations look back at the development of the field, they may well point to three events at the turn of the century as watershed moments in service-learning research. In 1999, Janet Eyler and Dwight Giles published Where’s the Learning in Service-Learning?, drawing upon their own ambitious nationwide studies and dozens… Continue reading Setting the Course for Service-Learning Research by Nora Bacon

“Setting the Course for Service-Learning Research” | Nora Bacon “Hybrid Idioms in Writing the Community: An Interview with Ira Shor” | Hannah Ashley “Review of Writing Partnerships: Service-Learning in Composition by Thomas Deans” | Joseph Harris “Review of Charting A Hero’s Journey by Linda A. Chisholm” | Rachel Rigolino “Review of The Real World of… Continue reading Volume 2, Number 1, Fall 2001

Examination of the Compass Learning Community shows that service-learning, when integrated into first-year learning communities, expands each student s ability to determine a college major in an informed manner. The combination of a first-year writing course linked with an academic course in career discovery provided students with a variety of opportunities for experiential learning about… Continue reading Helping Undeclared Majors Chart a Course Integrating Learning Community Models and Service-Learning by Gerry McNenny

This paper describes methods to study the impact of service-learning on the writing performance of students in first-year college composition. Linguistic and rhetorical features commonly identified as affecting judgments of writing quality are compared to holistic essay ratings to assess the impact of different teaching and learning contexts on writing performance. Link to PDF

The authors argue that writing-intensive service-learning courses extend the lessons of first-year composition courses by teaching students how to understand and negotiate differences between the discourses of the academy and those of community-based organizations. While first-year writing courses lead students through successive approximations of a generalized academic discourse in the relative safety of the composition… Continue reading Confronting Clashing Discourses: Writing the Space Between Classroom and Community in Service-Learning Courses by Caryn Chaden, Roger Graves, David A. Jolliffe, Peter Vandenberg

“The Word On the Street: Public Discourse in a Culture of Disconnect” | Diana George “Confronting Clashing Discourses Writing the Space Between Classroom and Community in Service-Learning Courses” | Caryn Chaden Roger Graves, David A. Jolliffe, & Peter Vandenberg “Text-Based Measures of Service-Learning Writing Quality” | Adrian Wurr “Helping Undeclared Majors Chart a Course Integrating… Continue reading Volume 2, Number 2, Spring 2002

This article underscores the importance of examining community-based writing in practice. It traces the evolution of an “International Connections” service-learning project from a well-intentioned add-on to a thoughtful and critical component of a writing course. Distilling best practices from recent service-learning literature, the article concludes with a call for 1) integration of the service-learning project… Continue reading Tapping the Potential of Service-Learning Guiding: Principles for Redesigning Our Composition Courses by Cheryl Hofstetter Duffy

This article adopts the perspective of rhetorical theory to examine student, teacher, and client assessments of community service writing projects created by students in a technical writing course. The study compares both students’ and clients’ assessments of the benefits of the service-learning experience and the teacher’s and clients’ evaluations of the documents. It highlights significant… Continue reading In the Eye of the Beholder: Contrasting Views of Community Service Writing by Teresa M. Redd

This article compares ten English composition courses–six taught with traditional methodologies and four incorporating service-learning. Four instructors, each of whom taught both the traditional and service-learning versions of the composition courses, and one hundred twenty-eight students were involved in the study. The authors demonstrate that service-learning improves students’ attitudes toward civic engagement and social responsibility,… Continue reading Service-Learning Outcomes in English Composition Courses An Application of the Campus Compact Assessment Protocol by J. Richard Kendrick, Jr. & John Suarez

Is service-learning of value for community college students who have very limited time and who do not need to “be exposed” to the neighborhoods in which they live? Yes. Service-learning can be a vital bridge connecting community and college for students who frequently are the first of their family or friends to go to college,… Continue reading Keep it Real A Maxim for Service-Learning in Community Colleges by Michelle Navarre Cleary

Professor of Political Science and former Director of the Feinstein Institute for Public Service at Providence College, Rick Battistoni is a distinguished author in the field of political theory with a principal interest in the role of education in a democratic society. As Campus Compact’s Engaged Scholar for Civic Engagement, Battistoni has published a recent… Continue reading From Service-Learning to Service Politics: A Conversation with Rick Battistoni by Barbara Roswell

Bruce Herzberg is Professor and Chair of the Department of English at Bentley College. He is the author of several articles on service learning, including “Community Service and Critical Teaching,” published originally in CCC and reprinted in a number of anthologies, and “Public Discourse and Service Learning,” published in JAC . He is also the… Continue reading Community Service and Critical Teaching A Retrospective Conversation with Bruce Herzberg by Thomas Deans

“Tapping the Potential of Service-Learning: Guiding Principles for Redesigning Our Composition Courses” | Cheryl Hofstetter Duffy “In the Eye of the Beholder: Contrasting Views of Community Service Writing” | Teresa M. Redd “Service-Learning Outcomes in English Composition Courses: An Application of the Campus Compact Assessment Protocol” | J. Richard Kendrick, Jr. & John Suarez “Keep… Continue reading Issue 3, Vol 1, Winter 2003

In the midst of this unprecedented global pandemic, Reflections coeditors Laurie Grobman and Deborah Mutnick invite submissions for a special section in the Spring 2021 issue that document, analyze, and reflect on the impact of COVID 19 on existing community-engaged writing projects, partnerships, and communities, including the transformation of K-16 classrooms by remote instruction. The work of… Continue reading Call for Submissions for Spring 2021 Issue with Special Section on COVID-19 & Community Engaged Writing

Although conventional academic wisdom discourages young scholars from becoming involved in community-based work, the growing interest in service-learning and community literacy reflected in contemporary scholarship in composition and within the larger academy suggests that these are now viable paths to pursue throughout the trajectory of a scholarly career. Link to PDF

This article explores the collaborative experience of a university professor and the coordinator of a local hate crimes project as we developed and taught a service-learning course on public dialogue. We begin by describing dialogic communication and suggest that it can be integrated into other forms of public discourse, such as deliberation and advocacy, in… Continue reading The Promise of Public Dialogue in Service-Learning Courses by Shereen G. Bingham and Patrick T. McNamara

My experiences teaching a service-learning composition class entitled Writing Women Safe that dealt with sexual violence against women point to a missing link between course content and community-based activism. Students in my all-female class wrote about and discussed the reality of rape, sometimes in the context of their own lives. However, for all the real talk… Continue reading Absent Voices: Rethinking Writing Women Safe by Jessica Restaino

While community literacy and service-learning are now established areas within the larger field of Composition and Rhetoric, I have been in the field long enough to remember when these were new areas – a not so long ago period where what counted as “scholarship” and “appropriate sources” was still very much in flux. During this… Continue reading Reflections: Bridging the Gap (Editorial) by Steve Parks

This paper reports the process and outcomes of a multidisciplinary service-learning project in a major metropolitan area in southwestern Indiana that focuses on determining, then meeting, the needs of our growing Latino/a population. We discuss three service-learning courses involved with this project – one completed, one in progress, and one being planned. Deploying a theoretical… Continue reading Intercultural Dialogue and the Production of a Rhetorical Borderland: Service-Learning in a Multicultural and Multilingual Context by Dominic Micer, David Hitchcock, and Anne Statham

“Moving Out/Moving In: A Multidisciplinary Exploration of the Immigrant Experience” is a service-learning course created and taught by Mirta Tocci in the Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College in Boston, MA. Tocci describes the five-year history of her collaboration with community partner, lnquilinos Boricuas en Acci6n, focusing on how Emerson students’… Continue reading Moving Out/Moving In by Mirta Tocci

This article examines what it means when a university makes a multifaceted commitment to migration, taking note of both what can be accomplished through such a commitment and what tensions remain. At Fairfield University, engagement with migration is expressed in the curriculum, service-learning projects, faculty research, and in efforts to influence the national debate on… Continue reading I Was a Stranger’: Creating a Campus-Wide Commitment to Migration by Betsy A. Bowen

The erosion of Indigenous food systems as part of European and Euroamerican colonization has resulted in a parallel erosion of Indigenous health, lands, and cultural knowledge. In rural southeastern North Carolina, residents of Robeson County are primarily Lumbee Indians who have been impacted by economic, ecological, and health concerns resulting from colonialism’s historical legacy, even… Continue reading More ‘Native’ To Place’: Nurturing Sustainability Traditions through American Indian Studies Service Learning by Jane Haladay

While service learning can be compatible with feminist objectives, if the service does not contribute to structural change or help students understand their role in facilitating change, it can replicate patriarchal goals and run counter to feminism (Ludlow). In this article, we show the way we utilized a feminist lens when designing and implementing a… Continue reading Service Learning as Social Justice Activism: Students Help a Campus Shift to Bystander Awareness by Irene Lietz & Erin Tunney

In spite of the growing embeddedness of service-learning programs in American higher education and the increasing publication of scholarship and professional resources on the subject, there remains a dearth of textbooks for students enrolled in service-learning courses and experiences. This lack of published instructional material owes historically to the localized and curriculum-specific nature of service… Continue reading Review of Service-Learning in Technical and Professional Communication by Melody Bowdon and J. Blare Scott, reviewed by Chris Anson

Service-learning pedagogies attempt to bridge the often-distant realms of work in the academy with that of the surrounding community. However, in practice, a true partnership among stakeholders can be challenging to achieve. For this project, I invited three former students and the director of a local non-profit to partner with me in an important aspect… Continue reading Advancing Campus-Community Partnerships: Standpoint Theory and Course Re-Design by Ashley J. Holmes

This article makes two arguments. First, the article argues that threshold concepts provide a useful lens for thinking about how faculty learn service-learning pedagogy. Second, the article illustrates how particular kinds of support can help faculty learn the pedagogy’s threshold concepts by helping them make sense of the challenges they face in teaching through service-learning.… Continue reading Transforming Failures into Threshold Moments: Supporting Faculty through the Challenges of Service-Learning by Jaclyn M. Wells

This essay explores student-authored ethnographies written by undergraduates in four sections of a service-learning course taught at Wayne State University in Detroit. I argue that the introductory sections of students’ ethnographic narratives provide particular insights into the relationship between the service experience, ethnographic inscription, and student subjectivities. Following a discourse analysis of student writing, I… Continue reading Into the Field: The Use of Student-Authored Ethnography in Service-Learning Settings by Thomas Trimble

Most discussions of service-learning focus on the potential pitfalls of working with students who inhabit relatively privileged positions. While this crucial concern deserves attention, it has limited our focus by encouraging students to cross borders, to encounter people different from themselves rather than to encounter something different within themselves or within their own communities. This… Continue reading Writing Home or Writing As the Community: Toward a Theory of Recursive Spatial Movement for Students of Color in Service-Learning Courses by Terese Guinsatao Monberg

Rhetoric and composition now has a history of teaching, research, and engagement with communities. We also have a number of terms for describing this work, each with its own history: community literacy and service learning are but the two most common. The historical roots that led to community literacy have also yielded shoots of growth… Continue reading Writing Theories / Changing Communities: Introduction by Jeffrey T. Grabill & Ellen Cushman

Welcome to another issue of Reflections. We are particularly pleased to begin the issue interviewing Steve Parks, someone who the editors have worked with for a number of years. Given we have a couple of articles focused on graduate student experiences with community projects and service-learning, we thought asking Steve Parks to reflect on this… Continue reading Editor’s Introduction by Cristina Kirklighter

We focus on the long-term impacts of service-learning pedagogy on an oft-overlooked assessment group: graduate instructors. We describe the civic engagement program we participated in as graduate student teachers, the Chicago Civic Leadership Certificate Program, and we illustrate how our early experiences with community-based pedagogies led to formative and long-term impacts on our approaches to… Continue reading Designing the Future: Assessing Long-Term Impact of Service-Learning on Graduate Instructors by Caroline Gottschalk Druschke, Megan Marie Bolinder; Nadya Pittendrigh, Candice Rai

We focus on the long-term impacts of service-learning pedagogy on an oft-overlooked assessment group: graduate instructors. We describe the civic engagement program we participated in as graduate student teachers, the Chicago Civic Leadership Certificate Program, and we illustrate how our early experiences with community-based pedagogies led to formative and long-term impacts on our approaches to… Continue reading Mad Women on Display: Practices of Public Rhetoric at the Glore Psychiatric Museum by Lauren Obermark & Madaline Walter

For five years of graduate school, I avoided studying disability because I thought it would require confronting the idea that I have a disability. I was first introduced to disability studies during my master’s coursework. I mustered the courage to take the course on disability because deep down, I knew that this thing I was… Continue reading Why Study Disability? Lessons Learned from a Community Writing Project by Annika Konrad

Deadline January 10, 2020 Reflections seeks submissions for Volume 20, Issue 1, Spring 2020—a special issue marking the journal’s 20th anniversary. Reflections was the first journal in the field of composition and rhetoric to provide a venue for publishing research and commentary by scholars and community partners on what was then known as “service learning”… Continue reading Call For Submission: Reflections Is Turning 20! Volume 20, Issue 1, Spring 2020 (Closed)

This article analyzes the importance of conversation employed by students working with community stakeholders in a civic writing seminar. Acknowledging Lloyd Bitzer’s seminal work on the rhetorical situation and Burke’s concept of identification provides a strong background of the students’ understanding of the civic sphere; however, medieval rhetorician Madeleine de Scudéry’s (1683) provocative treatise, “On… Continue reading Plowing Fertile Ground in Farmville: Acknowledging a Rhetoric of Conversation by Heather Lettner-Rust

Many community stakeholders are experiencing increased pressure to enter the digital arena in order to be heard by new audiences, but many such stakeholders lack the technical expertise to do so. To meet this demand, some service-learning teachers are turning to digital media production as a new method of service. This approach to a service-learning… Continue reading Helping to Build Better Networks: Service-Learning Partnerships as Distributed Knowledge Work by Guiseppe Getto, Kendall Leon, and Jessica Getto-Rivait