<p> Response to Nine Criteria for Designation of Service-Learning Classes</p><p>ENGL 102: English Composition Sarah Bosarge Spring 2001 sections 06/10 English Annex 426-4212 [email protected]</p><p>1. Students in the class provide a needed service to individuals, organizations, schools, or other entities in the community. </p><p>Students in English 102 will use their service experience as a source of information for writing about issues in our community. Agency partners who address educational, environmental, health, and economic issues in the community will define their own needs based on the experience and abilities of student volunteers. The particular type of service is not limited by the goals of the course. </p><p>2. The service experience relates to the subject matter of the course.</p><p>English 102 is a required course meant to teach students to think critically about and respond in writing to information from various sources within and without the university. The course is designed with the philosophy that purposeful academic inquiry is best accomplished when students have a personal investment in the inquiry. The course utilizes “problem-posing” and “experiential” methods to facilitate inquiry, with the service experience being the primary example of those methods. Service learning facilitates academic inquiry by providing a concrete context for abstract ideas. </p><p>Specifically, E102 focuses on research based writing. This course will incorporate the “writing about” service model, where the service provided is not the writing itself, but rather the service informs the thinking and writing done in the class.</p><p>3. Activities in the class provide a method or methods for students to think about what they learned through the service experience and how these learnings related to the subject of the class. </p><p>Students will be required to keep a reflective journal of their service experience. Students will be expected to make connections between the service experience and class readings and demonstrate those connections in small group discussions and written responses. The service experience will serve as a source of information for the main course requirement, an exploratory research essay of 8-10 pages. The service experience represents one “voice” that students are expected to place into dialogue with other voices including class readings, academic research, and personal experience.</p><p>4.The course offers a method to assess the learning derived from the service. Credit is given for the learning and its relation to the course, not for the service alone. </p><p>Students will be awarded credit for their reflective journal, their written responses to assigned readings, and the assigned research papers. It is expected that the service experience will inform much of their writing for the course. Writing will be evaluated on the students’ demonstration of the minimum competencies for English 102 as defined by the University. It is expected that the service experience will facilitate the mastery of these competencies as explained in the answer to question two.</p><p>5.Service interactions in the community recognize the needs of service recipients, and offer an opportunity for recipients to be involved in the evaluation of the service. </p><p>As an instructor, I believe strongly in monitoring the relationships between my students and service recipients. I will contact agency representatives personally to ensure that lines of communication are established between them and myself. I will meet with students individually throughout the semester to ensure that the service experience is positive and successful. I will ask for agency feedback on the success of the course from their perspectives. I will require that students use acceptable, ethical processes (such as those defined by the university’s human subject research board) for representing agencies and service recipients in their papers including attributing sources, asking for permissions to use information, and offering a means for agencies to respond to student writing. </p><p>6. The service opportunities are aimed at the development of the civic education of students even though they may also be focused on career preparation.</p><p>The course does not focus on preparation for any specific career. It is the philosophy of this instructor that critical thinking is a necessary skill in a democratic society. I expect that this course should not only teach students to ask questions, but to ask questions that foster an understanding of what it means to be part of a community.</p><p>7. Knowledge from the discipline informs the service experiences with which the students are involved. </p><p>The process of writing mirrors the processes of thinking and learning. In other words, college level writing should demonstrate college level thinking. The connection between service and writing should be organic. The students’ service experiences should inform their thinking and their writing, complicating and enriching both. </p><p>8.The class offers a way to learn from other class members as well as from the instructor. </p><p>The class attempts to create a “community of learners” through whole class and small group discussions, peer writing workshops, and individual and group presentations. Because the service experience will be evident in the thinking and writing students will be doing, they will have the opportunity to share their experiences in all of these activities.</p><p>9.Course options ensure that no student is required to participate in a service placement that creates a religious, political and/or moral conflict for the student. </p><p>Students have at ten agency options to choose from. Should a student have conflicts with all of the options presented, he or she may propose a service site that does not present a personal conflict. As a last resort, a student may choose an alternative research project (ethnography of a local subculture of the student’s choice) that does not require a service experience.</p>