Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning [1 ed.] 9781623965013, 9781623964993

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Service-Learning in Literacy Education Possibilities for Teaching and Learning

Service-Learning in Literacy Education Possibilities for Teaching and Learning Edited by Valerie Kinloch

The Ohio State University

and Peter Smagorinsky

The University of Georgia

Information Age Publishing, Inc. Charlotte, North Carolina • www.infoagepub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data CIP data for this book can be found on the Library of Congress website http://www.loc.gov/index.html Paperback: 978-1-62396-499-3 Hardcover: 978-1-62396-500-6 E-Book: 978-1-62396-501-3

Copyright © 2014 IAP–Information Age Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or by photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. Printed in the United States of America

Dedicated to our parents, Virginia and Louis Kinloch, and Margaret and Joseph Smagorinsky, who taught us the value of service.

CONTENTS Introduction Peter Smagorinsky and Valerie Kinloch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix PART I: SERVICE-LEARNING IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES 1. Transformative Service-Learning Initiatives in Urban Schools and Communities: Learning From Challenges Emily Nemeth, Tamara Butler, Valerie Kinloch, Tori Washington, and Pamela Reed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2. Garden in a Vacant Lot: Growing Thinkers at Tree House Books Darcy Luetzow, Lauren Macaluso, and Eli Goldblatt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 3. From San Francisco to Senegal: A Case Study of International Service-Learning Partnership Development Dale Allender . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45 4. An Authentic, Curriculum-Based Approach to Service-Learning Meghan B. Thornton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 PART II: SERVICE-LEARNING IN TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION 5. Service-Learning in an Alternative School as Mediated Through Book Club Discussions Peter Smagorinsky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 vii

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6. Service-Learning and the Field-Based Literacy Methods Course Michael Moore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 7. Service-Learning and the Role of “Teacher”: An Initiative Working With Homeless Youth Heidi Hallman and Melanie Burdick . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 8. From Service-Learning to Learning to Serve: Preparing Urban English Teachers to be Organic Intellectuals David E. Kirkland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 9. Supporting Service-Learning Tutoring Partnerships for English Learners in School, Community, and Course Settings Paul H. Matthews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 PART III: SERVICE-LEARNING IN THE HUMANITIES 10. Service-Learning and Distance: Sustainability in Traditional and Organic Service-Learning Relationships Lorelei Blackburn and Ellen Cushman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177 11. Partnership Service-Learning Between Maya Immigrants and the University: Searching for a Path to Maya Children’s Success in the Schools Alan LeBaron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 12. Service-Learning in English Comp: Connecting Academic Studies With Real Life Maria Mikolchak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 13. ENLACE: A Service-Learning Model for Latina/o Students Federico Marquez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 About the Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

INTRODUCTION P. SMAGORINSKY V. KINLOCH PeterAND Smagorinsky and Valerie Kinloch

In the summers of 2005 and 2007, the National Council of Teachers of English’s Conference on English Education (CEE) sponsored Summit meetings of CEE leaders and award winners through which a vision and mission for English educators were discussed, articulated, and eventually published (CEE, 2005, 2007; Miller & Fox, 2006). In their introductory essay to the July, 2006, issue of English Education, the 2005 summit organizers, Suzanne Miller and Dana Fox, outline challenges that the field should undertake in the wake of the first summit, including, “How might endeavors such as teacher research or service-learning provide a framework for methods course or field experience design?” (p. 269). Remarkably, amidst the many robust discussions and insights produced through these meetings—summits designed to lay the foundation for how English educators undertake their preparation of teachers in the decades ahead— Miller and Fox’s question is the only occasion in all of the postsummit documents on which service-learning is mentioned. This book is designed to fill this gap, making a case for considering the role of service-learning experiences in public school and community-based programs, in students’ preservice teacher education curricula, and in the humanities. Service-learning is a distinctive component of an educational program in formal and informal settings that, according to the Learn and Serve Clearinghouse: integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities.… The core concept driving this educational strategy is that by

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. ix–xxiii Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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P. SMAGORINSKY and V. KINLOCH combining service objectives and learning objectives, along with the intent to show measurable change in both the recipient and the provider of the service, the result is a radically effective transformative method of teaching students. (Learn and Serve Clearinghouse, n.d.)

The idea behind centering service-learning in students’ academic experiences is that, in conjunction with classroom-based instruction, students are involved in a defined community-based project that simultaneously contributes to the quality of local people’s lives and provides unique, often transformative experiences for students who engage in the service. The service-learning experience therefore lacks the sense of noblesse oblige that might follow from typical community giving such as conducting food drives for economically disadvantaged people during holiday seasons, volunteering at a neighborhood nonprofit organization, or otherwise helping people without learning from them, with them, or even, as is often the case, meeting them. Central to a service-learning experience is the reciprocal relationship developed with the recipients of service such that students, through engagement with local people’s lives, learn something essential to their education through their practical experience with the community members. The hyphenation of the term “service-learning” is less a means of punctuation than a semiotic indicator of the two-way flow of service and learning in a service-learning relationship. The scope, extent, and conduct of service-learning projects are limited only by the imaginations of people who seek to implement them. They might be instituted in any field of study; the main criterion is that the experience both provides service to people whose own resources might limit their opportunities, and complements students’ formal education with instructive experiences that enhance their classroom learning with practical involvement in the issues under discussion in class. In the arena of teacher education, service-learning is distinct from field experiences. Field experiences: serve a number of purposes for teacher candidates. They provide a process through which candidates develop a new relationship to the classroom. They expose candidates to the widest possible variety of students, teachers, schools, and communities. They allow candidates to observe many different teaching styles, and to begin to develop their own teaching “voice” through active participation in the classrooms and other learning sites they visit. (CEE Position Statement, 2005, n.p.)

Field experiences are thus different from service-learning in a number of ways. First, field experiences tend to be specifically oriented to classroom observation and assistance, while service-learning may take place in

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any community setting and typically involves more engaged activity than observation. Second, field experiences are designed to give teacher candidates exposure to school as presently conducted and models to draw from based on these observations; they are, in many ways, assimilative in design. Service-learning in contrast may have a more subversive goal, such as understanding students’ lives outside school as a way to change schools to accommodate a broader range of student participation. Finally, service-learning explicitly endeavors to promote an ethic of giving, of viewing formal education as a vehicle for improving not only one’s own prospects in life, but also for addressing social inequities and contributing to stronger communities overall, especially those in one’s immediate surroundings. Our contention in this book is that service-learning can comprise a strong component of students’ educational experiences that range from partnerships that are formed across public schools and community organizations (Part I of this book), to preservice teaching and teacher education (Part II of this book), to humanities instruction (Part III of this book). As the chapters in this book demonstrate, service-learning engagements can and should uniquely involve teachers, teacher candidates, youth, and community partners in work that spans schools/universities and community settings. This type of service-learning experience is typically designed to engage participants in some crucial aspects of community life that are not otherwise explicitly highlighted in public school curricula, in teacher education programs, in university-level humanities coursework, or in conventional school-based practica. We recognize in making this assertion that teacher education programs, in particular, and the courses that support these programs (humanities and English courses), in general, are already overloaded with responsibilities from certification agencies and often have difficulty meeting their existing requirements, much less accommodating new ones, often those imposed by NCATE (National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education). Indeed, NCATE has issued a new edict concerning the relative value of field experiences and university classroom instruction in preparing students to become teachers. NCATE president James G. Cibulka observes that “In the past, accreditation wrapped clinical experience around coursework. The new approach will reverse the priority, encouraging institutions to place teacher candidates in more robust clinical experiences, and wrap coursework around clinical practice” (2009, p. 2). As an example of this “robust clinical preparation, including educator preparation in school settings,” he describes The Tennessee Board of Regents Teacher Education Redesign, which “eliminates traditional university classroom seat time for teacher candidates, streamlining these experi-

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ences into participatory, student directed learning in authentic school settings” (p. 4; emphasis in original). NCATE’s newest priorities thus view the need to indoctrinate teacher candidates into existing school practices as far more important than the opportunity to participate in “seat time” in universities where such practices might be critiqued or otherwise interrogated. In our view, such a shift in priorities decreases the importance of whatever ideas might be developed in universities regarding the conduct of schooling or community literate life and abrogates responsibility for engaging in useful critique of those practices that, in the view of many, are problematic. Students instead are socialized into traditional educational practice as part of their university experience, limiting the roles of instructors in teacher education, in humanities, and in English courses to that of placement conduit and symbolic rather than substantive educator. Rather than using a university teacher education program for instruction in alternative pedagogies or other ways of rethinking public education, NCATE sees schools as the most important sites of learning to teach, and is structuring their evaluations to reduce any influence that education, humanities, and/or English faculty might have on their students’ thinking or approaches to teaching. We contest this view because we believe that education, humanities, and English faculty members in Departments of English and Colleges of Education who are invested in students’ literacy practices and engagements have something to offer their students in addition to placing them in schools where they will learn how to fit in with or (not) challenge existing structures. We especially believe that teacher candidates can learn a lot about teaching by spending time in the sorts of sites that NCATE might consider to be wasteful and detrimental to their priority of socializing teacher candidates into conventional schooling as quickly and pervasively as possible. Some of these sites include urban communities (see Chapter 1), international settings (see chapter 3), homeless shelters (see Chapter 7), and, among other sites, Maya communities (see Chapter 11). We see powerful service-learning opportunities as one way to encourage students to learn about youth from youth themselves, rather than marinating them exclusively within conventional educational structures that, by so many accounts, serve students poorly (e.g., Darling-Hammond & Bransford, 2005). We make this argument with the recognition that many involved in teaching and teacher education are overburdened and underresourced. In many cases, one faculty member is responsible for teaching and supervising 50 candidates each year while being pressured to add CEE affiliates, National Writing Project sites, National Council of Teachers of English student affiliates, and other time-consuming, if admirable, com-

Introduction xiii

ponents to their programs. Our intent is not to add yet another onerous requirement to overtaxed faculty members. Rather, we intend to show how creating such programs has worked for us and to argue that, where feasible, they can add important dimensions not only to students’ preservice teacher education experiences, but also to experiences students have in their humanities courses, in public school settings, and in communitybased contexts.

SERVICE-LEARNING: WHAT IT IS Sources that have outlined the traits of effective service-learning initiatives (Butin, 2003; Ginwright & Cammarota, 2002; Hart, 2006; Maybach, 1996) have tended to focus on the following features: 1. Service-learning is based on a synthesis of hands-on, experiential learning and activities designed to serve a local community’s needs. As such, it often has a social justice emphasis, given that communities’ needs tend to be centered on their marginalized, or least advantaged, citizens. University-based service-learning projects dissolve the “town-gown” division between universities and schools and bring students—who might have had different life experiences from those of members within local “host” communities—into personal relationships with people who may expand their education to include attention to life’s grittiest realities. When undertaken in school settings, service-learning initiatives contribute to relationships between the school institution and the community it works with, often bringing its more privileged students in direct contact with its less privileged citizens in mutually enriching ways. 2. Service-learning should involve critical engagements that synthesize formal academic learning within the traditions of a discipline, and experiential learning through service-based activities. It thus addresses the criticism that university or school-sanctioned learning is primarily abstract and detached from real life experiences. Service-learning strives to provide a formal link between scholarly theories and research-based ideas and the everyday realities of community life. Given the empirical quality of service-learning experiences, they may also help students to critique formal academic theories that are not related to the challenges of everyday experiences in local or global communities. Although the degrees of service and learning may vary from initiative to initiative, we subscribe to the view suggested by the hyphenation in service-learning

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3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

that service and learning have equal weight, are reciprocally related, and assume that participants learn through service, and serve both to teach and to learn. Students engaged in service-learning activities have responsibilities that go beyond the typical student roles of being reactive, passive, and receptive. Rather, service-learning enables participants to have a voice in the conduct of the activities, given their groundlevel involvement in its implementation and potential for providing useful critique, reflection, and evaluation of the program structure. Students have ample opportunities to discuss their learning experiences during formal class discussions and other occasions for conversation that are designed to build on their perspectives, rather than to follow from the teacher or faculty member’s interests and priorities. A formal component for promoting student reflection on their learning should be included in service-learning curricula. These reflections may be entered in journals, on blogs, in formal course learning logs, or in other written medium; may be discussed during class or with the recipients and partners in the project; or may be produced through the composition of other sorts of reflective texts, such as artwork, creative writing, choreography, or other medium of expression and contemplation. Ideally, students’ reflections on their learning occur throughout the course of study, rather than only at the end; and they contribute to the faculty member’s evaluation of the course’s success. Service-learning often takes place during partnerships with community agencies. The partnership approach insures that the implementation is not hierarchically constructed to privilege the perspectives of schools or universities. Rather, there is mutual participation, influence, contribution, and benefit from the partnership. Toward that end, students involved in service-learning activities need to be clear on their responsibilities and to work within explicit guidelines and expectations so as to act respectfully in relation to their community partners. Service-learning is not solely the province of schools and universities. Instead, community-based partners have an equal say in the design, conduct, and evaluation of the project and its activities. Service-learning requires assessment, which might come through a review of participants’ reflections and feedback, feedback from partner networks, teacher and faculty assessment through site visits, formal evaluations provided by participants, and other means

Introduction xv

of continually taking stock of the degree to which the project is meeting its goals and to which those goals are appropriate in meeting all stakeholders’ needs. We find that this list is both very useful and not quite complete. As we have learned from recruiting, collecting, and editing the chapters in this book—and in writing our own contributions—undertaking a servicelearning initiative is not simply a matter of writing a curriculum and including these elements. Authors of the chapters in this book speak eloquently to the need for the development of personal relationships upon which to ground a successful service-learning initiative. This stage of the process tends to precede a project, although may be developed through the act of participation as well. What seems to make the service-learning projects that are outlined in this book work is the degree to which a teacher, teacher researcher, faculty member, or other initiator takes the time to develop relationships that enable partnerships to be productive and to endure beyond the enthusiastic launch. Perhaps that sort of relational emphasis is implied in the requirement of a partnership, and perhaps we underestimate it in this account. What we see the authors in this book describing, however, often involves a long-term effort to establish an effective program, one that likely experiences setbacks and obstacles that require a committed determination to overcome. Developing and sustaining relationships seem to be driving factors in developing a viable service-learning program, and the authors included here often ground their account of their initiative in a narrative that relates how their partnership came into being amidst challenges, often unanticipated. The rigors of this aspect of service-learning program development cannot be underestimated or, in our view, avoided.

INTRODUCTION TO THE CHAPTERS We next introduce the book, which we have divided into three sections, each focusing on a particular aspect of service-learning program development.

Service-Learning in Schools and Communities The opening section of the book focuses on service-learning initiatives that are occurring in school and community contexts with attention placed on the importance of reciprocal learning and collaborative partnerships.

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Emily Nemeth, Tamara Butler, Valerie Kinloch, Tori Washington, and Pamela Reed, open the book with, “Transformative Service-Learning Initiatives in Urban Schools and Communities: Learning From Challenges.” They describe how K-12 teachers in high-needs schools throughout Columbus, Ohio, are engaging students in service-learning initiatives by using academic knowledge to solve real-life problems in local urban communities. Long recognized as an effective way to motivate students, despite skepticism from some policymakers and administrators, servicelearning has been found to raise high school graduation rates, improve students’ attendance records, and encourage students to aspire to a college education. The project focuses on professional development opportunities for teachers in ways that seek to build a culture of service-learning throughout the school district. Participating teachers are enrolled in a university-level graduate course and are encouraged to apply for minigrants that would support the implementation of their service-learning projects in the curricula and/or throughout their schools (e.g., servicelearning after-school clubs). This chapter uses a social justice and equity framework to describe pressing challenges (e.g., academic (under)preparation, student disengagement, etc.) confronted by countless teachers, administrators, and students in the local school district. The authors explain the genesis of the districtwide service-learning initiative, the course and professional development opportunities afforded to participating teachers, and some of the projects that students (across elementary, middle, and high school) designed and implemented with their teachers and community organizations. This chapter also includes a discussion of interviews with teachers and students, themes from teachers’ journal entries, and narratives of teacher and student frustration with mounting pressures to defund service-learning programs across the nation. Darcy Luetzow, Lauren Macaluso, and Eli Goldblatt provide their perspective on “Garden in a Vacant Lot: Growing Thinkers at Tree House Books.” Tree House Books is a neighborhood literary center located a few blocks from Temple University, a large, research-oriented university in Philadelphia that has traditionally drawn students from a wide variety of social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. In the chapter, they include multiple voices to tell the story of Tree House as they reflect the range of participants in this hopeful project where everyone learns and everyone teaches. Eli Goldblatt, an English professor at Temple University and a founding board member of Tree House, briefly describes the project for anyone who is interested in starting a partnership with a community group like Tree House. Darcy Luetzow, Tree House executive director from 2007-2012, introduces an interview with stakeholders Mike Reid, Sharon Turner, and Nyseem Smith. Lauren Macaluso, a recent graduate

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of Temple University’s journalism program and the new volunteer coordinator at Tree House, reflects on her experiences as a tutor in this small nonprofit in North Philadelphia. The chapter concludes with reflections from Goldblatt. Dale Allender writes about “Service-Learning Partnerships in Senegal,” based on his experiences with a 3-year service-learning commitment in Senegal. In this effort, faculty and administration of Lick-Wilmerding High School in San Francisco, California, sought to extend their relationships with their Senegal-based partners. Part of this new service iteration involved a consideration of with whom to partner in this endeavor; a second consideration concerned what the initiative should actually entail; and a third had to do with how to partner. Allender analyzes the negotiation process among partners when creating an international servicelearning project. The analysis considers the tensions of different servicelearning paradigms represented in discussions among partners interacting in the United States and Senegal. Ultimately, this study helps servicelearning stakeholders view the possibilities and pitfalls of different paradigms as applied to service-learning endeavors conducted with international partners. The final chapter in this section, Meghan Thornton’s “An Authentic, Curriculum-Based Approach to Service-Learning,” is written from a classroom teacher’s perspective in undertaking service-learning with her middle school students without the benefit of university patronage or other external means of support. Thornton explores how curriculum-based service-learning can help teachers provide students with an authentic experience and engagement with literature, while also challenging them to find deep meaning in nonfiction texts. After a thorough exploration of multimodal texts about both local and global community needs, she discusses how students developed their own service projects to be completed within the surrounding community or school. Through the completion of their service project, the creation of a website to educate others about the service, and presentations to peers, students were able to apply their literary education to an authentic purpose. Such an authentic curriculumbased service-learning unit increases student engagement by encouraging collaboration and inquiry, while also pushing students to find personal connections with texts and the world around them.

Service-Learning in Teaching and Teacher Education The next section of the book focuses on the institution of service-learning initiatives in university courses designed for teacher education.

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To open this section, Peter Smagorinsky writes about “Service-Learning in an Alternative School as Mediated Through Book Club Discussions.” This chapter describes a partnership between a university English Education program and the host city’s alternative school, a performance learning center. The author describes the genesis of the program in one student’s plea to her classmates to help a local immigrant community with donations, tutoring, and other forms of assistance. Efforts to replicate this plan were thwarted by resistance among university students in subsequent years to add this service-learning dimension to a course where it had no specific relation to the stated course focus. The chapter relates a narrative of how this frustration produced the development of a new course dedicated solely to the service-learning experience, accompanied by campusbased book club discussions centered on issues of diversity. The course motivation follows from the university’s exclusive student population of primarily White and relatively affluent students and their lack of experience with populations characterized by diversity of income, housing stability, race, social class, and other traits that they ultimately find in the schools where they find jobs. The dynamics and procedures of the course are outlined in detail, along with guidelines for how to institute such courses in similar sorts of university settings. Michael Moore provides an account of “Service-Learning and the Field-Based Literacy Methods Course.” Moore relates how a student question in a preservice early literacy development course led to a number of service projects over the next few years. The question was this: “If we really believe that beginning literacy experiences should occur in a variety of ways prior to kindergarten, then shouldn’t we be doing something about it?” This question led to the first of a number of service-learning projects conducted by students in successive terms of this course. No grades or credit were ever given for student involvement. Participation was entirely voluntary. Each term, Moore asked students individually, in pairs, or in small groups, to come up with ideas for their effort to improve literacy levels in the Statesboro, Georgia vicinity. The project was designed to serve children aged birth to pre-K and their families, and it had to involve literacy development as they had studied it in class. This chapter describes aspects of the work that emerged from the servicelearning experiences in the field based literacy methods course. In “Service-Learning and the Role of ‘Teacher’: An Initiative Working With Homeless Youth,” Heidi Hallman and Melanie Burdick next write about how service-learning sites assist beginning teachers in grappling with their emerging role of “teacher.” In the chapter, they highlight one prospective English teacher’s work with homeless youth as a way to understand how this teacher wrestled with concepts such as “learning” and “curricula” throughout his service-learning experience. Consequently,

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Hallman and Burdick explore how this teacher questioned the relationships among teachers, schools, and students, as well as the role that each plays in students’ learning. They urge teacher education programs to initiate service-learning experiences as methods of facilitating preservice teachers’ identity work early in their teaching careers. David E. Kirkland’s “From Service-Learning to Learning to Serve: Preparing Urban English Teachers as Organic Intellectuals,” provides a discussion of how teaching the discipline of English in urban contexts is daunting due, in part, to multiple, changing ecologies of languages, texts, and inequities that saturate urban landscapes (Kinloch, 2008; Kirkland, 2008; Morrell, 2008). As deep despair grips urban schools across the country, he argues, there is a need for English teachers willing to work with students to meet the demands of the day to transform urban conditions of hopelessness in ways that establish more fertile pastures of social and academic possibility. This challenge presents a powerful opportunity for teachers who want to transform unjust social conditions that blight urban schools and communities (cf. Fruchter, 2007; Noguera, 2003). In this context, service-learning can act as critical pedagogy, where new urban teachers learn to serve by working with students and textual tools in the city to amend a community’s thinking around conditions of plight, neglect, and achievement. Kirkland challenges us to consider this question: How can English teachers be prepared to enter classrooms and communities to inspire change as they become more effective teachers of students housed in such communities, ultimately to make new sense of a lost world and reclaim contested social, cultural, and educational space in need of revision (Morrell, 2008)? Paul H. Matthews follows with “Creating and Sustaining ServiceLearning Tutoring Partnerships for English Learners,” in which he provides a case study of the process of creating and working to sustain multiple related, but distinct, service-learning tutoring programs implemented collaboratively between university and community. These sites represented a cross-section of partners: public elementary schools, a local community library branch, a boys and girls club, and a religiously affiliated community center. Each collaborated with university service-learning efforts, including those coordinated by an outreach and research unit within the college of education, to engage university students with English learning and Latin@ children while simultaneously providing a pipeline of support for students whose educational experiences did not predict graduation. Situated in the context of the “new Latin@ South,” where education systems have been traditionally unprepared to respond to the influx of immigrant and English-learning students, the chapter highlights the processes, obstacles, and outcomes of the programs and the service-learning coursework built around these diverse programs.

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Service-Learning in the Humanities The final section of the book specifically focuses on issues of sustainability, learning, and civic engagement in service-learning initiatives in humanities-based classes. Lorelei Blackburn and Ellen Cushman, in “Sustainability at a Distance: Service-Learning Relationships Across Time and Place,” profile two service-learning courses they have developed across physical distances, while they and their students remain at their home institution of Michigan State University. Cushman describes a course she taught, “Writing in the Public Interest,” a project-based, professional writing class that relied on relationships the MSU Service-learning Center had developed within nonprofits in the Lansing area. Blackburn then discusses how she maintains relationships with a Ugandan-based nongovernmental organization, Bagwere Kusetuka Association, and how those relationships have opened opportunities for her professional writing students to engage with global community partners. They demonstrate the possibilities and challenges for geographically removed scholars and students to serve as bridges between communities and the academy. Using a praxis of new media framework (Cushman, 2006), they analyze a selection of student course projects. They show how students and professors who had personal relationships with members of partner organizations developed timely, appropriate materials for their associates in the field. They suggest a revision to Cushman’s new media framework that includes relationships and social networks that allow researchers and practitioners of service-learning to judge the outcomes of their service-learning projects and to design better programs. Next, Alan LeBaron describes “The Maya Heritage Community Project,” which began in 2001 as a class exercise where students and local Maya immigrants living in the Atlanta, Georgia, area joined together to hold a small conference on Maya history, language, and culture. This activity began a decade-long relationship of education and problemsolving based on reciprocity and respect. This chapter tells an important story of how the Maya Project and Pastoral Maya worked together between 2006 and 2008 to help parents assist their children succeed in schools. Problems included the low education and literacy levels of parents, and the fact that Maya children often speak little Spanish or English upon entering the schools, as they speak one of the Maya languages at home. Discussion follows on the role of the university in public policy engagement, the reasons behind the unsatisfactory results of the education program, and current efforts to start anew with revised methodology. Maria Mikolchak’s chapter, “English Composition and Service-Learning: Bringing Life to the Classroom,” describes her experiences as an instructor

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of undergraduate composition courses at St. Cloud State University that involved students in service-learning projects. She argues that service-learning has come a long way since it was practically unknown, until the mid1980s, as a pedagogical practice beyond a closed circle of practitioners. Today, service-learning still remains at the margins in many institutions of higher education, a point that propelled Maria to incorporate service-learning into her course offerings. Without much in the way of university support, she began to experiment with refining an undergraduate composition course by structuring it around service-learning experiences. The course, along with her students’ growing interest in working within the local community, led her to experiment with including service-learning in a variety of her other undergraduate courses. She worked to develop partnerships with students and local community groups that connected course goals with identified community needs. She discusses important pedagogical lessons she learned as she facilitated service-learning collaborations and relationships between students and local community partners. Federico Marquez closes the book with “Service-Learning and Civic Engagement: Pathway to Latin@ Immigrant Success Through Servant Leadership.” In 2004, Central New Mexico Community College, in partnership with Engaging Latino Communities for Education New Mexico, embarked on a project that prepared limited English Latin@ student parents to enhance their servant leadership and civic responsibility skills. The student parents participating in the project were enrolled in servicelearning through ESL courses. The lessons learned through the successful implementation of the project can be useful in developing future strategies to assist limited English Hispano/Latin@ community college students in the southwest border region of the United States (Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas). The strategies can also be generally implemented in other areas of the United States. For example, one initiative would involve junior-level university students enrolled in teacher preparation programs. Through service-learning participation, students can learn how to guide, academically prepare, and support a population that is often neglected and marginalized. The chapter provides strategies on using service-learning as a tool to train teacher educators and students to accept, guide, and academically prepare underrepresented limited English Hispan@s/Latin@s.

CONCLUSION AND TRANSITION TO THE CHAPTERS As a whole, the book contributes much to the field’s potential for undertaking service-learning initiatives at home and abroad, in education or in

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English studies, focused on learners from those just entering school to those well into adulthood, and supported by everything from fully funded projects to those launched with no budget whatsoever. The authors provide narratives of their difficulties in launching projects that work, suggesting that a good bit of persistence is required of those who seek to link students’ formal learning with their direct engagement with community citizens and their needs. They emphasize the relational nature of such efforts and the degree to which they have needed to be flexible, compromising, understanding, respectful, and engaged with the partners they enlist to launch and sustain their projects. Thus, the authors model not just a finished course of curricular integration, but also a process of taking on a service-learning disposition and doing the groundwork necessary to enable projects to work both for the educational institution and the community partners. They describe the pitfalls that await the novice service-learning instructor, the strategies they employed to move beyond the obstacles they encountered, and the ultimate decisions and practices through which they made their projects work. As such, this book provides more than models of success. It details the complex pathways that many have followed in diverse settings in order to realize the potential of their initial plans and hopes. As teachers, teacher researchers, and university professors involved in service-learning, we know of the satisfaction that we get from seeing our projects in action. We know that our projects did not work delightfully from the outset, but required several years of groundwork, preparation, piloting, and adjustment. The results have been extraordinarily satisfying, however. Our students emerge with a richness of learning that is simply not available when abstract scholarship is their sole medium of instruction. They must overcome their fear of “the other,” develop the courage and persistence to break through cultural barriers that they have yet to cross, and recognize that they have much to learn from their community’s least advantaged, or most marginalized, citizens. The learning that results from direct engagement with community members and in dialogue with source texts from the academic curriculum often contributes to profound changes in students’ (and our own) views of demographics that they (and we) may not have had previously learned to respect. At the same time, students come to take pride in the service that they have contributed to the community and alongside the community partners. They are able to both recognize and question the improvement that they have directly made in the lives of other people who are too often not centered in our curricula. We could not hope for much more from that in our own teaching, service, and research.

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REFERENCES Butin, D. W. (2003). Of what use is it? Multiple conceptualizations of service learning within education. Teachers College Record, 105(9), 1674-1692. CEE Position Statement. (2005). What do we know and believe about the roles of methods courses and field experiences in English education? Retrieved December 14, 2010 from http://www.ncte.org/cee/positions/roleofmethodsinee Cibulka, J. G. (2009). Meeting urgent national needs in P-12 education: Improving relevance, evidence, and performance in teacher preparation. Washington, DC: National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education. Retrieved July 5, 2009 from http://www.ncate.org/documents/news/White%20paper%20final% 206-15-09.pdf Conference on English Education. (2005). 2005 CEE Summit: Reconstructing English education for the 21st century. Retrieved June 25, 2012, from http:// www.ncte.org/cee/2005summit Conference on English Education. (2007). Reports from the 2007 CEE Summit. Retrieved June 25, 2012, from http://www.ncte.org/cee/2007summit Cushman, E. (2006). Toward a praxis of new media: The Allotment Period in Cherokee history. Reflections, 5(1-2), 111-132. Darling-Hammond, L., & Bransford, J. (2005). Preparing teachers for a changing world: What teachers should learn and be able to do. San Francisco, CA: JosseyBass. Fruchter, N. (2007). Urban schools, public will: Making education work for all children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Ginwright, S., & Cammarota, J. (2002). New terrain in youth development: The promise of a social justice approach. Social Justice, 29(4), 82-95. Hart, S. (2006). Breaking literacy boundaries through critical service-learning: Education for the silenced and marginalized. Mentoring and Tutoring, 14(1), 17-32. Kinloch, V. (2008). Writing in the midst of change. English Journal, 98(1), 85-89. Kirkland, D. E. (2008). “The rose that grew from concrete”: Postmodern Blackness and new English education. English Journal, 97(5), 69-75. Learn and Serve Clearinghouse. (n.d.) What is service-learning? Retrieved December 14, 2010, from http://www.servicelearning.org/what-service-learning Maybach, C. W. (1996). Investigating urban community needs: Service learning from a social justice perspective. Education and Urban Society, 28(2), 224-236. Miller, S. M., & Fox, D. L. (2006). Reconstructing English education for the 21st century: A report on the CEE summit. English Education, 38, 265-277. Morrell, E. (2008). Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation. New York, NY: Routledge. Noguera, P. A. (2003). City schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the promises of public education New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

PART I SERVICE-LEARNING IN SCHOOLS AND COMMUNITIES

CHAPTER 1

TRANSFORMATIVE SERVICE-LEARNING INITIATIVES IN URBAN SCHOOLS AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES Learning From Challenges E. NEMETH, T. Nemeth, BUTLER,Tamara V. KINLOCH, WASHINGTON, REED Emily Butler, T. Valerie Kinloch, AND P. Tori Washington, and Pamela Reed

INTRODUCTION What might transformative service-learning initiatives entail, and how might such initiatives contribute to increased teacher and student participation in local urban communities? In what ways can critical, transformative service-learning initiatives encourage public school teachers to engage creative pedagogies as one way to address prevailing negative educational discourses around urban students’ inability to perform well, if at all, in school spaces? How can service-learning—grounded in collaborative engagements, academic practices, and community needs—be

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 3–25 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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framed as critical pedagogy that centers social justice and equity work? And, how might transformative service-learning initiatives help teachers and students reimagine school and community as spaces where critical action, change, and learning intersect in powerful ways? The aforementioned questions frame the direction of this chapter on transformative service-learning initiatives in urban schools and local communities. In particular, they spark additional questions and concerns about the role played by service-learning in the academic and social lives of teachers and students who teach, learn, and serve in what many refer to as “high needs” spaces. Such spaces are described as underfunded public schools with high teacher turnover rates, urban communities that are often painted as blighted and dilapidated, and urban schools and communities that are written off as underperforming, failing, and poor. However one-sided and stereotypical, the pervasive image associated with “high needs” areas is that of Black and Brown poor and/or working-class people. With these vivid images in mind, it is important to examine how teachers and students in high needs areas are engaging in critical teaching and learning, and how such engagements lead to their active participation in transformative service-learning initiatives. Such engagements, as we argue, privilege the five generally recognized stages of servicelearning: investigation, preparation, action, reflection, and evaluation or demonstration (Butin, 2003; Kaye, 2010; Wade, 1997). In this chapter, we describe how two teachers in high needs schools in a large Midwestern school district are engaging students in service-learning initiatives by using academic knowledge to solve real-life problems in local urban communities. Despite skepticism from some educational researchers and policymakers (see Kaye, 2010), service-learning has been long recognized as an effective way to motivate students, raise high school graduation rates, improve students’ attendance records, and encourage students to aspire to a college education. Taking up a social justice and equity framework, this chapter describes the genesis of a districtwide service-learning initiative, “Bringing Learning to Life”—a partnership supported by the Corporation for National and Community Service/ Learn and Serve that involves the Columbus Education Association, the National Education Association, and The Ohio State University. This partnership affords teachers (e.g., K-12 and across subject areas) an opportunity to take a graduate-level course, participate in professional development experiences, apply for minigrants, and implement highquality service-learning projects alongside students and community groups. Hence, a primary focus of the partnership is to build a culture of service-learning throughout the school district and eventually throughout the entire state.

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To begin this discussion on transformative service-learning, we offer a brief literature review on current scholarship in service-learning as related to a basic service-learning model that includes the following stages: investigation, preparation, action, reflection, and evaluation or demonstration. This review leads to an emphasis on how such scholarship can be situated within a social justice and equity framework. Both the review and framing will then set the stage for examination of two specific cases focused on narratives of self and service in relation to transformative service-learning work. The first case involves Tori Washington, one of the coauthors on this chapter who is a veteran high school English language arts teacher. The second case involves Pam Reed, also a coauthor on this chapter who is a veteran middle school teacher. As we explain, these cases have implications for the ways teachers and researchers can come to conceptualize service-learning—as a creative, researched instructional framework— across educational challenges and educational contexts.

QUESTIONING A TRADITIONAL SERVICE-LEARNING MODEL: A BRIEF LITERATURE REVIEW Traditionally, a linear model of implementation structures many servicelearning (SL) partnerships: investigate—and prepare students for—service, engage in the action of that service, reflect on what occurred, and evaluate and/or demonstrate the process. Despite the seemingly linear structure of this pedagogical model, SL is necessarily fluid, constantly shifting between stages depending on the learning goals and the identified service need. Critical SL projects address pressing community needs that are oftentimes more complicated than what a linear model can sustain. Therefore, while this model delineates specific steps for SL, these steps are not sequential. Indeed, thorough preparation should happen at the beginning of a SL project; however, additional preparation might be required once the project begins based on new understandings or new facets of community needs, resulting in a recursive process. Occurring alongside this dynamic pedagogical approach is service-oriented work that gets mistakenly called SL, where the service has not been codesigned by teachers, students, and community partners, or where the service occurs in the absence of deeply rooted connections to teaching and learning. While this type of lockstep service-oriented approach is implemented in many K-16 settings, it should not be conflated with SL, which is a civically minded approach anchored in a social justice framework and based in collaborative school-community partnerships (Cipolle, 2010; Daigre, 2000; Mitchell, 2007).

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Grounding SL within collaborative relationships between communities and schools facilitates a more equitable framework and enables SL projects to flourish (Cipolle, 2010). All SL partners should have a voice in the way the project progresses. Unlike higher education settings where participating students are not always from the surrounding community, K-12 students typically come from the local neighborhoods in which their SL projects occur. Therefore, the partnership is established between the school and local community in ways that recognize that partners (mainly students) might have a foot in both contexts. According to Hart (2006), “by directly impacting their own community, the dichotomies of ‘fortunate helping unfortunate,’ or ‘us doing for them,’ are erased and replaced with ‘us doing for us,’ essentially eliminating the perpetuation of dominant positions” (p. 27). Such relationships give permission to both sides of the partnership to embody strengths and weaknesses—no side is better than the other—and to work collaboratively to address identified community needs. While student voices and community perspectives are central to highquality SL work, another fundamental, policy-driven factor in SL is the curriculum. Cipolle (2010) identified two paths to SL curriculum development: mapping the curriculum onto the service; and mapping the service onto the curriculum. Therefore, it is essential for teachers to privilege student voice and to also have a clear understanding of how curricular goals (e.g., specific knowledge, skills, experiences) will be addressed throughout the SL project—whether these goals are nested into the service approach at the beginning or layered on top once the service component has been identified. Equally important to note is that SL partnerships are forged around complex social projects and require educators to embrace a sometimesmessy process. Factors related to timing, funding, negotiation of project focus, and last minute cancellations can complicate SL initiatives. However, the challenges are offset by student engagement, community change, and documented development of academic skillsets, even in light of arguments that insist SL is a practice that indoctrinates students into a Marxist perspective (Wade, 2008). According to Street (1984), all educational practices, particularly literacy practices, are rooted in sociocultural values, beliefs, and traditions; these practices are tightly woven throughout the fabrics that comprise the K-16 educational system. Street’s point compels us to recognize the value-laden nature of all pedagogies and instructional strategies. Neither the classroom-bound way of engaging in teaching and learning nor the approach that spans classroom and community contexts exists a priori or without ideologies; instead, all ways of doing school are rooted in shared understandings and beliefs of what is worth knowing.

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Service-learning is a critical approach to teaching and learning that allows teachers, students, and community members to work toward dismantling educational and systemic inequities through action-oriented learning. Clearly, “it is not enough to interrogate inequitable social and political systems” if, as Hart (2006) asserts, “students are to become adult citizens who attend to issues of justice and equity.” He continues, “space and opportunity need to be presented for them to inquire, interrogate and take action that addresses the issues in their present lived experiences” (p. 25). Hart’s argument points to the value of knowing self and developing a critical awareness of one’s situatedness in community and school contexts to combat inequities and inequalities. Cipolle (2010) adds that critical consciousness might be achieved through four essential elements: “(1) developing a deeper awareness of self; (2) developing a deeper awareness and broader perspective of others; (3) developing a deeper awareness and broader perspective of social issues; and (4) seeing one’s potential to make change” (p. 7). Service-learning without the “critical” component can perpetuate the deficit model, generating a power dynamic between students and the community, us versus them (Hart, 2006). If educators are to engage in this work, it must be through a critical lens and not through a lens of pity or privilege. Unfortunately, there are still many examples of service under the guise of SL that fail to draw attention to the macrolevel ideologies and sociopolitical influences at play in community settings and in SL relationships (Hart, 2006; Maybach, 1996). By marrying SL to critical consciousness, the physical educational spaces in which social justice can be imagined and acted upon are expanded (Daigre, 2000). Students can enter these newly created spaces to gain deeper understandings about the sociopolitical influences that contribute to various forms of injustice that they witness.

FRAMING SERVICE-LEARNING AS SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION Service-learning and social justice education share similar goals and outcomes. However, the scholarship that links the two are limited in scope, often focusing heavily on the “promise” of service-learning as a means to promote social justice among students in higher education (Carlisle, Jackson, & George, 2007; Mitchell, 2007). Therefore, it becomes significant to make explicit theoretical and practical connections between service-learning and social justice in ways that suggest critical, responsive, and active service-learning—especially at the K-12 level—is deeply embedded in social justice education. Social justice education intentionally places emphasis on equity and equality by promoting a curriculum that uncovers hegemony and pro-

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vides access to resources. According to Bell (1997), social justice requires a “theory of oppression” (p. 4) that explores various forms and levels of oppression such as marginalization, discrimination, exclusion, and “isms.” Such a theory provides teachers, teacher educators, and educational researchers with “clear ways to define and analyze oppression so that we can understand how it operates at various individual, cultural and institutional levels” (Bell, 1997, p. 4). Critical and social justice theorists like Bell assert that people experience oppression differently, based on race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. Social justice education, then, must take into account the differences and diversities through which people relate to and understand oppressive forces. Social justice education is informed by social, political, and cultural movements, spanning from the Black consciousness movements in the United States and South Africa, to the international push for women’s rights, to the rights for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, inquiring communities. Additionally, social justice highlights the complexities of oppression and identities. In her call for theories that bring attention to African American women’s ways of being and knowing, Collins (1990) argues that African American women have distinct positions in “the matrix of domination” (p. 381). On the one hand, African American women may share similar historical experiences, based upon American slavery, racism, and sexism in the United States. As a result, they have a specific historical relation to power and oppression, which positions them in a similar section of the matrix. On the other hand, African American women can relocate throughout the matrix based on class, sexuality, religion, and physical features (e.g., experiencing race by way of phenotype—skin color, hair texture/length, eye color, and other features). Bell raises a similar point in her discussion of “Latina/os,” suggesting that a Puerto Rican woman, a Spanish-speaking White male from Cuba, and an Incan man from Mexico would have different lived experiences and relations to oppression. Using Collins’ matrix means that social justice education decenters power as an omnipotent, inanimate force located at the top that acts upon people down below. Rather, power is dynamic and relational; each person, regardless of position, has the ability to oppress (Collins 1990; Baca Zinn & Dill, 1996; Leonardo 2002). As social justice education explores how identities contribute to exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, and “isms,” it also challenges rigid constructions of identities as a way to disrupt oppression. Since individuals and communities experience oppression differently, the key to social justice education is creating relevant curricula that respond to oppressive forces. For example, Ginwright (2010) and youth participants in leadership excellence in Oakland, California developed strategies for youth to partner with community members to alleviate

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“social toxins” (p. 16). These “toxins” ranged from high unemployment rates, to the prevalence of low-paying jobs, to public policies fueling mass incarceration, to media’s negative perceptions of urban areas, to inequitable education. By identifying toxins within the community, youth and community members generated relevant solutions that shifted from the victimization of marginalized peoples toward a heightened level of response and responsibility. Oliver (2003) describes “response-ability” as “the double sense of the condition of possibility of response … and the ethical obligation to respond and to enable response-ability from others” (p. 15). Therefore, ethical listening and action are foundations for social justice education (Bell, 2010; K. Schultz, 2003). Service-learning that is rooted in social justice requires a commitment to listening, reflecting, responding, and repeating the steps as needed to create relevant solutions to the needs of individuals and communities. Calderón and Cadena (2007) argue that when students, educators, and community members commit to and engage in projects of “response-ability,” they move closer to “building diverse coalitions, tapping unheard voices, and creating a culture for social justice and social change” (p. 75). Calderón and Cadena’s sentiments (2007) situate acts of “building,” “tapping,” and “creating” as vital to social justice and service-learning. Therefore, education should not embody a social justice framework without action. In social justice education, each intentional action addresses a specific concern that emerges from the community and that is informed by a “theory of oppression” and liberation (L.A. Bell, 1997, Cammarota, 2011). As previously discussed, there are five stages of service-learning, and while each stage is vital, the stages of reflection and action specifically intersect with social justice education. Cammarota (2011) asserts that social justice pedagogy is a process of praxis, which is informed by critical theory (Freire, 1993). Through praxis, “young people study a particular problem in their social world and then present research-based solutions to various stakeholders such as teachers, administrators, students, parents, and other community members” (p. 829). As a result, social justice education requires “various stakeholders” to actively engage in reflection and action before, during, and after each stage of servicelearning. Such active engagement allows students, educators, and community members to challenge power dynamics within and beyond the classroom, acknowledge individual and collective assumptions, listen to multiple perspectives, and deconstruct structures that may reinforce inequities and the status quo, or social hierarchies. Therefore, servicelearning ventures that are intentionally critical, active, and responsive not only critique power structures, but generate new venues for marginalized populations to incite social change within and beyond educational institutions. Framing service-learning as social justice education,

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then, brings into alignment critical teaching and learning with meaningful action and social change.

A BRIEF METHODOLOGICAL NOD The data presented in this chapter derive from a grant-funded project that supports the design, implementation, and monitoring of servicelearning initiatives across an urban school district in Ohio. The grant provides a three-credit bearing university course and other professional development opportunities in service-learning for K-12 teachers across a variety of areas: English language arts, mathematics, science, technology, history and social studies, art, physical education and health, counseling, social work, occupational therapy, and others. Designed as a cohort experience where three groups of teachers—Groups 1 and 2 each consisted of over 30 teachers; Group 3 consisted of 17 teachers—apply to be a participant in the course, the project exposes teachers to theories and practices in service-learning. Additionally, the project supports teachers’ hands-on engagements in various community-based activities. The project also encourages teachers to develop partnerships with local agencies and organizations and to collaborate with students and partners to create high-quality service-learning experiences that are tied to the curricula and that occur throughout the school and local community. Class sessions are mobile in that each week, we meet at a different community site (e.g., a historical society, settlement houses, community pride centers, YMCA, United Way, community schools, etc.) and talk with representatives from that site about their service or service-learning involvements. As a final course project, teachers are required to write a mini grant proposal where they propose a service-learning project they might implement alongside their students and a community partner (see the Appendix for examples of service-learning projects). Class sessions (either during the regular academic year or during the summer term), arranged community tours, and most one-on-one and small group interviews are video recorded. Observations of teachers’ group inquiries, shared reflections, and dispositions related to their understandings of service-learning are noted. Written exchanges, usually based on teachers’ journal entries, presentations, and other submitted assignments, reveal their streams of consciousness, uncertainties, and gradual willingness with engaging in critical service-learning projects. The data included in this chapter reflect the ways two teachers conceptualize service-learning as transformative and critical, which is evident by how they position students as learners and leaders. This positioning, we

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argue, serves as a significant commentary on service-learning that is student-centered and service-learning that is social justice education.

ILLUSTRATING PRINCIPLES WITH PROJECTS Theorizing concepts of reflection and action as well as self and service in relation to social justice education and service-learning requires the inclusion of diverse perspectives, particularly from people who are facilitating and engaging in this work. In the remainder of this chapter, we highlight the perspectives of two public school teachers in Ohio as a way to consider the larger implications a focus on self and service can have on the role of transformative pedagogies for high-quality, student-centered service-learning projects. We begin with Tori Washington, a high school English language arts teacher who participated in the first service-learning course offered through this grant project. Her participation in the course and comments during our meetings always stimulated thoughts on self in relation to service. Here, we focus on a group interview with Tori, her students, and the community partner. From there, we turn attention to the narratives of, and emphasis on, larger sociopolitical issues expressed by Pam Reed, a middle school teacher who also completed the first iteration of the course. Her ideas on teaching, community, and poverty pave the way for sentiments expressed during her presentation to a group of teachers participating in the second offering of the service-learning course. These two brief examples bring self and service to the center of discussions on service-learning initiatives. As we later explain, these concepts are important for how we conceptualize critical, transformative servicelearning projects in urban schools and communities. They are also important insofar as the potential such projects can have for people across local to global contexts.

CONSIDERING THE “WE” AND NOT THE “I:” TORI WASHINGTON AND SERVICE-LEARNING INITIATIVES With a teaching career that spans over 10 years, Tori Washington, an African American female, currently teaches at a large and diverse (racially, ethnically, and linguistically) urban high school in the district. Whenever she is asked to reflect on her teaching career, Tori quickly offers examples of student experiences and engagements, for she believes that students

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are the source of knowledge. Such reflections are quickly followed by Tori’s repeated use of the pronoun “we.” By using this inclusive pronoun, she indicates her belief that she is not the sole producer of knowledge. Rather, knowledge is generated by, and exchanged among, students and teachers. This understanding becomes even more obvious in her servicelearning project titled, “The Good Seeds Community Garden,” a collaboration initially involving Tori’s English language arts students and a local church. During an interview with Tori, her students, and their servicelearning community partner (Christi, the program coordinator at the local church), Tori made the following comment: “We’re actually pulling in the new design team for year three and some other students, and we’re going to work on a design for what we want to accomplish this year.” Her sentiments relate to the structure of The Good Seeds service-learning project, one that involves students on design teams who have been working with Tori on maintaining the community garden. What began as a volunteer project over 3 years ago (creating a garden) has turned into a service-learning initiative in which students research suitable materials for a garden, measure the space, engage in representative readings about gardening, and work in design teams. Involvement in the project has provided a platform to encourage ninth-grade students to develop leadership skills through participation on design teams. Each team includes 10 ninth-grade students (two students from each of Tori’s five classes) who are responsible for designing and coordinating the current year’s efforts and then guiding the rest of the freshman class in the implementation of the plans. According to one of Tori’s journal entries, “each year of the project has increased responsibilities of design team members. Specifically, the group divides into smaller subteams and tackles responsibilities such as budgeting, secretarial duties, planning/ research and technology needs or whatever else needs to be accomplished.” In Tori’s final course assignment, she explained that design team members are encouraged to remain on the team after their freshman year “to help train and mentor new design team members” for the following year. Tori’s practice for engaging students in service-learning is inclusive. Her use of “we” (e.g., “We’re actually pulling in a new design team;” “we’re going to work;” “for what we want”) illustrates her embodiment of service-learning pedagogies. In other words, her comments illustrate that she, as the teacher, works alongside students and the community partner to select new people to join the team and to contribute to the plan and goals for the following year’s project. This type of collaboration is contrary to traditional teaching and learning models where the teacher constructs lesson plans and representative activities to meet state standards without input from students or other partners. Instead, Tori’s

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approach to teaching and learning begins with working with others to identify a relevant community need that both harnesses the interests of students and directly connects to curricular goals. She is layering curricular goals atop the service need of the community and the interests of students. Chelsea, one of Tori’s students who is “very quiet” and who rarely engaged with other students, has been empowered by the service-learning project. Chelsea was reticent about speaking up in class, but SL provided her an opportunity to assume a leadership position. Nicknamed “the enforcer” by another student, Chelsea explained that she is in charge of keeping students on track during service. She is the project manager who surveys the situation at the garden, observes student behavior, and intervenes when necessary. To use the words of Calderón and Cadena (2007), The Good Seeds project has succeeded in “building diverse coalitions, tapping unheard voices, and creating a culture for social justice and social change” (p. 75). Chelsea has been repositioned from a quiet, somewhat disengaged student to “the enforcer,” a label that denotes power and signifies someone to whom others should listen. Tori’s service-learning project, which now includes the first wheel chair accessible community flower and vegetable garden in the area, represents a multilayered SL initiative in that it facilitates collaboration with the school’s English, science, technology, and art programs. The science department, for instance, assists with the project’s preparation and action phases by planting and nurturing seedlings for the garden. Additionally, the mathematics department will assist with creating new flower boxes by calculating the dimensions necessary for their construction, and the art department will help with the project’s demonstration phase by creating a community bulletin board that will display the students’ work in the garden. The preparation and action exhibited by Tori, participating students, and their community partner, Christi, demonstrate how their servicelearning project addresses two major community needs: (1) Cultivating fertile land for community members to plant healthy foods—students planted/nurtured seedlings for the gardens and prepared the space for planting; and (2) Creating a handicap accessible green space for community members and students—project participants determined ways for the garden to be accessible to students in wheelchairs (e.g., constructing sidewalks and ramps). At the same time, the project values curricular goals and makes room for action, reflection, and critical consciousness (Cipolle, 2010; Hart, 2006; Maybach, 1996).

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Service-Learning and Teaching for Openings: The Case of Pam Reed Pam Reed, a White female with over 12 years of teaching experience in urban schools, stands before a classroom of 30 teachers and teacher educators, colleagues whom she may have never met prior to this occasion. Her petite frame is engulfed in a large red T-shirt with the name of her middle school and an image of the school’s mascot sprawled across the front. After she introduces herself to the group, Pam begins: “So, the goal of the project is for them [students] to look at the grandest scale of bullying and to connect it to what they do every single day in the school.” In that moment, “oh” and “wow” emerged from the teachers who appeared restless, disengaged, and overwhelmed by the room’s stifling heat and by the time—it was nearly 6 P.M. on a school night. Pam went on to describe her service-learning project, titled, “Stand Up/Speak Out,” a project that teaches students the dangers of being a bully and/or a bystander to bullying from a global perspective. It is her hope that students will learn to make connections between the global atrocities of genocide, as a massive act of bullying, and the consequences of their own actions in school and the local community. In other words, she wants students to learn about real-world, large-scale bullying and bystander incidents as they come to think about their own lives and life decisions—the intertwining of self and service. As she talked with those gathered in the room, Pam demonstrates how she evolved (and continues to evolve) into a scholar activist through service-learning that is purposeful and has consequences for learning based in action and reflection. Her evolution is grounded in Ball and Tyson’s (2011) insistence that educators (and hence, education) should explore topics of (in)equity, (in)equality, access, and power as they engage in “changing the global patterns” of miscommunication that oftentimes result in hate, mistrust, and inequity (p. 13). Ball and Tyson, as well as Pam Reed, understand that education is a commitment to sociopolitical and sociocultural change on local, national, and global scales. Specifically, Pam’s discussion of her service-learning project illustrates how critical service-learning initiatives that invite teachers, students, and community members to think globally and act locally are informed by equity pedagogies (Banks & Banks, 1995). According to Pam, “I provided the learning in the grant and the kids [middle school students] will have to provide the service and I don’t know what they’re gonna do … I let the kids totally have free rein on what the project itself is.” As previously discussed, critical, active, and responsive forms of teaching and learning are deeply embedded in social justice education. Pam frames her service-learning project within a discourse of edu-

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cational equity, access, and freedom in order for students to participate in decision-making processes—“the kids will have to provide the service.” This framing points to what Greene (1995) refers to as “open spaces” in which students, teachers, and community members propose working solutions to pressing community concerns that encourage collaboration and freedom. For Pam, it is important for teachers to provide students “free rein” in deciding on the service component of service-learning projects once they have researched and studied the topic(s) under investigation. In Pam’s case, her students are examining issues of genocide, or the violence of marginalizing, discriminating against, and excluding people from society. In one of her responses to a journal prompt, Pam described her ongoing commitment to critical education that envisions students as collaborators and vital problem-solvers who are aware of the lived realities within their school and local communities. As she talked with teachers, it became obvious that Pam’s open classroom space encouraged students to do what Greene suggests: “To find one’s right action” and “to discover the self as someone with a sense of agency, the author of a life lived among others and not merely a passive observer” (p. 177). Pam’s closing statement—“I teach, I do the learning, well they do the learning, I do the teaching”—is central to critical service-learning. Within the framework of critical pedagogy, students and teachers often engage in role reversal in an effort to disrupt the “banking model of education” (Freire 1997), in which “the teacher issues communiqués and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat” (Freire 1997, p. 53). Kinloch (2009, 2010, 2012) refers to this process as an element of “boundary crossing.” Through boundary crossing, students and teachers engage in activities that encourage them to explore “unknown and unfamiliar settings”—physical, political, racial, and cultural (Kinloch, 2009, p. 179). As a result, critical service-learning projects blur the boundaries between what is known and unknown, between student and teacher, given that knowledge is coconstructed. Therefore, while Pam’s statement may have been a slip of the tongue (or nerves), the statement speaks volumes to the ways teachers committed to uncovering innovative, responsive solutions must be willing to teach and learn simultaneously. Becoming a learner does not mean that educators must turn in their badges, sit in the back of their classrooms, and allow students to do as they please. Instead, becoming a learner means being open to shifts in the conversation and redirections of the project that may be suggested by students. In an effort to design and implement an effective service-learning project, dialogue and reflection remain central to the process. Months earlier during a large group discussion about homelessness, class, and teacher positionality, Pam offered the following sentiments:

16 E. NEMETH, T. BUTLER, V. KINLOCH, T. WASHINGTON, and P. REED We [teachers] are going to learn way more than our students are going to learn … ‘cause they live it and we don’t, most of us don’t, and it’s going to be more eye-opening for us than our kids, and if we could look at it as not what we can give to our kids but what we can learn for ourselves, this is going to be a much more fruitful project.

This confession marked the beginning of Pam’s “boundary crossing” in which she reflected on her experiences as a White, working-class woman who was about to venture into an unfamiliar dialogic space. Over the next couple of months, Pam and her students began their search for answers to Greene’s (1995) question: “What do we have to know, what do the schools have to teach to overcome divisiveness and group hostility” (p. 172)? Pam’s students are positioned as active service-learning learners and doers who seek solutions to various forms of injustice (e.g., bullying, genocide, and other offensive actions). Such positioning points to the value of openings and dialogue, reflection and action, in teaching and learning, generally, and in critical service-learning initiatives, specifically.

LOOKING AHEAD, MOVING FORWARD The two examples provided in this chapter along with the brief literature review and framing of service-learning as social justice education reveal to us many important lessons. First, that students and teachers are continuing to quickly move away from the “banking model of education” (Freire 1970), a model that positions students as empty, passive learners and teachers as sole distributors of knowledge. They are moving from “banking” to transformative, affirming, and critical pedagogies that recognize the multiple, even competing perspectives that are present in teaching and learning. More specifically, in this process of moving away from, both Tori and Pam recognize the important role that is played by boundary crossings and role reversals, especially as these acts relate to a focus on self and service, reflection and action. Second, Tori and Pam are willing to learn from challenges. Tori noted that “we’re going to work on a design for what we want to accomplish”; and for Pam, “the goal is … to look at the grandest scale of bullying and to connect it to what they do every single day in school.” Learning that follows from challenges, teaching that is inclusive, and learning that is shared are fundamental components of service-learning that is/that becomes social justice education. Thus, servicelearning that is critical must be inherently transformative (seeking to engage in or create necessary change) and inclusive (seeking to involve multiple voices—community members, students, teachers, and other stakeholders).

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What might these lessons imply for literacy teaching and teacher education? As we think through this question, we return to the list of questions that open this chapter, questions that emphasize participation in local urban communities, employment of creative pedagogies to address educational inequities, and the situatedness of service-learning as transformative and active social justice work. Literacy teachers can turn to the brief narratives by Tori and Pam, veteran teachers, to think about educational practices that center students’ interests and that connect those interests to specific curricular goals and community needs. Or, literacy teachers can consider what it might mean for teachers, students, and community members to collaborate on transformative service-learning projects as they seek to reframe existing conditions and perceptions of public education in many urban communities. Or, literacy teachers can more readily view community spaces as texts that hold within its pages, or on its streets, various stories about the lived conditions of local residents, including students. In so doing, service-learning could be understood as a creative, researched framework of instruction that supports teachers and students’ investigations into pressing community concerns. However literacy teachers decide to engage in service-learning, we hope it involves a framing in social justice education, is inclusive of local and/or global realities, and privileges dialogue, action, and reflection with students and community members.

APPENDIX: SAMPLE SERVICE-LEARNING PROJECTS The following list represents a small selection of service-learning projects (19 out of more than 80) that span subject areas and that K-12 teachers, students, and community partners are leading and implementing.

Elementary School Projects Program: Living Healthy Teacher: Shawna Streeter Span: Classroom project Subject Areas: Healthy lifestyles and collaborative learning with children and elders Brief Description: In the community in which this elementary school is located, students have been identified as having extremely high Body Mass Index statistics, which places them at risk for obesity. As part of the

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health and science curriculum, the prekindergarteners at the school study healthy lifestyles and question how they can influence others and lead through example. This service-learning project focuses on the following question: “How can students work with the local elderly community to promote and influence others to choose healthy lifestyles?” Participating students learn about healthy living while engaging in cross-generational interactions with a group of community elders at a local community center. Interactions focus on a different “healthy lifestyle” component that allows students and elders to participate in important hands-on activities. Program: Latinos y CSIA: Construyendo Puentes de Salud (Latinos and CSIA: Building Health Bridges) Teachers: Brenda Nieves-Ferguson and Michelle Fye Span: Classroom, after-school, and schoolwide project Subjects Addressed: Health and environment Brief Description: The intent of this project is for second grade students to research healthy habits including mental health, explore ways to take care of their bodies (personal hygiene), and to examine nutrition and the impact of exercise as a way to maintain or improve overall health. After students research Latina/o health issues in the city, they will write an ABC health book with illustrations in Spanish to inform other children about healthy habits. These materials will be donated to two local community organizations that serve as partners on this service-learning project and that work with large populations of Latina/o and African American residents. Program: Still I Rise Teacher: Emily Bailey Span: Classroom and afterschool project Subjects Addressed: Storytelling and educational choice Brief Description: This project provides knowledge of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and informs students of the contributions that these schools have made to society. Students and the community learn of options available at HBCUs, which can help them to make informed post-secondary educational choices. Students will consider career possibilities and the education needed for that particular career. The project’s community partner, a local African and African American educational group, collaborates with students to learn how to integrate the principles Ma’at and Nguzo Saba into their everyday lives and future goals. Mathematics, reading, writing, social studies, and research design methods are integrated into this project.

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Program: Book Buddies Teacher: Charisse Warren Span: Multiclassroom Subject Area: Literacy and mentoring Brief Description: This project partners third grade students with first grade reading buddies in order to: (1) expose first grade students to more texts, help them practice reading, and provide them with books to take home; and (2) to help third grade students learn to serve as mentors as they develop confidence and mastery of literary elements that they will then teach to the first grade students. This partnership is especially beneficial for lower performing third grade students learning to occupy leadership positions in school. Students meet once a week with their buddy reader, and the books that all students receive will add to creating a more literate rich home environment as well as reinforcing the importance of reading in and out of school. Program: Blankets for Babies Teacher: Traci Arway Span: Multiclassroom Subjects Addressed: Reading and community giving Brief Description: Primary students are paired with fifth-grade students who have had documented reports of being a bully. They work together to break down some of the barriers and stereotypes that both groups have of each other. Then, they apply their lessons to a larger purpose: to make fleece tie blankets for a local children’s hospital. The learning goals for this project include: participation in collaborative conversations about assumptions, identities, and needs; engagement with processes that involve mathematical problem solving, measurement, and calculations; involvement with the local community; and learning to question assumptions of others in order to work for a larger cause. Program: Bridging the Gap: Linking the Generations Through Service to All Teacher: Julie Wyatt Span: Classroom project Subjects Addressed: Healthy choices Brief Description: This service-learning project engages students in learning about healthy food choices, gardening, and collaborating with a community of elders. Incorporating several different components, participants take part in a culminating project where elders and students work together to examine the importance of healthy food choices, plant a community garden, and use the planted vegetables to feed the members of the school and local community.

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Middle School Projects Program: Stand Up/Speak Out Teacher: Pam Reed Span: Classroom project Subjects Addressed: Antibullying Brief Description: Students learn about the dangers of being a bully and/ or a bystander to bullying from a global perspective. They learn to make connections between the global atrocities of genocide as a massive act of bullying and the consequences of their own actions in classrooms, schools, and communities. The intended outcome of this project is for students to feel a call to action on a global scale—whether it is by writing letters to their Congress representative about the continuing murder and rape in Darfur, or videoconferencing with students in Uganda about recent conflicts. Students read texts about genocide and bullying, and collaborate with representatives from the local Jewish Community Center, settlement houses, recreation centers, universities, and public schools in the district. Program: I Can Empower Change Teacher: Megan Evans Span: Classroom project Subjects Addressed: Social change, art, community awareness Brief Description: The goal of this project is for students to better understand that people have the ability to empower change. This philosophy will be established through work completed in tandem with residents who have chosen to live in a historically African American community in the city. The community’s resident association has committed to being the community partner. Members will present and discuss with students why they live in the community and what steps they are currently taking to improve the neighborhood. This engagement will lead into the design and creation of specific community art (murals, street designs, etc.). Program: Community Art Service-Learning Lessons Teacher: Megan Evans Span: Classroom project and community project Subjects Addressed: Community, art, homelessness, physical disabilities Brief Description: The goal is for students to have leadership opportunities within the community. Therefore, students will teach art units to adults who are homelessness and/or physically disabled. They will work closely with these individuals, seeing the different choices they are currently making to alter their lives, while also teaching them new skills in art media. As a result of the work, they will also have the opportunity to be in

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leadership positions and either experience or observe several career paths. Program: Recycled Urban Art Teacher: Michelle Stutz Span: Classroom, afterschool, and potentially schoolwide project Subjects Addressed: Recycling and Art Brief Description: Through this project, students gain an awareness of the costs of waste disposal. They learn that recycling municipal waste can offset the disposal costs, and they gain an understanding of aluminum, a nonrenewable but recyclable resource they use every day. This project introduces students to the resource economies of recycling aluminum cans as a way to develop understandings of their own impact on the amount of solid waste produced, and its impact on recycling, energy, and natural resources. As a result, students create recycled urban art. Program: Integrating Nature Teacher: Jill Hurley Span: Classroom project Subject Area: Art and gardening Project Description: Eighth grade visual art students create art works, including drawings, poetry, garden sculptures, and paintings for the school community. The students learn that many artists throughout history have been inspired by nature. As they learn this information, they increase their own literacy skills and document their experiences and ideas throughout the service-learning project. Each student creates two pieces of art to donate to the school community. They create a painting, drawing, or collage for the school’s kitchen and cafeteria areas, where there are no windows. They also create a sculpture to be installed in the school’s garden that another group of students will install. As a group, participating students exchange ideas about, reflect on, and enhance their experiences with creating art works in order to construct a final art piece that is to be donated to the local Children’s Hospital. Program: Reading Mentors: The Medina/Huy Partnership Teacher (School Counselor): Erica Hameed Grimes Span: Classroom and student group project Subjects Addressed: Reading and literacy Project Description: The Student Council of a local middle school, along with a Special Education Reading Group, are partnering with a neighborhood elementary school to implement a reading mentoring and buddy program. As reading mentors, middle school students participate in a service-learning experience that allows them to read to elementary-aged stu-

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dents and reinforce to them crucial reading skills and practices that are integral to all first- and second-grade elementary school students. Middle school students will also grow in the process because as they “teach” reading and help others to read better, they also learn how to improve their reading practices and skills while potentially fostering a love for reading all around.

High School Projects: Program: Beyond the Black Berry Patch: Past, Present, Future Teacher: Johnny Merry Span: Classroom and communitywide project Subjects Addressed: Community, history, and action-based research Brief Description: For the past 3 years, a small group of students has been researching and collecting data on one of the historic African American neighborhoods in the city—one that has been gradually undergoing gentrification and revitalization. With this service-learning project, students collect oral histories from current and past residents of the neighborhood and publish a journal that contains historical research, reflections, poems, visual art, and photos about the neighborhood. Students learn how to interview residents, how to analyze the interviews as texts, how to use Adobe InDesign publishing software, and how to engage in community preservation. Program: Cans for the Canopy: Kids, Cans, Conservation Teacher: Antonia Mulvihill Span: Classroom and schoolwide project Subjects Addressed: Deforestation Brief Description: For this service-learning project, students learn ways to prevent deforestation (a growing international crisis worldwide) in rural Rwanda by raising funds to help Rwandan families purchase materials to make energy efficient stoves that burn 80% less fuel. These stoves have positive outcomes: maternal and child health can be improved by the reduction in blowing smoke, and children who spent significant time gathering material to burn in an open fire ring to cook the family’s meals will have more time to attend school and focus on their studies. Local high students are collecting aluminum cans to sell at a recycling center; collected money will be donated to a local conservation group that will lead efforts to purchase materials for the stoves for families in Rwanda. Additionally, participating high school students are collaborating with local community partners to learn ways to teach others about the value of

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recycling and about important environmental issues (e.g., deforestation, desertification). Program: Good Seeds Community Garden Teacher: Tori Washington Span: Classroom project, afterschool project, and school-wide project Subjects Addressed: Community, collaboration, accessibility, and healthy foods Brief Description: The Good Seeds Community Garden is the first wheel chair accessible community flower and vegetable garden in this community. Originally created by the local church, the flower garden developed over the past three years into a service project for ninth grade students attending a local high school. The project has evolved into a trans-disciplinary service-learning project that incorporates English, science, technology, and art. Through the design team, a student-led group responsible for designing, coordinating, and implementing that year’s efforts, students develop leadership skills and participate in school and community collaborations. Program: Spanish FLEX (language experience mentoring project) Teacher: Lesley Parry Span: Classroom and schoolwide Subjects Addressed: Language and multicultural education Brief Description: The goal of Spanish FLEX is for high school students to introduce Spanish to English-speaking elementary-aged students in order to develop a bilingual reading program. The service-learning project seeks to address cultural gaps between English-speaking and Spanish speaking students by fostering critical and positive multicultural educational experiences grounded in language. The academic goals for high school students include: improving their knowledge of Spanish vocabulary; honing their writing and speaking skills; fostering a sense of community across Spanish, English, and bilingual speakers; and mentoring younger students. Program: Campuswide Recycling Teacher: Cathy Thomas Span: Classroom, after school, and a schoolwide Subjects Addressed: Mathematics, research, and recycling Brief Description: Students in an integrated algebra and data analysis class are researching recycling and providing data to the school about recycling to increase awareness to the student body. Students are working with the National Honor Society to create a plan to implement recycling in the local school and to inform the student body as to what materials are

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(and are not) recyclable. This work will result in the creation of information for classrooms and visitors to the campus. Program: A Better Us Teacher: Emily Schnitter Span: Classroom and grade level Subjects Addressed: Mathematics, research, and recycling Brief Description: The purpose of this project is to develop stronger emotional intelligence in students so they are able to understand other people and manage their own emotions. Students will focus on understanding the importance of helping the environment; they will discover how their individual actions affect the environment. Additionally, they will create a green school environment with a usable composting and recycling system. In turn, they will educate students, faculty, and staff in the school building and share the plan for developing a composting and recycling system with others outside the school. In this way, the proposed service-learning project can serve as a potential model for other schools.

REFERENCES Baca Zinn, M., & Dill, B. T. (1996). Theorizing difference from multiracial feminism. Feminist Studies, 22(2), 321-332. Ball, A., & Tyson, C. (2011). Studying diversity in teacher education. Latham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers & American Educational Research Association. Banks, J., & Banks, C. (1995). Equity pedagogy: An essential component of multicultural education. Theory into Practice, 34(3), 152-158. Bell, L. A. (1997). Theoretical foundations for social justice education. In M. Adams, L. A. Bell, & P. Griffin (Eds.), Teaching for diversity and social justice: A sourcebook (pp. 3-15). New York, NY: Routledge. Bell, L. A. (2010). Storytelling for social justice: Connecting narrative and arts in antiracist teaching. New York, NY: Routledge. Butin, D. W. (2003). Of what use is it? Multiple conceptualizations of service learning within education. Teachers College Record, 105(9), 1674-1692. Calderón, J., & Cadena, G. R. (2007). Linking critical democratic pedagogy, multiculturalism, and service learning to a project-based approach. In J. Calderón (Ed.), Race, poverty, and social justice: Multidisciplinary perspectives through service learning (pp. 63-80). Sterling, VA: Stylus. Cammarota, J. (2011). From hopelessness to hope: Social justice pedagogy in urban education and youth development. Urban Education, 46(4), 828-844. Carlisle, L. R., Jackson, B. W., & George, A. (2007). Principles of social justice education: The social justice education in schools project. Equity & Excellence in Education, 39(1), 55-64.

Transformative Service-Learning Initiatives 25 Cipolle, S. B. (2010). Service-learning and social justice: Engaging students in social change. New York, NY: Rowman & Littlefield. Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge. Daigre, E. (2000). Toward a critical service-learning pedagogy: A Freirean approach to civic literacy. Academic Exchange, 4(4),6-14. Freire, P. (1997). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum. Ginwright, S. (2010). Black youth rising: Activism and radical healing in urban America. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Greene, M. (1995). Releasing the imagination: Essays on education, the arts, and social change. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Hart, S. (2006). Breaking literacy boundaries through critical service-learning: Education for the silenced and marginalized. Mentoring and Tutoring, 14(1), 17-32. Kaye, C. B. (2010). The complete guide to service learning: Proven, practical ways to engage students in civic responsibility, academic curriculum, and social action. Minneapolis, MN: Free Spirit. Kinloch, V. (2009). Suspicious spatial distinctions: Literacy research with students across school and community contexts. Written Communication 26(2), 154-182. Kinloch, V. (2010). Harlem on our minds: Place, race, and the literacies of urban youth. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Kinloch, V. (2012). Crossing boundaries—Teaching and learning with urban youth. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Leonardo, Z. (2002). The color of White supremacy: Beyond the discourse of “White privilege.” Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(2), 137-152. Maybach, C. W. (1996). Investigating urban community needs: Service learning from a social justice perspective. Education and Urban Society, 28(2), 224-236. Mitchell, T. (2007). Critical service-learning as social justice education: A case study of the citizen scholars program. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(2), 101-112. Oliver, K. (2003). Witnessing: Beyond recognition. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. Schultz, K. (2003). Listening: A framework for teaching across differences. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Street, B. V. (1984). Literacy in theory and practice. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Wade, R. C. (Ed.). (1997). Community service-learning: An overview. In Community service-learning: A guide to including service in the public school curriculum (pp. 19-34). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Wade, R. C. (2008). Service-learning for social justice in the elementary classroom: Can we get there from here? In D. W. Butin (Ed.), Service learning and social justice education: Strengthening justice-oriented community based models of teaching and learning (pp. 56-65). New York, NY: Routledge.

CHAPTER 2

GARDEN IN A VACANT LOT Growing Thinkers at Tree House Books D. LUETZOW, Darcy Luetzow, L. MACALUSO, Lauren AND Macaluso, E. GOLDBLATT and Eli Goldblatt

Tree House Books is a neighborhood literary center located a few blocks from Temple University, a large, research-oriented university that has traditionally drawn students from a wide variety of social, ethnic, and economic backgrounds. We have chosen to tell the story of Tree House in multiple voices, reflecting the range of participants in this hopeful project where everyone learns and everyone teaches. Eli Goldblatt, a professor of English at Temple and a founding board member at Tree House, briefly describes the project for faculty and students interested in starting a partnership with a community group like Tree House. Darcy Luetzow, Tree House executive director from 2007-2012, introduces an interview with stakeholders Mike Reid, Sharon Turner, and Nyseem Smith. Lauren Macaluso, recent graduate of Temple’s journalism program and the new volunteer coordinator at Tree House, then reflects on her experience as a tutor in this small nonprofit in North Philadelphia. The piece concludes with reflections from Eli.

NOT OUTREACH BUT PARTNERSHIP Our tendency from the point of view of university programs is to see program development in the community as “outreach,” extending a hand

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 27–43 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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from the campus to underserved neighborhoods. The impulse is not wrong, but the orientation can lead to serious mistakes in the structure of an ongoing relationship among people trying to make something productive for a given community. The chapter we present here represents some (though not all) of the components of a project that so far is working successfully to enrich and enhance literacy in a neighborhood where economic resources are few while human resources are great. The reader will learn more about Tree House Books as the dialogue unfolds, but as a literacy initiative that includes university students and faculty, we illustrate the need to put relationship building first in a university/community partnership. Tree House Books is located in the storefront ground floors of two buildings four blocks from the campus of Temple University. Tree House serves students from age 6 to 14 and their parents, mostly living within walking distance, and offers a place for volunteer and service experiences to over 100 Temple students each semester. In the 19121 zip code, the economically stressed area of North Central Philadelphia around Tree House and immediately west of Temple across Broad Street, approximately 36,000 people live within 2.3 square miles. Here are some telling statistics about this area: • The average adjusted gross income in 2005 was $20,086 while the state adjusted gross income was $48,049. Eighty-five percent of those filing taxes at that time in this area earned less than $10,000. • Apartment rent for a year in 19121 can be as low as $8,000 for a studio or above $15,000 for a three bedroom. • Thirty-two percent of the population is under 18, and females constitute more than 55% of the population; 45% of households are headed by single parents, more than half of these headed by women. • Thirty-six percent of people over 25 do not have a high school diploma or GED. • The zip code area contains one branch of the public library. A second branch lies just outside the district’s bounds and is open only 5 days a week until 5 P.M. Both branches could be closed due to budget exigencies. What statistics can not tell is that this is an area rich in human potential. The parents who come to Tree House care deeply about their children, and the kids themselves bring energy and hopefulness with them into the activities at Tree House. The challenges are great, but the rewards and benefits are always greater.

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I came to Tree House when it was not yet fully established as a nonprofit, urged to visit by a student who walked by the storefront as it was being renovated. She found out it was going to be a bookstore with a special section for children and told me that I’d like this new project in the neighborhood. Soon after I met the landlord, who had decided to rehab the property for this purpose, and the executive director, who was working without pay or staff, I joined the board they were forming as they strove to attain 501(c)(3) status with the Internal Revenue Service. My approach was as a concerned citizen rather than as a professor looking to study a new species or teach a new class. I wanted to know how my students and I could get involved. I had access to some funding for community projects, and I offered to get one half-time graduate assistant to work 10 hours a week with the kids who came into the shop after school. Once Tree House started offering a few programs for kids, the word spread among undergraduates at Temple University that cool stuff was happening at the little bookstore on Susquehanna, and volunteers started arriving. Occasionally teachers like me have given course credit for work at Tree House, but most of the volunteers work there because they learn from the experience, and they fall in love with the kids who come. Parents began to bring their kids to Tree House events, and the board urged more planning and financial oversight as the outlines of the nonprofit organization emerged. Darcy Luetzow took over as executive director after the first 2 years of formation, and we began to pay her full-time after she and the board managed to attract some grants and donations. At every stage the need to make explicit rules and expectations for the kids paralleled a sharper understanding of what we needed from volunteer and paid staff. That is to say, the organization grew in the consciousness of what Tree House needed to be because the board, staff, and volunteers interacted with parents and concerned neighborhood adults, and we all witnessed what the kids were truly capable of producing and learning. This chapter is less about the particulars of our curriculum and more about the spirit that has informed our decisions and planning over the last 6 years.

DARCY’S INTRODUCTION If you stand on the sidewalk just outside of Tree House Books—facing our building—you see this: our name on the big front window and wrought iron window art that looks like tree limbs and leaves. This window art is artwork, but it is also a practical measure of window bars for building security. Looking past the window bars, you see shelves of books, a ladder that leads to the tree house reading loft inside Tree House, hand-made art projects—the obvious evidence of children having been here. Put your

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hand on the door handle—look left and right up the block—and notice that neighbors are on their stoops, that trash overflows the one trash can on the basketball courts, that the basketball nets need replacing. Step inside Tree House Books and unpack what you have just seen from the outside. Our wrought iron window art helps explain our North Central Philadelphia neighborhood and Tree House Books. Tree House needed to act wisely about safe-guarding our space in this at-risk neighborhood, but we didn’t want to make any ugly barriers to the cultivation of trust and relationship. Choosing wrought iron window bars—in the delicate flow of limbs and leaves—achieved the desire for safety, beauty, and community. Ms. Sharon Turner, a retired nurse, community resident, and Tree House volunteer, sees Tree House “as a garden. Well, this is a vacant lot that’s been turned into a garden.” Our window bars have the reality of the vacant lot (harshness, danger) and the reality of a garden (beauty, growth). Life in North Central Philadelphia is defined within the tug of war of this double reality. I first did what you just did—stood out on the sidewalk in front of Tree House, looked inside, looked left and right—when I was a graduate student at Temple University in the creative writing program in 2005. Another facet of the double reality: Temple University’s northernmost edge is just two blocks from Tree House, but Temple is almost another world. The security features and educational advantages of Temple’s campus do not bridge naturally into the residential community that surrounds the university. I had walked over to Tree House Books to help with an after-school writing workshop with fourth graders offered by two colleagues of mine in the creative writing graduate program. Temple professor Eli Goldblatt, whose comments open and conclude this piece, had arranged for this workshop and had invited my friends to lead it. I walked in as a graduate student volunteer and never left. I have been the executive director of Tree House since September 2006. When the board of directors invited me to consider the position of executive director, Eli described Tree House as “a creative experiment.” Empowered by the context of creative experiment, a position at 20-hours per week, and about $400 in the Tree House bank, I began exploring what Tree House Books wanted to be. I started talking through a sequence of double realities with Ms. Sharon to create what Board President Jonathan Weiss describes as “a community center disguised as a bookstore.” The bookstore disguise was a result of Tree House’s initial incarnation as a community bookstore when we opened in June 2005. The founding committee had hoped for the creation of a literary culture by providing

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affordable access to books. But, as we began listening to the community, we heard that the neighborhood wanted more. We began building our core programs by listening to our neighbors and watching the ways they used the store. A critical double reality I noticed was in the children’s behavior: Kids stopped in every afternoon. Kids did not stay. Children were popping into Tree House right after school, pulling books from the shelf for three to five minutes, then leaving. Why did kids want to be here and not want to be here? Well, why should they stay? There was no purpose. Sharon and I designated the two hours after school as Tutoring Time. The original program flyer invited students to “Do your homework in a room full of books!” We reasoned that almost all children had homework every day and needed a place to do it. We also reasoned that Tutoring Time could work with one child or with 10. Tutoring Time was built on three tutors (all of whom weren’t here at the same time) and the premise that, if you put a sign on the table and create a thing called “Tutoring Time,” that could make kids stay. We now support the reading and exploration of 30 children at Tutoring Time through our Life With Books initiative. We match our participants with undergraduate Temple students who assist them as tutors— more specifically, as tutoring mentors. And many of our kids stay. In 2010, we had 112 Tutoring Time participants; 21.3% (or 25) of those participants attended 25 or more Tutoring Time sessions. And, as of May 2011, we still saw 18 of those 25 at Tree House every week. But some kids began to feel too old for Tutoring Time. So we listened to them and created the Junior Staff Member program, which is our leadership program for adolescents. Those young adults had something to stay for. And we created our Magazine Project, which is our hybrid art and writing workshop that meets on Wednesday nights, because we wanted to work with more kids—and begin working with a few adults. We publish a literary magazine called The Ave., a title created by the children to highlight our location on Susquehanna Avenue—a long street name that many residents shorten simply to “The Ave.” Three of our participants also named our Tree Shade Summer Project, which is our summer camp. Each winter, our participants help map out the focus of the next summer’s camp. We ask our participants what they would like to do at summer camp. This authentic inquiry strategy grew from realizing the double reality at Tree House Books: The adults must have some of the answers; the adults must not have all of the answers. At the end of the day, the core Tree House reality is this: Tree House has strong programs, but the programs would disappear tomorrow if the relationships stopped. We could have purposeful programs all day long every day, but without building trust and relationships, the kids still would

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not stay. And the other side of the reality is this: If we did not have the relationships, the adult volunteers would not stay, either. In the following pages, you will meet Ms. Sharon Turner, mentioned already, who is a volunteer and community member who has helped build Tree House in her retirement. You will also meet Michael Reid. Mr. Mike, as everyone at Tree House calls him, is the program and development coordinator at Tree House. With a background in the performing arts, political networking, and community engagement, Mr. Mike is passionate about the different types of trust and relatedness created at Tree House. And you will meet Nyseem Smith, who is in our Junior Staff Member Program and is a wonder of a 16-year-old. Nyseem sees himself as Tree House Books, not just as a young adult who has come here for 3 years. Nyseem’s vision for himself, after college, is to be the next volunteer coordinator at Tree House, after Lauren Macaluso. Ms. Lauren’s story follows the interview. A final and crucial double reality: Tree House is growing a community of readers, writers, and thinkers, but most people in North Central Philadelphia do not consider themselves to be readers, writers, and thinkers. This process involves a tug of war between an expanded, giant view of agency in individuals and the degraded, minimized view of any person’s intellectual capacity that is sold in negative comments, media reflection, and societal pressures. It is crucial to address this tension, because it is familiar and omnipresent. On a broader cultural level, we see this double reality play out across America—in Fayetteville, Arkansas, in Milwaukee, in El Paso, in Lilburn, Georgia where I grew up. The prosperity of cities, schools, and economies hangs inside of the tension between hopeful possibility and the sure realities of scarcity and daily struggle. But this problematic reality is also familiar because each of us experiences this tension on a personal, individual level. Each child we work with—and each person reading these words—sits somewhere inside this uncomfortable tension: Am I a reader, writer, and thinker, really? Or am I the broken down thing others tell me I am—that even I sometimes tell myself that I am? Tree House’s work is vital and compelling because it deals with this tension in each individual child, volunteer, and staff member on a daily basis. In a culture where no one gets a free pass down a hallway that utters only affirmation, Tree House attempts to hold open such a passageway. When you step inside Tree House, you step inside a small, nurturing community’s view of you as a reader, writer, and thinker. You can choose to take on that identity for yourself. Eventually you can explore your place and power within a wider community of other readers, writers, and thinkers.

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THE INTERVIEW Darcy: We’re going to begin a conversation about the learning and teaching at Tree House Books over the years. To begin the conversation, we will look at Tree House’s Mission Statement, which I think all of you have actually memorized: “The mission of Tree House Books: to grow and sustain a community of readers, writers and thinkers in North Central Philadelphia.” What do you think the statement means? Michael: Growing and sustaining a community means determining what the community needs and then doing all of the things it takes to accomplish that. We want to be, in a positive way, invasive. So for me that means providing education for kids, providing a support network for their parents so they can talk to us about positives and negatives they see in the community, providing food, providing transportation, even if it’s walking kids home. Sharon: I see Tree House as a garden. Well, this is like a vacant lot that’s being turned into a garden because when I grew up in this neighborhood there were no bookstores. There were libraries, but they weren’t close. Also, reading was more prevalent then because we didn’t have as many distractions. I see us growing by meeting people in the community, starting with the parents who bring children in, the store owners around the neighborhood, the community groups. We sustain by reaching out to teens like Nyseem, who is 16 years old. They’re going to be the next generation to keep this going. Nyseem: When I think of the Mission Statement I think of a broad or universal thing. I say that because, being at Tree House so long, I’ve seen the growth of kids, which is my favorite part. Getting a chance to talk to them, seeing them change from not knowing how to express themselves to then getting them to a place where they can trust in us, talk to us, and even read with us. When I was a kid, reading was always easy for me but not for the kids around me. They would always cry or find different ways to act out. Eli: How have you grown as a reader, writer and thinker here? What did Tree House do for you? Nyseem: I’ve grown to not be so … in a square. I’ve learned to branch out and be a more understanding person. My friends used to be like, “Let’s stay in our own circle and not talk to other people because they’re not like us.” But I’ve grown to understand that they are like us, in whatever shape or form, and I might actually like them. I think I’ve become a more helpful person, or more understanding, because I’ve always thought I was stubborn. And my mom still thinks that today … (Laughter) Nyseem: (laughs) … but I think I’m getting there!

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Darcy: What do you think Temple contributes to Tree House books? Sharon: Before, Temple was just a presence on Broad Street, and there was no contact between the community and the educational system. By encouraging volunteers to come to Tree House, Temple makes it possible for the young students here to know the older students over there, and vice versa. That makes it more of a community. We do have Temple students who now live in the area, but living in the area is not actually participating in it. This way both communities get to know each other. Tree House becomes known to the Temple community through various collaborations, and our children also learn about what’s happening on campus so it’s not such a fearful place, or the “unknown” to them. Nyseem: I think Temple contributes mentors, because honestly most of the kids here don’t have positive role models to look up to, and the Temple students give them something to, I guess, reach for in life. Kids dream to be doctors, lawyers, or teachers. And I think when they actually get to see college students firsthand, it becomes more of a reality rather than just a figment of their imaginations. Michael: Temple is an avenue—an accessible way for people to help out in North Central Philadelphia. It’s easier to get individuals involved because the only thing that will stop them is their desire or their availability. We wouldn’t be able to do the programs we do without volunteers because 99% of our staffing is college students. College students are the perfect ingredient because they’re young, relatively idealistic—not naïve, but they’ve had more positive experiences than negative—so it seems they don’t feel like, “What’s the point of doing something?” I feel like college students are hungrier to actually do something these days. And every time an impressionable child interacts with a college student, the psychological barrier that “college is a distant island that I have no connection to” becomes minimized. Darcy: Are there any disadvantages to having Temple students in the neighborhood? Sharon: One of the disadvantages is that these students have to graduate, and so they’re gone just as they really become family. Some of them really have become family because they’ve been here several years, but 4 years goes really fast (laughs). I think, over the years, though, the training has become more organized. There have certainly been fewer volunteers with attitudes like: “Oh, you know, these children, they can’t learn, so I’m going to just let them get away with whatever they can get away with” (laughter). I have seen them grow to say: “Okay, this is the way we’re going to react,” reporting back on behavior and advancements. I think that has been a marvelous progression this year, so it’s a two-edged sword. Michael: Thinking about it from a younger kid’s perspective, even for the person who dedicated 2 years to tutoring, well, they’re graduating

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and moving to another part of the country or even working in a different part of the city. All of a sudden, they’re not around. It’s not because they don’t care, but, you know, the world keeps turning. Also, college students will still be college students. One day our volunteers are sending the message: “We’re adults and role models.” Then our kids see another random college kid drinking beer at two in the afternoon and being obnoxious. It sends a mixed message. I’ve been happy that I haven’t really seen any kind of racial tensions. I thought that would be a problem when I started 3 years ago because it’s definitely easy to have warm feelings toward little kids but sometimes it’s hard to have warm feelings about certain adults. I mean, they love the kids, and they know that to love the kids means to love their families as well. Nyseem: I feel the complete same way. That’s the worst part of all, toward the end of the school year seeing all the college students about to graduate, go back home, or get a job. That sucks. (laughs) Eli: I don’t know if you can answer this question, but I heard a hint in one of Sharon’s comments. Do you feel anything about Temple as a presence nearby? When you talk about Temple, you very quickly talk about the Temple students who work at Tree House. Is there any effect on Tree House, and on the neighborhood, from the actual institution of Temple? Sharon: Well … (laughter) Eli: It’s okay to say whatever it is you want to say. Sharon: Temple has long been considered … what’s the word when you’re just trying to take over something? You know. And this has been since I was a young person and they started expanding from just a few buildings on Broad Street. Neighborhoods were bulldozed, and there was an uproar from community groups and individuals. I haven’t heard so much anymore, probably due to the fact that the neighborhood was allowed to deteriorate so much by the students moving out into the neighborhood and gentrification. Temple seemingly wants to reach out to the neighborhood now. They say that they have been going around talking to different community groups all around the area before they start continuing again to bulldoze … so that’s an improvement. I don’t know where it’s going to lead, but I think that’s actually one of the first times I have heard of somebody from Temple coming out with a plan and trying to get a reaction from the community about it. Eli: I have my own concerns about Temple as an influence in the neighborhood. Sharon: When you say, “influence in the neighborhood,” one of my concerns is: Temple is in the neighborhood but I think that Temple could reach out more. They should start with the grade schools so that our kids can end up going to Temple, too. And yeah, they talk about providing

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jobs, but what are the levels of the job? Are they the professors or are they the cleaners? I mean, we need cleaners but we also need professors. Darcy: Let’s turn to the programs occurring at Tree House. How are teaching and learning happening? Michael: On a basic level, we have a simple yet profound idea of getting kids in the conversation of learning and having them understand the process. We try to have a good ratio of adults with kids. The adults assist kids with their homework whether it’s really getting in the weeds and working it out with them, or just providing good supervision for a kid who has a fairly easy time getting her homework done, or just seeing them through the rough patches so that you know, the homework’s completed, they understand the process of it. Then adult and kid engage in 15 minutes of reading, and then the kids will be asked to write something down, or they’ll be asked questions to indicate that they understood what they read. We try to make it creative, so it’s not a book report or a summary but something like, “if the book went on for another chapter, what would happen in the next chapter?” It’s really being in that conversation and understanding the process and the importance. On a specific and a metaphysical level, I guess, that’s how learning happens at Tree House. Nyseem: I always approach it how I wanted it to be approached as a kid. I wanted, and I think they want, tutoring to be about having a conversation and then moving into simplifying homework. With reading I do the exact same thing. I just try to talk to them and then try to see where they’re at, and then kind of move forward with it. Sharon: I think the way we encourage reading with incentives like limousine rides are a big thing. “Read 10 books and you get a limousine ride!” I never had a limousine ride—I keep telling Darcy that! In the neighborhood, learning about edifices that are here, like the Uptown Theater and the Wagner Free Institute of Science. At the Wagner they can see how scientists in the past acted. To tell you the truth, when I was a kid I used to go to the Philadelphia Free Library, but I never went to the science museums, so these kids are really being exposed to a lot in the area. The Junior Staff Members—the middle school kids—even went to Atlantic City on a trip and saw an air show. If you expand your horizons, it is a learning opportunity. I think these kids are fortunate in being involved with Tree House Books. Darcy: How does being in an educational environment outside of school affect learning and teaching, or affect our program here? Michael: I actually prefer it. I feel we’re at an advantage because since this is our program we can make it whatever we need it to be to fit the kids’ needs. We can build an activity, a workshop, a lesson plan around a specific piece of information we want to convey, or a mindset we want to instill. The benefit is that since most of our kids have been coming in for

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at least several months—and many of them several years—we know what to do with them. A good example of that happened today. A young man was being very resistant to a book I was trying to get him to read. I tried everything, and he came up with every single excuse as to why he didn’t want to do it. But I was able to talk to his mom, and she said, “Oh yeah, he doesn’t like books with Sesame Street characters, he’ll put up a wall around it. So give him anything except that.” It’s like, “okay, well now that saves me 20 minutes of negotiating with him.” So we’re able to fine tune the approach, which is awesome. Nyseem: How does being at Tree House affect learning outside of school? I think it completely enforces school. Education, it’s all around you. If the kids don’t know that then they won’t be successful. Sharon: We’re fortunate we have a small group. The students can get to know the volunteers and what their expectations are, and the volunteers can step up their game and have the children progress rather than stay stagnant in what they’re learning. We expect a little bit more of them. And I think that encouragement is what doesn’t happen when the poor teacher has thirty, forty kids. She can’t say, “Johnny, oh, I know you can do it, and I have 15 minutes to spend with you.” She doesn’t have that luxury, but we have that luxury because of the numbers of volunteers, for the most part, and time. And I know any teacher would love to have that luxury. Eli: When I think about school these days I think about grades and standardized tests. Does it make any difference that Tree House doesn’t have those high risk assessments? Sharon: That’s certainly not a pressure on us, and therefore we don’t have to put that pressure on the kids. But we want them to be at grade level or above, so we try to encourage them from the bottom up and try to build on what they’re learning in school. You know, we do have more of a luxury. Eli: So are you saying that our expectations are as high or higher, but we don’t have grades that enforce those expectations? Sharon: Right. To me, grades are not always an indication of learning taking place. If kids actually are understanding what’s going on, then that’s a grade to me. But if a child comes in with a report card, and he has a D, he gets a lot of pressure from us, you know? (laughs) You know, a young child came in and he had a D, and I’m 67 and I jumped on him, Nyseem jumped on him, he’s 16, and one of the tutors jumped on him, too. The child said: “So my teacher lied to me when he said that it was next to a C?” And I said, “Well yeah, it’s next to a C, but it’s not acceptable” (laughs). You know, that’s what I mean when I say low expectation in school. The child could do better than that, even though he had difficulty he could have done better than that. And we’re here to help him make it.

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Michael: I feel that in the wrong environment a grade can be an inaccurate indicator of a person’s intelligence, drive and ambition. But I also feel that in the right environment it can be an extremely accurate barometer. The core leadership of Tree House has been working on ways we can diagnose and assess so that we can actually chart progress. I feel like we have an obligation to the kids and the parents to provide that so we can continue to fine tune our programs and refine what they need. But I feel that in not having grades, it’s been okay for us because there are really only three paid staff members and about 60 volunteers. So when people are showing up consistently and they’re not making money, they’re obviously in it for the right reasons. They’re really not going to let kids slack. The volunteers are here because they actually have the hunger to make a difference. So that takes care of the ambiguity factor of, “Is this kid learning, or not?” Nyseem: Well I actually feel like Tree House is the favorite teacher at school. I say that not because we aren’t always negative on you, but we are more like a friend and we’re still at a respective age where you should respect us. We have a 13-year-old kid here who has been coming here for maybe 2 years now, and he’s definitely not on his appropriate reading level. But over time, since working with him, I’ve seen the necessary steps that demonstrate he’s moving up. I’ve been proud of both myself and him. Sharon: Most of the volunteers are not education majors, so we’re working a little bit differently than if they were going into teaching. But I think that also it gives the volunteers ideas about how to work with children, how to work in communities. Eli: How would it be different if they were teaching students? Sharon: I think they would definitely have more foundation in what to look for and what to expect, which is where the plan for testing and assessment comes in. I think those students would be more aware. There’s a difference between being an education major and someone just interested in imparting knowledge, and helping people find how to acquire knowledge. Eli: Could you give us an example of something important you learned at Tree House, and something important you taught at Tree House? I’m going to ask Nyseem to talk about this in particular. Nyseem: I’ve always been able to talk in front of crowds, but I think I was lacking that passion, and I think that I’ve grasped that from Tree House. To be so heavily involved in something, such as the Junior Staff Members, and even with the kids, being able to talk to them, knowing when a kid is having a bad day or a good day. That is something I’ve learned. How to be a friend but have them still look up to me has made a big impact on me since being at Tree House. And I think I’ve taught that

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you don’t always have to be the “best” reader, but just to know that one day you will be. As long as you are confident in yourself and keep working, and you take the necessary steps to become a good person and reader, then you will be fine. Michael: I would say the most important thing that I’ve taught is that there is a plethora of options for young people. Really whatever option you choose, I’m absolutely fine with, whether that’s a doctor, a football player, a plumber, or an artist who just throws eggs on a canvas all day (laughter). Any of those I support, as long as you do it because you really want to do it, not because it’s expected of you, because of what your skin color is, or where you come from or how tall you are. And if you do it, be the best at it. If you’re going to throw rotten eggs at a paint canvas, be the best at it in the universe. The most important thing that I’ve learned is that if you want something, you will get it. You may have to ask for it 2 million times for 2 years, but you will get it eventually. And I’ve heard people say this, and I used to believe it theoretically, but I didn’t really believe it concretely: The thing that you’re looking for is looking for you as well. Sharon: I hope that one of the things I’ve taught is that much is expected of each individual child. You can’t just “skate.” You need to learn and grow. And also be respectful of adults. I hope that’s one of the things I’ve taught. One of the most important things I’ve learned here is how important it is to have a safe environment for children to learn and grow intellectually and also become more aware of their community. Even something as simple as hanging tags around and making a place more beautiful or throwing seed bombs. You would never think of that, but then they get to see the community and realize they are part of a community. And hopefully, me being here as an older person, shows them that there’s never an end to learning.

LAUREN’S REFLECTIONS ON BEING A NEIGHBOR IN NORTH PHILADELPHIA I graduated from Temple University in May 2011. What made my college career a success didn’t manifest itself right after receiving a diploma; I’ve known all along that my academic career was affected more by volunteering in North Philadelphia, just one block off of Temple’s campus, than networking, studying, or socializing. I walked into Tree House Books 3 years ago looking for a paid position because from the outside it appeared to be a used bookstore. At the time, I was living across the street with seven other Temple undergraduates. Upon entering, a young man about 14 years old introduced himself as Nyseem and proceeded to tell

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me, with some laughter in his eyes, that there were no paid positions available at Tree House Books, but I could be a volunteer tutor. I filled out an application on the spot and was asked to come back the next day by Michael Reid, the program coordinator. Little did I know my experiences there would prepare me better for “the real world” than sitting in any classroom. It only took a few weeks for me to realize that Tree House was capable of reconstructing a Temple student’s opinion of themselves and of North Philadelphia. As a Temple student I was used to everyone talking about the neighborhood as if they understood it. Students brushed aside receiving TU Alerts about a shooting nearby because they thought it was typical of North Philly. It was not rare for these realities to be kickers in a lot of my friends’ jokes. At the end of one of my first tutoring sessions, I accidentally slipped one such joke into my conversation at Tree House Books. Michael Reid, or Mr. Mike as I began to call him, quickly pulled me aside and advised me to watch what I say. He said, “Lauren, now that you’re volunteering here, you should really watch how you speak about North Philly. The parents and kids we work with live here.” That was a pivotal moment for me: realizing that what I said had the power to shape how people think. For the first time, I was being held accountable for the way I thought, spoke, and perceived the community surrounding where I went to school. Now, as part of my job as the Volunteer Coordinator at Tree House, I get to witness other tutors come to terms with their own understanding of North Philly. In September 2011, to kick off the new school year, we invited all the parents of the Tree House kids to participate in a parent orientation and family dinner. We talked about the rules, the ins and outs of programs, and read aloud the Tree House Books Pledge, which starts off with our mission: “I choose to be a reader, writer and thinker.” Afterwards, we opened the floor up for questions and suggestions from parents. They had, really, only one question, “How can we support Tree House?” One parent suggested donating snacks, one suggested collecting change, and all agreed that it was their duty as parents and members of the community to give back to Tree House Books for tutoring and mentoring their children after school. I was overwhelmed by this enthusiasm, and so was another tutor, Steph. Steph is a junior early childhood education major at Temple University, and at the time a team leader for Tutoring Time on Tuesdays. As the parents piped in with words of encouragement and support, Steph sat in her seat tearing up. She told me later that her tears were ones of happiness because she was able to witness such loving words coming from the members of a community many Temple students view as a place filled

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with hate. She said, “I don’t know how I ever thought badly about North Philly before.” At Tree House Books, college students are learning from school-aged kids through everyday exchanges, allowing for a reciprocity of learning that happens when you least expect it. I had a different realization two summers ago in our backlot garden. I was watering the garden with Sharon Turner, a volunteer and longtime community member. As she was explaining to me that the green, leafy part of a carrot also tastes like the orange part, I noticed one of the Tree House 6-year-olds, James Wilson, riding his bike in the empty lot adjacent to our garden. The lot has been a frustration to the Tree House Books staff and board of directors for some time. No matter how many times it was cleared of weeds and litter, a mess always returned. But seeing James ride his bike through it just made me think “he deserves better.” All of the children with whom we work deserve a sanctuary which, in my opinion, is what Tree House Books strives to be each day. James rode his bike up to the fence of our garden and seeing he had my attention said, “Hey Ms. Lauren!” I replied by asking him if he wanted to try a carrot. I handed it to him through the metal fence and as he grabbed it, our attention was drawn to the left where some Temple students were throwing a party. It was Spring Fling on Temple’s campus. Spring Fling is notorious for early drinking, skipping class or attending class intoxicated, and something called “Kegs and Eggs.” A house of Temple students that shared Tree House’s backyard wasn’t wasting any time in celebrating. As the carrot was exchanged through the fence, we heard the crash of a 40 oz. glass beer bottle that was thrown over the fence and into the empty lot by one of the students. My eyes wandered back to James. He saw the same thing I had but thought nothing of the act and continued to tell me about his new school and why he hadn’t been at Tree House lately. I think about James in that abandoned lot whenever I find myself forgetting the very real impact just knowing one child in North Philly can have on a college student. That experience in the garden has shown me that Tree House is building a fortress around these kids, protecting them from what they cannot see coming—whether it be a glass beer bottle or, in a larger sense, illiteracy, poverty, and food inequities. Tree House is also there to protect positive exchanges, ones that allow for just-picked carrots to be passed through fences, and 6-year-olds to talk with Temple University undergraduates who are also talking with longtime community members they would not have otherwise met. Tree House Books’ mission extends to the volunteers just as much as it does to the children. I’ve seen it happen. Once an undergraduate student begins to see herself as a reader, writer and thinker in North Central Philadelphia, she is no longer “just another Temple student.” She is forever Ms. Lauren or Ms. Steph.

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My hope is that each year Tree House Books gains an undergraduate student whose understanding of North Philly is completely changed, and all because they accept the chance to be taught by the powerful people who surround them.

ELI’S THOUGHTS ON BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS AT TREE HOUSE As I look over the phrases and descriptions used by participants in this interview, I’m struck by how often all three emphasize trust and relationship building as a way to teach reading and writing. Mike Reid focuses us at the outset on honest needs assessment followed by a concerted effort to meet those needs. He sees the mission at Tree House Books to require “really determining exactly what is needed, and actually doing it.” This plan provides an excellent road map for success in any school or social service agency, but he is concerned most, I think, with developing the sort of trust among neighbors that would ensure their support and a healthy attitude among students who come to us every day after school. People in a stressed neighborhood need to feel that the staff in a literacy program respects the community enough to deliver on promises. Nyseem graduated from eighth grade at a neighborhood school and is now visiting colleges in preparation for applying next year. He speaks almost exclusively out of his identification with the mission of the staff, not the students. He emphasizes this same theme of trust building: “getting them to a place where they can trust in us, talk to us, and even read with us.” I admire Nyseem’s commitment to the younger kids he has come to feel are his charges, but I also feel his words indicate what a success Tree House had with him. His sense of himself as an understanding and helpful person is largely tied, in his testimony, to his interaction with the kids he has seen growing there, but I can’t read his words without thinking how much he himself must have grown to get to this point. Tree House served as a safe space for him to care about someone other than himself; he can judge his actions by how well others thrive. For a 16-yearold boy to develop such commitment is a tribute to him and his family, but it also suggests that literacy is being framed at Tree House as a group effort, as an enterprise where the older ones gain by the progress of the younger ones. Nyseem may be an outstanding young man, but he’s not an anomaly. Tree House does foster a culture of caring within which reading and writing can mean more than a set of marketable skills. Sharon represents a voice from the neighborhood. She shows great concern for the kids who come in the afternoon, kids she regards as her own in large measure. But I was pleased to see that she sees the young Temple volunteers in a similar light. She makes the distinction between

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students who don’t know that “living in the area is not actually participating in it” and those who extend themselves to touch the lives of their neighbors at Tree House. She doesn’t show the animus against Temple as a thoughtless bully on the block, as others in the neighborhood are likely to feel, because she sees the college students who come in regularly and really make an attempt to understand as well as to instruct. They come to see her neighborhood as not so “fearful” or “unknown,” and in return she welcomes them and sees the university as “contributing to Tree House.” I think Tree House transforms the attitudes of children and college students alike because of its emphasis on trust and relationship. Gains in decoding skill and vocabulary and writing proficiency will come in their own time, but relationship makes those gains possible and even likely. My students come back from Tree House with a new light in their eyes, and over time they admit to me that not only do Tree House kids need them but that they—the independent, grown up, going-somewhere college students—need the kids. I feel it myself when I walk the five blocks from my office to Tree House. The glass and brick architecture of a big university abruptly ends, and I’m walking past Afifa Fashion & Variety store, New Beginnings hair salon, and the window of our workshop storefront. Before I push open the glass door of the bookstore entrance, I might exchange a few words with the two or three guys selling underwear and hats and shirts out of cases on the street in front of the more or less boarded up shop painted a deep blue next door. I am not an academic anymore, and for all the problems on this street, I’m relieved to be here. As Darcy points out in her introduction, the double realities in American culture can play out starkly in this neighborhood. However, sometimes at Tree House we can focus our energies on our singular purpose. The tiered system of privileges at the university or in the office buildings of Center City mean very little here on Susquehanna Avenue. At Tree House respect comes to those who show up and do the work alongside everybody else.This is a group I want to be a part of, to learn from, to nurture and be nurtured by.

CHAPTER 3

FROM SAN FRANCISCO TO SENEGAL A Case Study of International Service-Learning Partnership Development D. ALLENDER

Dale Allender

A few years ago, the students and faculty from Linc Community School completed a 3-year service-learning project in the village of Keur Sadaro, Senegal. Faculty and administration from the school assessed their efforts positively and decided to undertake a scouting trip to other parts of Senegal in search of a new service initiative. Africa looms large in the political and social imaginations of communities all over the world. In July 2010 I began a short-term assignment as executive director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Linc, an affluent, independent high school in San Francisco. Before officially stepping into my new position, I found myself in dialogue with Africa, mostly with various entities and individuals representing or requesting an opportunity to help Africa through the auspices of my temporary office. I believe in the power of narratives and—in a critical race theorist sense—counternarratives. My work involves outreach, advocacy, research, instruction, and marketing. In these domains, narratives and counter-

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 45–63 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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narratives construct and crash, meld and mend, heal and celebrate around me, through me, and from me. They convey material and emotional truths. This is a once-upon narrative; a then-and-now narrative; an eye-witness narrative; a personal narrative; a public narrative. Colonial and postcolonial contact is ongoing, recursive, and overlapping. Visitors from all over the world continue crisscrossing Africa. Forprofit enterprises from the transatlantic slave trade to the diamond, fishing, tourism, and other industries entice outsiders. A similar trajectory beginning with missionary work has existed in the humanitarian realm, although perhaps not as pronounced and robust as for-profit measures. Not all of those endeavors are as widespread as that of the Peace Corps, Bono, and Bush projects. Smaller efforts from churches and schools have an impact on communities as deep as larger projects, adding their own noteworthy humanitarian footprint. These efforts are often welcome relief to villages struggling with economic, health, and education gaps compared to those of many Global North1 nations in North America, Asia, and Europe. When governments, nongovernmental organizations, schools, and churches offer or initiate an opportunity to bridge this gap, villagers often celebrate, break bread, and eagerly engage in partnerships of all sorts. It is important to note that what is considered helpful is not always clear: It can be contested, or at least multifaceted (Oldfield, 2008; Sharp & Briggs, 2006). From the time I was hired 2 years ago through the present, I was contacted about one potential project or another in Lisotho, Tanzania, Malawi, Senegal, and South Africa. Each project sounded exciting, adventurous, and always humanitarian. After “heads up” e-mails in early June from the assistant head of school, a parent from the high school contacted me to discuss a potential project in Lisotho, an independent country situated in the middle of South Africa. Although the parent had no particular goal or agenda in mind for the service endeavor, we met several times. Ultimately, I was unable to work with her given the newness of my role, and the need to acclimate to my responsibilities, reach, and resources. Our meetings ended with a quiet affirmation that the project would not get off of the ground. In September, teachers who had just returned from the last year of a 3year commitment to the Senegal service-learning project approached me for assistance in facilitating a discussion with our soon-to-retire head of school. They wanted to understand the next steps in determining the school’s commitment to Senegal. I will explore this discussion in detail in the next section. I contextualize the discussion as one of many efforts from the school community to engage Africa. The discussion was methodical, yielding a new service adventure worthy of critique, and offering

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examples of important elements to replicate when establishing servicelearning partnerships. In November of the same year, while sorting through early plans for a June scouting trip to Senegal, I received e-mails from the director of Teach with Africa, a service organization based in Marin County, California. Teach for Africa facilitates a home stay and school shadow visit for South African teachers in training from the LEAP Science and Maths Schools in Johannesburg and Cape Town. In concert with the e-mails, faculty approached me on behalf of the organization. I raised money through the Center’s teacher education program to support two South African teacher education students’ home-stays with our students. I also arranged for the school’s learning specialist to hold a workshop with all twelve of the students visiting from the LEAP Schools about learning differences and styles from a U.S. perspective. The students shared information about one of their educational psychology courses. I also involved the 12 students from South Africa in the school’s first-ever Martin Luther King, Jr. Day events. In January, while planning for the students from Johannesburg’s arrival and presentation, and our June scouting trip to Senegal, our head of school shared his excitement over meeting World Leadership School representatives. World Leadership School is one of several organizations that plan international service-learning experiences for (mostly private or otherwise affluent) high school students from the United States. We learned that the director of the World Leadership School had a relationship with a parent of a former student from our school. That parent supports several schools in East Africa. Most recently she was supporting the Banjika Secondary School in Karatou, located in rural Tanzania. She explained that to have a secondary school in rural Africa was significant. But the Banjika School was also special because it had a technology sponsor. The passion from the head of our school and the commitment from two faculty members ruled the day. We added this project to the center’s portfolio, working with the World Leadership School to send 10 of our students and two teachers to Banjika. In summer 2011 the center sponsored two trips to Africa: Tanzania in East Africa and the Senegal service-learning scouting trip in West Africa. The following fall, faculty continued the conversation about Tanzania and Senegal with the center and a new head of school. For Senegal, we worked to establish a second 2- to 3-year service commitment to Santhiou Mame Gor, a small village 1 hour or so from Mbor, Mboa, Thies, and Dakar: the major cities in the area, with Dakar being the capital city. After the first trip with students at the Banjika School, the next trip to Tanzania in 2012 was limited to adults for professional development.

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While it seemed that our international efforts to the home land were beginning to find focus, with conversations and planning for the summer 2012 work in Africa well underway, our new head of school forwarded one e-mail conversation with a board member about continuing our work with Teach for Africa, and another from a partner of an alumnus he had met in November about a potential project in Malawi. Two months later, a center board member talked with me about her project in Malawi and how we might learn from their work in an African country with only one natural resource: an abundance of fresh water. These inquiries were posed from July 2010 through March 2012, and included a year and a half of unsolicited requests to do service work in Africa. How are we to make sense of this rush to Africa to serve and “save the villagers”? Clearly, the economic need in Africa is great. Zambian-born, world-renowned economist Dambasio Moyo (2009) offers important dialogue critical about the system of aid to many countries in Africa. But if citizens from nations that either helped to create gross historical inequities or are still receiving benefits from the legacy of inequities make an effort to alleviate a legacy of suffering, can it be all bad? There is a historic and contemporary aesthetic attraction to “the dark continent”—and not just for gorilla researcher Dian Fossey or art historian Robert Farris Thompson. The attraction calls African Americans and White Americans alike. I am reminded of William Greaves’ 1966 documentary of the First World Negro Arts Festival attended by Harry Belafonte, Langston Hughes, Alvin Ailey, Haile Selassie, and Duke Ellington. I am also reminded of Muhammad Ali’s famous fight with George Foreman in Zaire. Africa calls the scholar, the artist, and the humanitarian. There is also a conscious and an unconscious drive to address the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and colonialism in general, even if addressing this legacy is messy and incomplete. One of the teachers that participated in our Senegal service-learning project, a Senegalese-born world language teacher, believes that the drive to Africa is more about the need to build and develop. He says that there is nothing left to build in Europe or the United States, so people from these areas return to Africa as their ancestors before them. They build, develop, and create schools. I believe that one way to make service more “clean” in Africa is to establish partnerships with integrity. Perhaps the best attempt to make sense of this legacy in an educational context comes from the documentary Tutu and Franklin: A Journey Towards Peace (Poussaint, 2001) where the two elder statesmen bring together a dozen adolescents of mixed-races from South Africa, Senegal, and the United States for dialogue about the past, present, and future.

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DIALOGUE AND DEMOCRACY Jacoby’s (2003) edited volume on building partnerships, and Chisolm’s (2003) chapter on international partnerships in that text, offer a comprehensive look at the elements of service learning partnerships. My narrative focuses on dialogue and highlights the importance of the democratic process when building service-learning partnerships. On September 22, 2010 I convened a meeting with teachers and the outgoing head of our school to discuss the possibility of a new 3-year service-learning commitment in rural Senegal. Earlier in the summer students from two independent San Francisco high schools completed the final year of their 3-year collaborative commitment to Keur Sadaro, a large village with several surrounding satellite villages. Keur Sadaro was the first village, at least in the area—if not in all of Senegal—to receive support from the Peace Corps. Since the Peace Corps is still in Keur Sadaro, villagers there are used to hosting service projects from financially stable or prosperous communities through churches, schools, nongovernmental organizations, and other organizations in other countries. This history and longevity must have made the early endeavor proposed by the now retired dean of faculty from our partner school run smoothly on several counts. The community was not isolated from international visitors, as some remote villages can be, even with so many projects or proposed projects in Africa. Likely, it was easier for villagers to explain the rationale of the service project among themselves; French-speaking liaisons with a connection to Keur Sadaro willing to assist in facilitating the project would be relatively easy for the schools to locate; the community could easily name needs to be addressed by a service project; positive relationships were easy to build on and maintain; and the villagers could identify many other such aspects of the hidden infrastructure needed to carry out the project successfully. However, as the group progressed through the 3 years, they found that this emic understanding of the factors needed to undertake the project was not comprehensive, but complicated. For example, teachers in Senegal frequently come from outside the villages where they teach. The Senegalese government agrees to provide a teacher to a village school if the village can build the school facility. Because the service project was based mostly in the village school, the two U.S. schools partnering on this early service effort experienced challenges to ensuring a unified acceptance of their service work at the school, among all of the villagers, especially when the project incorporated donations of computers, solar panels, oil presses, or tools. Challenges notwithstanding, faculty were struck by the spirit of the Senegalese people, the meaningfulness of the service work,

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and the opportunities for students to learn about a life significantly different from their own. At the meeting, the head of school offered a frame that noted the wonderful program students and faculty had experienced, the end of the 3year project, and the related partnership with the other high school. He did not propose anything, but rather expressed the feeling that “we should take a look” at what occurred to inform future decisions. He asked a series of questions to the faculty, beginning with the most broad and moving to the very specific. He wondered if the school should continue global service education projects at all, and if so, whether or not projects should be initiated in Africa or someplace else with similar economic need. If yes, he asked if the focus should be in the same country (Senegal) and in the same village (Keur Sadaro). Finally, he asked for opinions about the direction of the possible ongoing connections with the partner school in a future service project. There are many points of entry for analysis in the conversation described below. I raise questions about history, colonial legacies, and motivation among others. The primary areas of analysis and recommendation for this chapter concern the establishment of partnerships when undertaking such an endeavor. There are varied relationships worth studying, such as interactions between teachers and administrators, and between teachers and students. I have chosen to focus on the relationship between the two partner schools, and the relationship between the two schools and the village with which the schools decided to partner for the service project. After exploring the meeting introduced above, I will explore the initial meeting between representatives from the two schools and the village. The intent is to offer some critique, but mostly to glean what was worthwhile in the process and suggest how others might learn from our efforts as we learned through informed trial and error.

Global Service Education Projects Two of the teachers present felt that students may not have received much from the project if the families who hosted them were closer to home. They felt that the students would not have had exposure to a different worldview if the experiences were not so far away. Additionally, they felt that the students sounded more motivated to do work in their home communities because of the distance and difference they experienced in the Senegalese village. Another teacher added that she believed students feel more interested in doing additional work abroad having had this experience in Senegal. She said that before interacting with the Peace Corps during an international service learning project, the students never

From San Francisco to Senegal 51

thought about the possibility of working with the Peace Corps following college. These anecdotal observations from the teachers are significant and noteworthy, particularly in this narrative as they convey the communicative process that led the school to commit to a scouting trip in Senegal to establish a second 3-year service-learning project. However, Crabtree’s (2008) review of international service-learning neither affirms nor refutes these conclusions in a broader context. One of the teachers who acted as a primary chaperone and administrator for at least two of the 3 years addressed the head’s question about the value of international service with another question: “Why would we do anything abroad?” he asked. “We are in a global society,” he added. “If we don’t go, we don’t understand the world and its people as much.” He then affirmed his colleague’s opinion: “It is because Senegal is so far away that the experience is so significant for the students.” There is a danger in fetishizing difference in any kind of service project, international or otherwise. But Adler (1975) details the psychological shock of cross-cultural transitions as an experience of personal growth and transformation. Other proponents of international service learning affirm this teacher’s comments (Urraca, Kedoux, & Harris, 2009). After listening to the teachers’ responses to the initial questions, The Head asked, “What does the rest of the community get out of the school’s sponsorship of this service project? We need to consider how the Senegal service-learning project fits in to the school’s mission.” Although only a small number actually go on a service-learning trip, all should be able to learn and contribute to the service endeavor in some way. For example, perhaps students not going can still learn the preparatory content along with the core group of participants. The students not attending might also be organized to participate in collections of clothing, technology, or sports equipment for the village.

Should Projects be in Africa? “Why Africa? Why not go to Arizona to visit the Hopi community, for example? Why not Nicaragua or some other part of the globe? Is there something very special about getting kids to Africa versus some other part of the world?” All affirmed that having a faculty member from Africa is an important reason for continuing there. They have a point person, a cultural ambassador, or at least a live point of reference. In fact, both schools have faculty members who grew up in Senegal. Both speak English, French, and Wolof. One of these teachers worked in the Peace Corps, navigating projects in villages. This faculty connection aided the arranging

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and navigating of the first service project and the scouting trip. One faculty member highlighted that the trip was a “synergistic experience,” a comment that shaped decisions not only to return to Africa, but to return to Senegal as discussed below. Again, the teachers highlighted Africa’s depth of difference: Africa is not only different from the United States, it is very different from other places outside the United States. Further, they expressed a concern that media stereotypes about Africa are the most skewed among international representations. They felt that visiting Africa could help to challenge media stereotypes. Visiting Africa could help challenge media stereotypes about Africa, but if such a challenge is a travel objective, it needs to be explicit, consciously implicit, or Socratic. Teachers also said that Africa is a part of “our history that we are so uncomfortable with that we keep it at arm’s length.” Cornel West says that Americans in general run from history (Gates & West, 1996). Studies of history textbooks (e.g., Loewen, 1995) support this conceptual notion of willful amnesia. However, the experience for this trip placed more emphasis on the social relationships in the village, and supporting the educational advancement of villagers than helping students understand history. “The fact that we all came from Africa and that we know so little about it is a profound reason for being there.” This remark came from a biology teacher who was part of the last year of the first iteration as well as the scouting trip. The scientific understanding that “we all came from Africa” should be made more specific. Humanity’s origins are said to be in East Africa, not West Africa (Leaky & Lewin, 1977). A service trip with this rationale and learning consideration would head to Ethiopia, Kenya, or Tanzania. From a historic perspective, the transatlantic slave trade and the legacies of privilege and suffering are what makes Senegal (or Ghana, Burkina Faso, or other sources of slave labor) an important place to participate in service-learning projects. These appeals were largely emotional. In the end, teachers felt that Africa is not really a better or worse place than other international locales, “but we have a start there,” they said. This feeling seemed to highlight the importance of establishing—of already having established—relationships with the service community or geography. Many relationships were established during the first 3 years with merchants, guides, proprietors, and most importantly with families. These connections seemed to be the most significant reasons offered by faculty to forge ahead into Africa and into Senegal. The head of school continued, “In the beginning we believed the Senegal trip would be especially deep and powerful for African American students. How has this worked out?’ The teachers responded to this inquiry

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by addressing gender role experiences. They noted that the effect the project had on women “was huge. As feminists, several students had real issues.” Three girls were struggling with themselves to be respectful of the culture. They talked about their reactions to polygamy, childbearing and rearing, domestic work, and other aspects of women’s lives following from the paternalistic family and societal hierarchy. It is not uncommon to deflect conversations of race to those of gender. I would like to have seen more discussion of the intersection of race and gender. In this instance race was the direct line of inquiry, but it wasn’t discussed in depth. This surface treatment may partly follow from the fact that too few African American students attended either one of the schools. Thus, the number of African American students participating was very small as compared to other students. When the teachers did turn to the topic of race, they noted that in some instances host families did not believe African American students were really Black, and that rejection was very hard for the students. They also said that two of the African American girls had “a hugely transformative experience while visiting the Isle de Goree.” There was not a great deal of elaboration on this point, however. They simply noted that the experience of the African American students has varied.

Returning to Senegal The head master wanted to know, why return to Senegal? He asked, “If an opportunity dropped in our lap to go to South Africa, Tanzania, et cetera. would we go?” Everyone liked the idea of staying in Senegal—it was closer than most other African countries they might consider, and they felt it was safer and more politically stable. Although later affirmed, the stability issue was briefly called into question during the scouting trip, and for almost a year after. When the once popular president Wade sought a third term in office, the country demonstrated against him, especially since the Senegalese constitution did not allow for more than two terms. Occasionally, the demonstrations turned violent as some felt Wade was no longer an effective leader. Prices for basic necessities were doubling, and too few jobs were available. Ultimately, Wade and Mackey, one of the candidates for president, held a runoff election, and Mackey was voted in. Major media outlets reported that Wade stepped aside and allowed the democratic process to proceed. In addition to distance, safety, and stability, familiarity with Senegal resulting from the first project, and the presence of two Senegalese faculty members at the partner schools, helped solidify Senegal as the selected African country for a second service project.

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One teacher, who favored staying with the previous village, said, “It would be great to maintain the relationships with the village; it is easy because we have experience and have figured things out already; and it is financially feasible because of the home-stays.” The head of school affirmed that the most profound experience for students has happened in the home-stays. “International trips that do not have home-stays are tourist trips,” he said, providing an affirmation of home-stays as a relationship-building activity that contributes to the process of personal growth and transformation (Adler, 1975). Everyone else was in agreement on the importance of finding another village to support. One of the teachers captured the sentiment of the group: “The village we worked with has so much; if we stay in Senegal we should go to another village without such familiarity with Western service initiatives.” Equally important, although the outgoing Dean of Faculty from our partner school and the village agreed that the village needed to maintain the garden, computers, and other benefits of the first servicelearning initiative in order to sustain the partnership, no one knew if the maintenance had been provided. This village has had many groups come in and work with them. Another teacher interjected, “our faculty member from Senegal is interested in having us come and work in his village; he is interested in having us build a school in there.” The previous speaker urged the school to establish a 5-year commitment, especially for a village that does not have as many resources as the previous village.

School-to-School Partnerships The support of the partnering school’s dean of faculty on the first effort cannot be underestimated. It was, in fact, his project initially. He invited our school to participate because of the school’s tradition of public purpose work and strong industrial arts program. Students at our school build furniture, repair homes, and study wood, metal, and electricity. But the dean of faculty had the initial self-described “emotional connection to Senegal” that motivated him to establish the effort. He is passionate, transparent, and unwavering in his goal to support the villages in Senegal, largely by supporting the school and medical infrastructure. He is a one-person international development agency. I have never seen anyone with more clarity in his passion and follow-through, unclouded by romantic illusion. Perhaps he is so committed because this French-born man is also of African descent, having experienced his own share of hardship resulting from colonial legacy. Our head of school and the teachers still needed to process the potential future partnership. They asked, “If we were going to do something

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additional in Africa, will we partner with another school? Will it be the same school?” They wondered if the other school would be doing a service trip to Senegal if not for their dean, particularly since he was retiring. We learned earlier that he had negotiated with the school to stay on in some capacity in relation to this trip, and he was hoping that we would stay involved in some way. One teacher asserted, “Working with the other school was not uncomplicated. If we work with them, their dean is in charge. He is a big picture person and needs someone to work on the details.” Another countered that the dean worked on all of the logistics: “Without him, there is a lot of work in logistics that faculty really don’t have time to conduct without some release time. This would be a huge missing component.” And another offered, “This is our program; it comes from both of our schools and uses our talents and skills; we’ve developed it; going with another group, we may lose some of this [autonomy and control].” A third said, “We know the dean wants to continue the project with us in the same region, but not in the same village. To launch a new project without him would be a big disrespect to him and our partner school.” The final point that solidified the working relationship with the Dean involved his wife’s medical background. One teacher asked, “Can you do a trip in Africa without a medical doctor? The value added to the community and the schools is huge. The bottom line: We have a responsibility to stay with our partner; working with him makes the most sense.” With this admonition from a veteran of two of the three past trips, we agreed to engage in another 3-year project in a new Senegalese village, led by the dean of faculty at our partner school. The new project would be contingent on locating a new village that we could work with and that would work with us.

Elements for Consideration There is considerable processing to be done about this trip and the service components. The focus of this chapter is on the establishment of partnerships in the process. All service-learning work requires a range of partnering among primary actors, supporters, and recipients. The process above began with the following: • Clear questions for actors and supporters, and questions about recipients. Clear questions don’t have preconceived answers, but rather are intended to inquire and determine how the information synthesizes with a clear mission.

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• A desire for balance regarding attention on the service component for the village and the learning component for the students enacting the service work. Service-learning cannot be one sided. If we are only emphasizing service, we act without intelligence and may end up doing more harm than good. • A real desire to build consensus about the project among primary partners in the service project. Although there are always multiple agendas operating in any endeavor, service work needs to have some degree of consensus about what is being done, by whom, and for whom in order to have some success.

THE MEETING IN SANTHIOU MAME GOR We arrived in Senegal by way of New York in early morning darkness and heavy heat. Landing in Charles de Gaul International Airport creates a kind of displacement suggested by Clifford (2003), Geertz (1973), and others who do qualitative inquiry. But my traveling companions had made this trip at least five times, and they made necessary arrangements for us to quickly depart from the airport by bus to our hotel. Those of us who had not been to Senegal observed the fanfare of a famous professional wrestler arriving home, being interviewed by a local television station, and later being chased by admiring children as he and his entourage drove away in black Cadillac Escalades. We also navigated our way past countless people looking for cash from quick sales of goods or services and disabled men with makeshift, broken crutches asking for money. After our move out of the terminal and loading luggage, we drove into now early morning city light of the western-most point of the African continent. After a visit to Goree—the famous slave port where students on the previous service-learning trips visit at the end of their 3-week stay—an overnight in the Good Rad hotel, and a stopover at a school in Mboa (a suburb of Dakar), we drove to the Santhiou Mame Gor. Unpaved dirt roads become the norm quickly in Senegal, even before leaving Dakar. The roads receive sands from the Atlantic breezes and also from the semidesert winds that blow across the northern part of the continent. Unpaved, sandy roads also reflect economics. The further away from the city and the closer to the village one goes, roads that do exist are in such disrepair that drivers frequently drive on the dirt shoulder to avoid a never-ending series of pot holes and debris. Turning onto the narrow half-mile road leading directly into the village, we sank deeper and deeper into the sand. Soon we found ourselves stuck. Everyone got out of the bus to lend the driver a hand as he dug

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shovels-full of sand to free the tires. As soon as he thought we had dug enough he would get back into the van, drive a foot or two and become stuck again. We pushed and pushed the van, but could not get it free of the sand. Eventually, a young man with a donkey cart came to get the suitcases out of the van and take them to our host’s home while we walked up the road to the village and off to a home on the outskirts. After several days of traveling in and out of the village, exploring the immediate area for medical facilities, restaurants, markets, and other cultural institutions, we had a confirmed meeting with the entire community to begin formal conversations about our service-learning ambitions. As the van pulled up, we could see that the entire village of about 500 gathered in a central spot where the dirt road ends, awaiting our arrival. The villagers arranged themselves in U-shaped assembly, providing chairs for our group to sit at the opening of the U. The village chief and the men sat directly across from us on mats with brightly colored kente cloth, or other African tie-dyes. Some wore pressed T-shirts with political, popular culture, or sports expressions. The women sat on mats and chairs to our right, mostly in tie-dyed dresses with matching head wraps or elaborate braids. Children and youth were mostly to our left, but they were allowed to roam somewhat freely. The youngest wanted to be near women—presumably mothers—who would nurse them occasionally. There was much excitement as the visitors who had been coming and going were finally present and ready to talk directly rather than simply smile, shake hands, and exchange brief greetings in French, Wolof, or a hybrid of the two: “Nanga def?” “Mag ni fi rek.” “Savah?” “Savah bien.” “No to do?” “Dale” This meeting was formal and lacking fanfare or celebration. At our meeting the following summer, we would be greeted with full percussion ensemble and women would perform traditional dances. Multiple praises and thanks would be offered, and an introduction to host families and work plans would begin. At this meeting, we were all “putting our cards on the table,” sharing our wish lists, and deciding what was possible. Only two people in our group were able to speak fluent Wolof, French, and English: the Senegalese teachers who worked at our two partner schools in the United States. Only one person from the village was identified at that time as a speaker of French and Wolof: a teacher who lived in the village, but taught at a school located in a different village. Others in the village spoke different levels of French and English in addition to Wolof. The teacher who worked at our school and who had a part time residence near the village was largely a host and facilitator. He did not speak at this time, nor did he take any administrative or leadership role at other times. Rather he provided facilitation and advice for the construc-

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tion of the schools, and instruction to help prepare the students for the trip once agreements were in place. He also offered enthusiastic oversight of the students building the desks for the school while we were in Senegal. The Senegalese teacher from our partner school assumed a leadership role at this time, translating remarks made in French from the leader of our project intended for the broader community, and the village chief specifically, to comments in Wolof. He also translated comments from Wolof to French for our leader and community. Occasionally the teacher would translate remarks made in Wolof by community members or the chief to French for our community. Both translators—the teachers from each community—stood while they spoke the perspectives of their various leaders, colleagues, and kin. Members of our group who spoke French offered occasional English translations to the few of us who spoke neither Wolof nor French. Our group established a shared understanding of comments and perspectives from the residents of Santhiou Mame Gor in a follow-up meeting of our own, and a follow-up meeting with a committee of villagers established by the chief. After introductions, our intentions were presented. We wanted to offer the village some development assistance as we had done in a different village. We talked about a variety of ideas: building a school in the village, assisting with their clinic, and enhancing gardens and farms. Then, we invited the community members to share their thoughts with us in an attempt to decide upon a mutually agreeable project and the parameters and guidelines for the work. Following the initial greetings, introductions, and opening remarks, the Chief spoke to the assembly and very specifically to our community. After welcoming us, he expressed interest in our initial proposal and agreed that having a school in the village would benefit the community. He also expressed interest in a community clinic. He then surprised us all by saying that his opinion was only an opinion and that the youth and the women of the community could speak to the community’s needs much more accurately than he. There are elements in Senegalese village culture that have been identified as patriarchal, and for some even misogynist (most extreme are female rites of passage related to genital circumcision). But in this discussion committed to designing for and directing the allocation of resources, men were not privileged. The chief identified the community’s interest as a whole as the driving factor for moving forward. Further, he identified members of often globally marginalized constituent groups (women and children) to convey how the community could most benefit from our service project. When a representative for the women spoke, she talked about the need for a multifaceted school whereby youth of the appropriate age could attend the traditional French schooling widely accepted in Senegal; others who had

From San Francisco to Senegal 59

missed this opportunity and were now too old to attend could receive schooling to learn how to be literate in Wolof in order to learn different trades. She also proposed a program where the women could learn literacy practices in Wolof alongside vocational and entrepreneurial skills to develop ways to market and sell their tie dyed cloth and other traditional items. After offering her comments, she yielded the floor to a young man representing the youth. In addition to having a school that would create opportunities for the youth to have after-school social and recreational activities, he said that the youth really needed a newly paved road leading into the village. The very road where our bus became stuck in the sand turns into a river of mud during the rainy season, but the youth must still use it to carry in the various goods from the farms or other village necessities under treacherous conditions. A newly paved road would assist the entire community. The villagers offered innovative notions of schooling and expressed sophisticated understandings of the educational needs of the community (e.g., operating hours, usage patterns of the school house). They saw many benefits of this educational partnership. The village and our project committee further expressed village priorities and our school’s bottom line parameters for the project during a follow-up meeting with the negotiating committee. The committee included the representatives discussed above, the proposed teacher for the school, and the village midwife. The village wanted us to build a school, fortify their clinic with advanced medical training for the midwife, and provide more medications. They also wanted electricity in the clinic, additional agricultural training, and a sewing center for the women so that they might create a stream of income beyond farming and selling items in the marketplace. We had four parameters that needed confirmation before we could proceed with the actual project: • Because this was a service project and not simply an international development effort, our students had to be able to participate in all aspects of the project. • We recognized the value and transformative power of home-stays in the last project, so we wanted to ensure that we could have some degree of home-stay component in this project. We needed to be clear that safety was very important. We had dietary, sanitary, and other safety measures that needed to be in place. • We wanted the villagers to participate in all aspects of the project. We wanted to develop a clear plan that outlined responsibilities for all involved.

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• Finally, we wanted to note that any planned or additional donations, goods, or services provided for the project or as part of our partnership should go to the village as a whole rather than particular individuals. We agreed that the committee would help in selecting and preparing families for home-stays and distributing anything we brought to the village. Once the committee affirmed these ground rules, we moved forward with the first two priorities on their list: building the school and fortifying the clinic.

Elements of Approach Ultimately we decided to work in Santhiou Mame Gor because of the village’s clarity, consensus, and commitment. We agreed to build the school and fortify the clinic with medications, additional training for the midwife, and treatment for villagers from our resident doctor while we were staying in the village. We felt that the villagers had a clear and prioritized sense of their needs. This clarity appeared to extend beyond personal gain for particular families and did not include special provisions for the village chief—a soft-spoken man of few words who was committed to his community’s overall welfare. He realized that community members needed to express their ideas directly and through committee representation. In this way, consensus was established among village members and between our committee and the village.

DISCUSSION The meetings at our school and between the partner schools and village were preceded by talks that set the stage for the formal meetings where we publicly agreed on broad formulas for moving forward with the partnership. The formal conversations also served as building blocks for the actual work, and they provided the seal of approval at the highest levels of administration of our respective communities to the varying levels of management and project work. As such, they are instructive for identifying important behaviors, understandings, and perspectives for establishing partnerships in service-learning projects. Below I identify elements common to both conversations and discuss their value.

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Village Unity and Faculty Unity Both meetings proceeded toward a unified vision for our work. Unity of perspective and plan was established on both sides first, and then for the partnership between our two schools. For the partner schools, we needed to come together as individual faculties and as one partnership before contacting the village. The villagers must have gone through a similar process of consensus building. Although there was an initial conversation during a seemingly open forum in the village, eventually a committee representing the village had a clear, unified priority list to be shared with us. This set of expectations allowed us to partner with a shared sense of expectations. We were going to build a school and we were going to fortify the clinic in two specific ways: training and medication. The village received the added bonus of having our doctor see patients and having the school stocked with books, computer and science equipment, and other supplies. But nothing was promised that was not possible to deliver. We committed to work with each other in ways that allowed us to enjoy the bonus surprises of anything beyond the basic agreements.

Respect for Democratic Process at our School and Among the Villagers This dimension may have something to do with the overall culture of democracy in both countries. Although the United States is known as a democratic country, it certainly has its challenges fully enacting a democratic ideal. There are some communities and institutions, such as the independent schools partnering on this project, that attempt to establish a fierce hold of the process to ensure that all voices are heard. The democratic process is how we reached consensus or unity of perspective and plan. We contributed our ideas and respected the process once a decision was reached for moving forward. The importance of the rule of law and democracy among the Senegalese echoed repeatedly throughout my visits in 2011 and in 2012. My tour guide in Dakar shared how he took to the streets to protest former President Wade’s perceived efforts to run for another term in office. Bruno Deneville, a hotel owner and legislative candidate in the current elections, shared similar stories of facing off with police during protests to preserve democracy. The democratic culture, and the leadership among our various groups’ attention to democracy, enabled us to feel like contributing members of the project. Just as there are glaring or amorphous examples of democracy sidestepped in the United States, residents from Casamance in south Senegal—the Jola—engage in occasional armed conflict with the

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Senegalese army. They are insisting that the Senegalese government affirm a commitment to the independence that they claim the first president of Senegal made to them in 1960. Newly elected President Mackey has agreed to take up this discussion directly with the Jola and their nearby allies in the Gambia and Guinea Bissau.

Commitment of Village and Partner Schools A unified perspective established through democratic processes helped us all build commitment to this project and gave us the confidence to move forward. Villagers needed to see our commitment to them, and we needed to see the commitment of the village. Feeling this confidence, we built a two-room school by the end of summer. I look forward to seeing how the village will engage the democratic process to establish the comprehensive programming at the school that will enable participation in the postcolonial system of government and commerce, and that will reinforce local literacies.

NOTE 1.

“Global North” is a term used in anthropology and critical geography. It challenges the idea that industrialization indicates progress that produces social, cultural, and national hierarchies. Although “North” typically refers to the world above the equator and “South” to nations below, the terms Global North and Global South distinguish regions according to social, technological, and economic differences, not geographic locations.

REFERENCES Adler, P. (1975). The transitional experience: An alternative view of culture shock. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 15(4), 13-23. Chisolm, L. (2003). Partnerships for international service-learning. In B. Jacoby and Associates (Eds.), Building partnerships for service-learning (pp. 259-288). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Clifford, J. (2003). On the edges of anthropology. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press. Crabtree, R. (2008). Theoretical foundations for international service-learning. Michigan Journal of Service-Learning, 18-36. Retrieved from http:// quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/p/pod/dod-idx?c=mjcsl;idno=3239521.0015.102 Gates, H. L., Jr., & West, C. (1996). The future of the race. New York, NY: Vintage Books. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York, NY: Basic Books.

From San Francisco to Senegal 63 Jacoby, B. (Ed.) (2003). Building partnerships for service learning. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Leaky, R. E., & Lewin, R. (1977). Origins: The emergence and evolution of our species and its possible future. New York, NY: Dutton. Loewen, J. (1995). Lies my teacher told me: Everything your American history textbook got wrong. New York, NY: The New Press Moyo, D. (2009). Dead aid: Why aid is not working and how there is another way for Africa. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Oldfield, J. (2008). Who’s serving whom? Partners, process, and products in service learning projects in South African urban geography. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 32(2), 269-285. Poussaint, R. (Prod.) (2001). Tutu and Franklin: A journey towards peace. Wisdom Works. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NnEMzkn600Q Sharpe, J., & Briggs, J. (2006). Postcolonialism and development: New dialogues? The Geographical Journal, 172(1), 6-9. Urraca, B., Kedoux, M., & Harris, J., III. (2009). Beyond the comfort zone: Lessons of international service-learning. The Clearing House, 82(6), 281-289.

CHAPTER 4

AN AUTHENTIC, CURRICULUM-BASED APPROACH TO SERVICE-LEARNING M. B. THORNTON

Meghan B. Thornton

Service-learning can serve as a vehicle for teachers of English/Language Arts to help students use language and other symbolic tools to promote their interactions with and position in the greater community and world. Negroni (1995) argues that “Schools cannot continue to work in isolation, as if our work has no relationship to the larger society and the issues facing it” (p. 81). If teachers endeavor to create a community of lifelong learners who can apply their academic education to the problems and challenges facing their greater community, then the relationship between student and community must strive to be both intimate and reciprocal.

AN OPPORTUNITY FOR SERVICE-LEARNING As a literature, composition, and language teacher, I have always struggled to make the lessons of literacy and literature applicable to both the immediate and future worlds of my students. I recognize that not all 13-

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 65–81 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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year-olds who cross my threshold will enter loving to read, and I do not expect them to. I am also under no false impression that they will all leave my class in June with a love of books that mirrors my own. That being said, I do expect that my students will leave my class with a better understanding of the value of a literate life. In other words, I want my students to recognize just how connected their academic and social worlds are, and will be. Through diligent work to create lessons and units that require students to apply their literacy education to real-world obstacles and challenges, students can begin to construct their own personal and public worlds, and thus potentially become full participants in society, helping National Center for Teacher Education’s (2010) mission for literacy education to become more of a reality. I establish a culture that attempts to marry students’ academic and social worlds in my classroom at the beginning of the year through a basic discussion of books and movies. In my class, almost all novel reading is done independently and is self-selected by each individual student. While students are initially very excited about the idea of selecting their own books throughout the year, they quickly find that making appropriate book selections can require some effort. Consequently, I find it important to teach students how to select texts that are both interesting and challenging for them. To begin, I ask students how they choose a book and what prereading strategies they use before they jump into reading. Some of the prereading and book selection strategies students find helpful are reading the information on the back of the book, considering their past experience with an author’s writing, reading the chapter titles in the table of contents, looking at the book length as well as chapter lengths, considering the print size and the author’s use of illustrations, and, of course, the appearance of the book’s cover. After a thorough discussion of student’s prereading strategies, I pose my next question: How do you choose which movie to watch on a Friday night? Students are always surprised to see just how similar their movie-selecting strategies (which are done almost subconsciously) are to the prereading strategies they use in school. Throughout the remainder of the school year I work to help students identify these connections between their formal literature education and the world around them. In an effort to help my students find the value in literacy and to form a deeper, more critical understanding of texts, I recently chose to incorporate service-learning into my eighth grade literature curriculum. Not only can service-learning have the obvious effect of helping students create an identity in their community (potentially inside and outside school), but it can also strengthen the engagement students feel with course curriculum and provide an opportunity for authentic engagements with text

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(Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007). Stephens (1995) and Youniss, McLellan, and Yates (1997) argue that through service-learning, “students show greater bonding to school because of increased motivation to learn and also a greater sense of civic responsibility because of the observable outcomes of their work in the community” (as cited in Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. xvi). Furthermore, evidence of increased attendance and student motivation during service learning suggests heightened student engagement with curriculum (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. xv). In effect, service learning potentially engages students with course material by encouraging them to explore the challenges of their community and, ideally, to use their academic and literacy learning for an authentic purpose. Chan, Ma, Chan, Chin, and Yeung (2012) reference Hatcher and Bringle (1995) to define service learning as a: course-based, credit bearing educational experience that allow students (a) to participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs; (b) to reflect on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. (p. 103)

As the definition highlights, not only must students engage in a service activity, it must be (1) tied to curriculum, and (2) reflected upon. For many teachers, me included, the practical aspects of the service project itself are overwhelming. Questions about what constitutes a service project, when and where students will complete the service, and what resources students will need in order to complete the project begin to overshadow the purpose behind the service. For these teachers it is important to consider the myriad of possibilities of what constitutes a service project, before shying away from service-learning altogether. Wilczenski and Coomey (2007) identify two service options for students. The first is direct service in which “students engage in face-to-face interactions with people being served in the community” (Wilczenski & Coomey, p. 5). Conversely, indirect service would “involve experiences that address a community need but in this case, the service providers and the recipients of service are physically distant from one another” (Wilczenski & Coomey, p. 6). Thus, service does not necessitate after-school, or even out-of-school, time and travel. Rather, service becomes a chameleon of sorts, taking on many different appearances based on the resources available and students involved. Consider the following service project options: • a class of second grade students creating holiday cards for nursing home residents;

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• eighth-grade students using Skype to read children’s books to children in a local hospital or elementary school; • fifth-grade students using their recess time to collect recycling from classroom teachers or clean public areas of the school grounds; • kindergartners creating a small decorative craft to be included on the dinner trays of patients in the hospital; and • tenth graders planning, executing, and editing an antibullying video to be circulated around the school or shared on YouTube. While these possibilities illustrate a combination of direct and indirect service options, all are activities that encourage teachers and students to identify and address a community need. As a middle school literature teacher, I used various nonfiction texts to help students identify and understand a need in their community. Through various nonfiction texts (including print books, news articles, and websites), students learned about the major areas of need around the world, as well as the local community. To deepen understanding of the texts used, I led students in discussions about the structures and features found in nonfiction text (versus the fiction texts they were more comfortable with). Students were also exposed to new vocabulary in the various texts. To help students navigate this challenging literature, I required all students to maintain a “new word” vocabulary list throughout their reading and to use these words in their written and verbal reading reflections. The skills needed to both identify and address a community need require careful instruction on the part of the teacher, and provide an excellent opportunity for student learning. Finally, in selecting and introducing service projects, it is necessary for teachers to consider and discuss with their students the difference between charity and change. Students must begin to understand their role within the community, rather than seeing themselves as outsiders giving to a community in need. This experience helps to develop the reciprocal relationship between student and community mentioned earlier. If students begin to understand service as an opportunity for change, they will be better able to recognize the “transformative potential of service learning” (Wilczenski & Coomey, 2007, p. 7) for all parties involved. Unlike charity, which suggests that one party is active (the giver) while the other is dormant (the receiver), change requires action from all community members. Wilczenski and Coomey (2007) assert that “Change involves a caring relationship that deepens understanding of others and the context of their lives. Emphasizing change through service learning carries the moral, political, and intellectual implications of caring and transformation” (pp. 7-8). In effect, students learn about the needs and

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challenges facing their community, as well as the ongoing, although varied, work that must be done by all community members to incite positive change. When I made the initial decision to teach a service-learning unit, I did so in an effort to connect the lessons of literature to an actual, authentic purpose. I also knew that I needed to incorporate more nonfiction reading (and writing) into my curriculum to satisfy the new Common Core State Standards (2012), and felt this unit could provide the opportunity to do so. As I began planning my unit, however, I realized that there were more relational lessons to be learned, as well. As in so many school districts across the country, high school students in my area are required to complete a set number of service hours in order to graduate. While all programs are different, my experience with such service programs has been overwhelmingly focused on satisfying a requirement, rather than developing any true, deep understanding of community and service. Ultimately, through my service-learning unit, I wanted to introduce students to community service in a way that could help them understand why service is important, that they are stakeholders in their community. Ideally, that disposition would help them feel a personal responsibility to serve. Furthermore, I wanted all of these lessons to happen in an environment where personal reflection was valued, modeled, and expected. I teach in a small K-8 charter school in Raleigh, North Carolina. The focus of our charter is on service and project-based learning, both of which were very helpful in the planning and execution of my servicelearning unit. Parents and administrators were immediately supportive of my goal and never challenged or second-guessed my work. While such autonomy and trust are greatly appreciated and certainly not available at all schools, working toward them can also mean an overwhelming workload for teachers. At my school I am the only seventh and eighth grade Literature teacher, with no grade-level professional learning community to assist in planning. Also, due to the small size of our school (only 57 students per grade level), support staff, resources, and space are very limited. We don’t have a gym, library, auditorium, cafeteria, or buses. We don’t have assistant principals, but rather curriculum coordinators who act as assistant principals, while also teaching electives, tutoring students, and providing professional development. In other words, every person and every space in our school must be hard-working, creative, and infinitely flexible. The limited resources of my school certainly contributed to the exhaustion I felt in the planning of my service-learning unit. However, such frustrations did not thwart my planning, but rather pushed me (and my students) to be more creative and open-minded.

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WHAT DOES CURRICULUM-BASED SERVICE-LEARNING LOOK LIKE? In my eighth-grade literature course, students began their service-learning unit by reading sections of Give a Little, a nonfiction text by Wendy Smith (2009). Rather than depicting service as a form of charity, Give a Little describes service as an opportunity to transform a community. The book is organized around four areas of need in the world as identified by the author: health, hunger, education, and infrastructure. To begin the unit, students individually chose one area of need they were most interested in learning more about and/or changing. After selecting their area of need, students worked independently and in groups to read their assigned section of Give a Little. While reading, students were also required to learn more about their area of need and its presence in the local community by exploring the websites of various local service organizations. After reading Give a Little and the supplemental texts and websites, discussing service in seminar and debate, and interviewing community and school members, students worked in small groups to identify a specific need to focus on in their local community or the school. Through collaborative work to develop their service project, students began to apply their analysis of course texts in a meaningful and authentic way (Kinsley & McPherson, 1995). Students evinced a deeper connection to the various nonfiction texts from class through class discussions, their personal written reflections, and the service projects they created. Over the course of the unit, student discussions about the texts moved from surface comprehension of meaning to an exploration of the connections between text and their personal experiences and/or the issues of the community and school. As these discussions led to the creation of service projects, students began to apply their textual knowledge to real-world situations and organizations. Through dialogue about and application of text, students began to experience text in a more authentic fashion through the service-learning unit. After much collaboration, inquiry, research, and self-reflection, students began to work in groups to synthesize their learning. To this end, each group developed a name, mascot, slogan, and mission statement through the building of an informational website. Not only did this step in the process aim to form a cohesive identity for group members, but it also pushed students to support their mission with references to multimodal texts, personal experiences, and community observations. Students then presented their service projects to parents, teachers, and fellow students through a gallery walk. As audience members circulated through the presentations, they learned about the area of

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Figure 4.1. Planning. Maya, Lily, Ashley, and Halle work together to identify some of the health problems that affect the local community.

Figure 4.2. The Haunted Helpers. This is a home screen of Halle, Susie, and Lily’s service group called “The Haunted Helpers.” As their homepage explains, the group traveled to a local retirement home and threw a holiday party for the residents.

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Figure 4.3. The Hand in Hand Corp. This is the home page describing the origins of origins of Caroline, Ashley, and Torrey’s service project. The group established “little buddy” groups with students in first grade. With their little buddy groups, students played games and taught lessons about friendship and citizenship.

need important to each group, the goals of the group, and ways they could become involved in the service. The final (and potentially ongoing) step in the service-learning process was the service itself. Some service projects included volunteering at the local animal shelter, reading children’s books to first grade students and making bookmarks with them, baking dog treats for animal shelters, cleaning up local parks, and holding a holiday party for residents of a local retirement home. For many groups the service was one that could easily continue long past the required school unit. Over the progression of the unit, student motivation shifted from extrinsic rewards (grades, teacher praise), to intrinsic motivators and a deeper understanding of one’s role within the community. Over the course of the service-learning unit, my class made a necessary and beneficial shift. While the unit began with me in the traditional role

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Figure 4.4. Gallery walk #1. Here, Ryan is telling parents and peers about his service project reading books to children in the elementary school.

Figure 4.5. Gallery walk #2. The “Sports of all Sorts” group tells parents and peers about their service project playing sports with third grade students before school to help them get energized for the day and provide teachers with planning time.

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Figure 4.6. Service at the SPCA. Jacob, Jessica, and Langdon provided homemade treats to adopted pets and spent hours playing with and learning about the animals at the shelter.

of leader, as students began to apply their reading to the creation of service projects, the class became decidedly student-led. This transfer of power can be a somewhat daunting and unfamiliar role for many teachers. Many of us question whether students will remain focused on curriculum goals when the teacher is not at the front of the room to lead and maintain order. I will discuss the value of student-led inquiry and collaboration in a subsequent section, but here I would like to explain a few simple methods I used to ease the transition to a student-led classroom. Through the use of clearly defined student roles, goals, and accountability, students were able to set and maintain focus on objectives for each class meeting during the service-learning unit. At the beginning of the unit, I required groups to assign individuals to the following roles: liaison/ director, technology specialist, editor, and presentation coordinator. At the beginning of each class meeting, students worked with their group to determine clear, measurable goals for each group member. For example, the technology specialist might have been expected to set up the website and provide all group members with a login by the end of class. The

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liaison would share these goals with me before beginning work for the day. If necessary, the liaison and I tweaked goals to ensure all members worked diligently and equitably. Through the class period, any communication between students and me could only go through the group liaison. This line of communication guaranteed that group members worked collaboratively to discuss their work, and that only those questions unable to be answered by groups working together were brought to my attention. At the end of each class meeting, groups looked back at the goals they set at the beginning of class and made homework assignments for each other based on what was still left incomplete. The following class meeting would begin with a homework check from each group’s liaison and a subsequent report to me. Through clearly defined roles, goals, and procedures for accountability, the student-led classroom remained focused, diligent, and productive.

CURRICULUM-BASED SERVICE-LEARNING: BOTH COLLABORATIVE AND MULTIMODAL While there are numerous options for the project itself, it is essential that no matter the service, it is tied to specific curriculum objectives and fits organically into the classroom context. In other words, service projects should not be “stand alone” assignments, but rather integral to a rich understanding of course material. Without the full synthesis of service and classroom curriculum, the benefits of authenticity and engagement are lost.

Collaborative In an educational climate focused almost entirely on performance and growth, the act of teaching becomes easily relegated to the handing out of information (Costigan, 2008, p. 2), and subsequently minimizes opportunity for true student engagement through inquiry, collaboration, and discussion. In a curriculum-based service-learning unit that values collaboration and social interaction, students are pushed to find connections between their reading and the local community, and in effect strengthen their critical understanding of course material (Slavin, 1983; cited in Jennings & Di, 1996, p. 79). Without constant inquiry and collaboration, students’ understanding of this connection remains shallow. Bailey (2012) stresses that “students must have opportunities to use their situated, local knowledge, as well as dialogue and inquiry, in order to transform their participation and activity into learning and identity build-

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ing.” (p. 60). Students can form a deeper understanding of text by drawing upon the social, cultural, and economic knowledge and perspectives of their peers. While effective collaboration opportunities can be very beneficial, they can also be quite challenging for students in the selection of a service project and mission, especially when students have different interests and goals. To help students work through their disagreements, I encouraged them to think about their own personal strengths and interests and to discuss these openly with their groups. One group of three students, in particular, found this step in the process very challenging. All students in the group read the section on health needs in Give a Little and agreed that they wanted their service project to focus on this need. However, varying backgrounds and personalities in the group made decision-making stressful. One particularly gregarious student wanted to provide a direct, hands-on service, another wanted to complete the service at school, and the third wanted to provide a service to people affected by cancer because of a personal connection to the disease. After discussing their personal interests and backgrounds with one another, researching local service organizations, and even contacting them to learn more about their needs, the group was able to form a decision that satisfied all. The group finally decided to have their fellow classmates make holiday cards for children and families staying at the Ronald McDonald House over the winter holidays. While the group’s service project itself did not directly combat a health problem, the research completed by the students in an effort to identify a specific need in their local community helped to deepen their understanding of Give a Little, and to make a “distant” problem more local and immediate, and therefore, meaningful and memorable. Almost all student groups experienced a similar level of discord in the selection of their service project and conducted their own supplemental research in order to make decisions. In effect, the scaffolding needed to understand the text (and similarly, the dynamics of a community and various media) was completed through peer inquiry and discussion. Consequently, the sometimes challenging goal of connecting the lessons of text to the “real world” became an organic piece of student discussion. Textto-world connections were made even more concrete by the act of service itself.

Multimodal Kinsley and McPherson (1995) emphasize the necessity of authentic engagement in learning (p. 4). Learning, in effect, must take place in a

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context that can be replicated in the world surrounding the student. Negroni (1995) asserts that the great challenge currently faced by teachers is to “educate everyone and educate them in such a way that they can effectively participate in an increasingly technological world.” (p.81). However, not only does the world use and rely on technology, it also creates meaning and communicates in ways that are not always print, or even word-based (McVee, Bailey, & Shanahan, 2012). In effect, teachers may, when it is available, incorporate a multimodal approach to literacy through the consistent, purposeful use of technology. Technology use in the classroom may initially act as a “hook” to engage students, but its consistent use over the course of a unit of study will lead to a deeper understanding of the literary lessons at hand (Bailey, 2012). Bailey suggests that a multimodal approach to literacy helps students to see that the learning strategies used in the classroom to engage with word-based text are also at work when analyzing various non-word-based media (p. 50). Such an approach to literacy is at work in my lesson on book and movie selection. In recognizing this similarity in process, students can begin to see how the lessons and skills learned in school can have real-world and even personal applications. It follows that technology and multimodal texts should play a central role in the service-learning experience. In the context of curriculum-based service-learning, students should use multimodal texts as another collaborative tool, in addition to their peers. In my service-learning unit, students were exposed to all four steps in Miller’s multimodal approach to literacy (McVee et al., 2012, p. 23). With guidance from me and time for inquiry with peers, students explored and critiqued various multimodal texts (Steps 1 and 2). Using this exploration, students were better equipped to design their own multimodal texts through the creation of team websites (Step 3). As Miller emphasizes, however, the mere creation of a website is not a multimodal approach to literacy education. It is the authentic purpose behind the website through the subsequent service activity that legitimizes the lesson. Ultimately, through collaboration, multimodal text criticism and design, and an authentic purpose, the students were more engaged in the literature classroom and more fully equipped to develop their own identity within the school and community (Step 4) (McVee et al., 2012, p. 23). Perhaps the most exciting experience for me in the service-learning unit was the enthusiasm I saw in my students. When I first explained that students would be creating and completing their own service project and spreading awareness about their project through a self-designed website, they were immediately ready to get started working. Student collaboration was not always easy, as groups struggled together to make decisions that satisfied all members. This discomfort pushed students to support

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their ideas and beliefs using the multimodal texts explored in class as well as their own personal experiences. Thus, student discussion and writing began to evince more critical thought, effective means of argumentation, and an authentic use of text. I was further encouraged by the amount of (unassigned and unexpected) work students completed outside class. I received countless late-night e-mails from students asking if they could include videos and photos on their websites, if they could bring in animals and other props to enhance their gallery walk presentations, and if they could start working on their service project immediately, rather than waiting until after presentations. This level of enthusiasm, student-ownership, and engagement with literature was unprecedented in my teaching. IS REFLECTION REALLY NECESSARY? True service-learning, according to Hatcher and Bringle (1995), must incorporate reflection. Due to growing demands in the classroom, teachers often ignore reflection altogether in an effort to move on to the next course objective (D’Arcy, 1989). In other circumstances, teachers wait until the end of a unit, lesson, or experience to have their students reflect, or to reflect themselves. Rather than waiting until the “end” of the service, a phrase that carries its own suggestion that the service will and must come to an end, students and teacher should continually reflect, collaborate, and question as they prepare for and actually begin their service (Toole & Toole, 1995). Such reflection must be done both collaboratively and independently, and must be grounded in questioning and a constant desire to improve. To make the lessons of text and service more personal, I provided my students with structured opportunities for reflection. For instance, to begin the unit, I instructed students to write one sentence describing their everyday life. After students wrote their statements and shared them with the class, I told them students that the ability to read and write a statement about one’s daily life is the standard used by the World Bank to determine literacy (Smith, 2009). As students began reading Give a Little, they came across a chart that compared the literacy rates of various countries around the world. Many students were shocked to see that only 44% of people in Benin, for example, were considered literate according to the World Bank’s meager definition (Smith, 2009). This simple activity helped students to reflect on their abilities and educational opportunities, as compared to other people around the world. An opportunity for both individual and group collaboration and reflection was provided further into our unit, during our seminar on The New York Times article entitled “The Benefits of Volunteerism, if the Service is

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Real” (Tugend, 2010). Before seminar, students read the article independently and answered text-based reading comprehension and critical thinking questions. Then, they prepared a discussion question and a short reaction statement to the article, both to potentially share during seminar. Through the seminar discussion, students worked to find similarities and differences between the purpose of service according to the article, and the purpose defined in Give a Little. They also considered questions such as these: • Do you think sustained local community work is more beneficial than sporadic mission trips around the country or world? • Do you believe that forced community service can actually have a negative effect on teenagers? • Do you think a connection exists between volunteerism and voting patterns, and why? Through a thorough and text-based discussion of such questions, students were pushed not only to reflect on text and personal experience, but also to use this background knowledge to support their claims and opinions. Independent reflection is “at the heart of becoming a self-directed and lifelong learner” (Toole & Toole, 1995, p. 100). Not only must students find a role for service within their own lives, but they must also use the service and reflection to help them understand their place in the community. After considering their personal role in and understanding of service, students must then articulate this perspective with their group members and greater community. Through their ongoing interactions with peers, teachers, and parents as well as thorough reflection, students develop a deeper understanding of course material, service, and their role as active participants in their learning community.

CONCLUSIONS If I were to conduct another service-learning unit, there are a few improvements I would make. First, I would play a smaller role in the execution of student service projects. In some circumstances, I served as liaison between students and the school or various community organizations. While a teacher’s presence and guidance are important, an overly active presence can minimize the connection between student and community. For example, when one group wanted to volunteer at a local library, I called the library to set up the service. In the future, I would request that students make the initial contact and only involve me if required by the library. Another change I would make in the future is to incorporate more

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text-based seminar discussions. Through seminar, students struggle to form various intertextual connections, as well as text-to-world connections. Furthermore, students’ reasoning and critical thinking skills are challenged during seminar, as they are pushed to support and defend their claims and opinions to classmates. Overall, I felt service-learning provided me with a unique opportunity to engage students in a critical approach to literature, while also shifting the focus of learning from regurgitation of information, to an authentic application of text. Student learning and engagement through the service-learning unit were evinced in a multitude of ways. Students’ thorough, text-based websites, discussions, debates, and presentations were explicit demonstrations of student learning during the unit. Students exhibited heightened engagement with literature through their positive, and even enthusiastic behavior and participation in class, as well as their out-of-school communications with me. After conducting mid-year evaluations, I found that my students valued most highly any opportunity to apply course knowledge to real-world situations and experiences. Such a request from my students tied almost directly to my goal in teaching: to help all students find the value in a literate life. In other words, I expect my students (the reading lovers and haters, alike) to recognize how reading and literature are integral to effective and full participation in society. Not only do I expect this authentic engagement, but my students crave it! Through a curriculum-based, multimodal approach to service-learning, the lessons of formal education are no longer confined to the classroom. Rather, my students have begun to form their own understanding of and identities in society through an authentic application of their engagement with literature.

REFERENCES Bailey, N. M. (2012). The importance of a new literacies stance in teaching English language arts. In S. M. Miller & M. B. McVee (Eds.), Multimodal composing in classrooms: Learning and teaching for the digital world (pp. 44-62). New York, NY: Routledge. Chan, A. C. M. K., Ma, C. H. K., Chan, S. S. Y., Chiu, P. Y. N., & Yeung, S. S. S. (2012). Digital classroom project: Impact of service-learning and information and communication technology on student learning in Hong Kong. In J. A. Hatcher & R. G. Bringle (Eds.), Understanding service-learning and community engagement (pp. 101-125). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2012). English language arts standards. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RL/7 Costigan, A. (2008). Teaching authentic language arts in a test-driven era. New York, NY: Routledge.

An Authentic, Curriculum-Based Approach to Service-Learning 81 D’Arcy, P. (1989). Making sense, shaping meaning: Writing in the context of a capacitybased approach to learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Hatcher, J. A., & Bringle, R. G. (Eds.). (2012). Understanding service-learning and community engagement. Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Jennings, C. M., & Di, X. (1996). Collaborative learning and thinking: The Vygotskian approach. In L. Dixen-Krauss (Ed.), Vygotsky in the classroom: Mediated literacy instruction and assessment (pp. 77-91). White Plains, NY: Longman. Kinsley, C. W., & McPherson, K. (Eds.). (1995). Introduction: Changing perceptions to integrate community service learning into education. In Enriching the curriculum through service learning (pp. 1-9). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. McVee, M. B., Bailey, N. M., & Shanahan, L. E. (2012). Technology integration and a move toward a new literacies mindset. In S. M. Miller & M. B. McVee (Eds.), Multimodal composing in classrooms: Learning and teaching for the digital world (pp. 13-31). New York, NY: Routledge. National Council of Teachers of English. 2010. Mission Statement. Urbana, IL: Author. Retrieved March 30, 2013, from http://www.ncte.org/mission Negroni, P. J. (1995). Vision for the 21st century: Seamless relationship between school and community. In C. W. Kinsley & K. McPherson (Eds.), Enriching the curriculum through service learning (pp. 81-84). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Smith, W. (2009). Give a little. New York, NY: Hyperion. Stephens, L. (1995). The complete guide to learning through community service, grades K-9. Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Toole, J., & Toole, P. (1995). Reflection as a tool for turning service experiences into learning experiences. In C. W. Kinsley & K. McPherson (Eds.), Enriching the curriculum through service learning (pp. 99-114). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Tugend, A. (2010, July 31). The benefits of volunteerism, if the service is real. The New York Times, p. B5. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/31/ your-money/31shortcuts.html?_r=0 Wilczenski, F. L., & Coomey, S. M. (2007). A practical guide to service learning: Strategies for positive development in schools. New York, NY: Springer. Youniss, J., McLellan, I. A., & Yates, M. (1997). What we know about engendering civic identity. American Behavioral Scientist, 40, 620–631.

PART II SERVICE-LEARNING IN TEACHING AND TEACHER EDUCATION

CHAPTER 5

SERVICE-LEARNING IN AN ALTERNATIVE SCHOOL AS MEDIATED THROUGH BOOK CLUB DISCUSSIONS P. SMAGORINSKY

Peter Smagorinsky

The University of Georgia (UGA), where I teach, is similar to many state namesake institutions in that it is attended primarily by White students of comfortable levels of affluence. It further ranks last among the United States’ 50 flagship universities in the percentage of minority and impoverished high school graduates it enrolls: Nearly 40% of Georgia high school graduates in 2007 were Black, Latino, or Native American, yet less than 10% of UGA’s freshman class emerged from these minority demographics (Haycock, Lynch, & Engle, 2010). This dominant culture population in turn provides the pool from which the College of Education draws its teacher candidates. Guarino, Santibañez, and Daley (2006), in their comprehensive review of research on teacher recruitment and retention, find that over 70% of all people choosing teaching as a profession are women. Further, they summarize a variety of studies of the demographic makeup of the teaching population and find that the profession is roughly 85% White. Racially categorized pass rates on the Praxis licensure exams, according to one study (Gitomer,

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 85–103 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Latham, & Ziomek, 1999), suggest that “the teacher applicant pool was disproportionately White before testing, so the effect of testing was to make an already homogeneous pool even more so” (Guarino et al., 2006, p. 180). In my 20+ years of teaching certification courses, I have averaged about one non-White student a year, which no doubt follows from the winnowing of potential candidates at the university’s initial admissions level and whatever factors contribute to career decisions in students’ first 2 years of general education coursework. And yet these largely White teacher candidates end up doing their student teaching and launching their careers in schools with increasingly high minority populations, often comprised of youth from impoverished backgrounds. I do not mean to pathologize minority populations with this claim, but rather to state a fact of life in the postsegregation South. Following the banishment of the majority of the indigenous population to the Oklahoma Territory via a deadly forced march in the 1830s, the primary races in Georgia have been of European and African descent. The original condition of slavery deprived Black people of literacy and educational opportunities, and was followed by a century of segregation and Jim Crow laws prior to the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s. This repressive system kept African Americans apart, unequal, disenfranchised, and subject to unabated hostility and subjugation following the abolition of slavery (Wilkerson, 2010). In the 45 or so years following desegregation of schools and other institutions, African Americans have remained an underclass in many parts of the state, aside from a growing professional and affluent class in the Atlanta area. Institutions and neighborhoods remain segregated, albeit through informal means; and racism persists. According to the UGA Initiative on Poverty and the Economy (2004-2010), U. S. Census data from 2005 find that statewide, 26% of African Americans, 23% of Latin@s, and 10% of Whites live in poverty. These percentages mask the overall problem that African Americans make up 36% of those living in poverty, Hispanics comprise 21.5%, and Whites account for 52%. The state’s poverty levels surely contribute to its students’ historically low scores on standardized tests relative to other states. Beginning with the 1996 Olympics, Georgia also experienced a large influx of Latin@ immigrants who were brought in as a cheap labor source to work on the many construction projects attendant to the games. This population in turn remained to work in the state’s poultry and textile industries and to establish families and communities that provided destinations for further waves of immigrants. Moser (2004) quotes Remedios Gomez Arnau, Atlanta’s exconsul general of Mexico, as saying that the new immigrants are “from the poorest, most rural and impoverished places in Mexico and Guatemala. And they are coming to a place where

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people are not familiar with migrant laborers, or with Hispanics” (n.p.). Moser, writing for the Southern Poverty Law Center in an exposé of hate crimes against Latin@s, describes vicious acts of violence against many Latin@ immigrants and persistent efforts to segregate and harass them in Georgia. Portes and Smagorinsky (2010) argue that schools have remained relatively stable as the demographics of the state have shifted, responding poorly to new cultural conditions and slow to adopt culturally responsive approaches to teaching and learning that would benefit the changing makeup of the student population. Although the canard that teachers tend to come from the lowest quartile of college students gets repeated often—a claim empirically refuted by Guarino et al. (2006)—the preservice teachers who enroll in my class invariably come from their high school’s Advanced Placement, Gifted and Talented, International Baccalaureate, and Honors tracks where they are segregated from students unlike themselves: people of color and people from working class or impoverished homes. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, for instance, reports that enrollment in gifted and talented classes includes the following demographic pattern (http://www.realizethedream.org/reports/charts/gifted.html): • • • • • •

Asian/Pacific Islander: 10.8%; White: 7.6%; Black: 3.1%; Hispanic: 3.7%; Native American/Alaskan: 4.9%; and students with disabilities: 0.9%

These statistics reflect the within-group percentage rather than the portion enrolled in the total Gifted and Talented population; given that White students make up about 60% of the total school population, these figures indicate vast differences in the percentages within each class of each racial group, suggesting that White students in advanced or elite programs of study have little contact with people from outside their cultural group of origin. The general pattern for the students I teach, then, is for them to come from White families of reasonable affluence, go through school segregated in classes with other highly motivated and accomplished students of similar demographics and cultural orientation, and then attend an exclusive public university in which one student out of ten is a person of color and few come from backgrounds of poverty. They have very little contact with the kind of people they are likely to teach, particularly at the beginning of their careers. The National Center for Education Statistics

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reports, for instance, that minority students are far more likely that White students to be taught by a teacher with 3 years of experience or fewer (http://www.realizethedream.org/reports/charts/inexperienced.html). Before consulting these statistics, I knew anecdotally that I was preparing students from exclusive demographics to teach in diverse schools. I knew that they often faced dissonance with the cultural practices, literacy performances, behavioral norms, degree of affiliation with the school institution, and other factors of student engagement and disposition that they found among their pupils in school. I knew that I could be doing a better job of educating my preservice teachers about diverse populations, even though they were required to take, with other education majors, a sequence of courses designed to acquaint them with multicultural issues. In these courses, specific attention to literacy education is folded into general knowledge about cultural diversity and culturally responsive schooling, and often gets lost in the process. To help provide my students with an experience that I believed would educate them in deep and rich ways about the people they would teach, I knew that I needed to do something more than include exhortations, brief attention to diversity in my teaching methods class, or references to the general courses they were required to take in multicultural education. The opportunity to do so was suggested by a student several years ago, and this idea developed grudgingly and with many difficulties into the course that I have developed to meet this need in our program.

INITIAL EFFORTS IN ADDRESSING THE PROBLEM This course was several years in the making. It originated with the insight of one undergraduate English education student, Kasha Whorton Hayes, who in the fall of 2003 donated some furniture to a local trailer park community primarily serving Mexican immigrants. The following week, Kasha came to the methods class I taught with an impassioned plea to her classmates to provide more comprehensive and systematic assistance to the deeply impoverished immigrants who inhabited this culturally and racially segregated community on the outskirts of town, which at the time lacked basic community services such as a regular bus line. The absence of public transportation further isolated the immigrant community from the rest of the city and created challenges in basic grocery shopping, getting to jobs, and meeting other needs. The class rallied impressively, planning drives to collect food, clothing, furniture, kitchen ware, and other necessities that were lacking in the residents’ homes, and using their talents to put together an equestrian show—Kasha was an accomplished rider in addition to having a profound

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commitment to social justice issues—designed to benefit the Catholic mission established in one of the trailers where after-school tutoring services were provided. The class’s effort was a breathtaking and profoundly moving success and left me feeling that doing this once was not enough. Some sort of plan needed to be instituted so that both the community residents and my students benefitted from their mutual interaction, as had occurred during this initial effort, as a critical component of their teacher education program. Figuring out how to institute a service-learning dimension took 5 years of frustrating attempts to reproduce the success of this first effort with subsequent classes. I learned that one feature of the success of the first year’s program was that it was student-initiated and, through its bottomup process, had achieved 100% buy-in from the class. In the following year, even though I scaled back the program so that it only required tutoring young children after school, I encountered seemingly insurmountable problems. Forcing this relationship, and doing so in the context of a class on teaching writing—the only undergraduate certification course I was teaching at the time—that was not specifically designed for community participation, invited considerable resistance from some students and their parents. I had some highly critical correspondence from some parents who were persistent in complaining that they did not want their daughters subjected to the perceived dangers to which they were presumably exposed when in this community, in spite of the fact that no threatening actions ever occurred. Coordinating our teacher candidates’ experiences in this community— where tutoring opportunities were only available after school—with other field experiences in mainstream schools as much as an hour away made the logistics difficult to manage. On the whole, my efforts to require students to spend time with cultural others resulted in admirable dedication from a small group of students but was resisted for both pragmatic reasons derived from difficult logistics and what I considered questionable reasons emerging from the prejudices of students and their families against minority students and Latin@ students in particular. One of the main goals I hoped to address through the requirement, then—that of giving students experiences that would challenge assumptions they had about cultural others—was compromised. Indeed, the attitudes were often exacerbated because the initiative’s add-on status made it peripheral by design and cumbersome, discommodious, and counterproductive for the students it was designed to benefit. I nonetheless remained committed to the idea of including an experience with learners very different from our students in our preservice teacher education program. When many of our students initially consider the prospect of teaching, they envision themselves discussing the fine

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points of Shakespeare and Milton with the sort of students with whom they have shared classrooms over the years. The plan to have students come in close contact with students from different niches in society than they have occupied thus remained a goal of mine, even as efforts to do so provided only frustration following the initial, highly successfully, student-initiated effort. I ultimately accepted the fact that in order to include such an experience in our English education program, I needed to establish a whole course dedicated to service-learning, rather than to try to add it to a course in teaching methods or writing instruction that diluted both experiences and provided grounds for students and parents to question that component of the course and my teaching and integrity in general. Finding room for a whole new course in the program proved to be a challenge; it needed to be created amidst university requirements for general education, state requirements for certification, and my colleagues’ priorities for other emphases of the program. Fortunately, my colleagues shared my view of the benefits of the course and so helped identify space where we might place it, albeit as an elective rather than a required class. Similarly, our dean’s office loved the idea of a service-learning component and touted it in their documentation, even when the idea was floundering through its early ill-conceived iterations. So there was much support for including a service-learning dimension among the faculty and administration, even though I had yet to figure out how to do it well.

OFFICE OF SERVICE-LEARNING GRANT In the mid-2000s I got an announcement through a university listserv that the campus Office of Service-Learning was accepting proposals for a Fellows group designed to promote service-learning across the university curriculum. I saw this program as an opportunity to jumpstart my effort to include a service-learning course in our preservice curriculum, and with the encouragement of my colleagues, submitted a proposal that, to my dismay, was rejected. I jettisoned the idea of the course, given the initial difficulties I’d experienced with the idea and the failure of my effort to support the project through participation in this program. A year later I got the same announcement for a new cohort of service-learning Fellows, took my original proposal and tweaked it, and submitted it again. This time I was accepted into the program, and my enthusiasm for developing the course was resuscitated and renewed. The program offered by the Office of Service-Learning “is a year-long faculty development program that provides an opportunity for selected faculty members to integrate service-learning into their teaching,

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research, and public service work while becoming recognized campus leaders in service-learning pedagogy and community engagement” (http://www.servicelearning.uga.edu/blog/department-news/programs/). It provided a $1,500 stipend for program development (since increased to $2,500) and offered monthly meetings with the cohort of 10 or so Fellows in which we discussed our projects, heard from guest speakers, learned of resources available for service-learning, became acquainted with publication outlets designed for or favorable to service-learning scholarship, and entered a structure that helped us stay on track in completing our projects. My proposal (see the Appendix) was for the design of a service-learning course for preservice English teachers to tutor in the trailer home community in which the idea had been initiated. My involvement with the community had grown since that first exposure through Kasha’s efforts, and I routinely was taking donations of clothing, food, household goods, and other items that had become expendable in our home. I had developed a strong relationship with Sister Margarita Martin, the Spanish nun who had committed to the community by setting up a mission in a trailer in the center of the community. I felt a close bond with the community and wanted to see through our original commitment by situating the course at this site. As my year in the Fellows cohort unfolded, however, I came to realize the limitations of this site, particularly its availability only within a relatively brief window between 3:30 and 5 P.M., after the children had come home from school. I further had to address the issue that the community’s tutoring program was designed to benefit early primary school children, and my students were having difficulty making the extrapolation from these kids’ needs to their own interest in teaching middle and high school students. I thus, during the course of the year, began to search for other potential sites, and through various searches came up with a menu of tutoring locations in the city. Ultimately, however, as a way to manage the program more easily, I settled on a single site: one of the city’s two alternative schools. Of these two, one was explicitly “punitive” and housed students with violent and antisocial histories, and the other was more academically oriented. As it happened, the nonpunitive alternative school’s sole English teacher was a past and current student of mine, and I saw that site as having great potential for hosting my students in the course. Having a trusted contact within the school helped with my own credibility in initiating the relationship and provided me with an inside person who could honestly tell me how things were going once the program was under way. One thing I’ve learned from service-learning experiences is that establishing and maintaining relationships is a key part of the effort. After negotiating with the

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school administration, I arranged for my students to visit this site as part of their enrollment in my newly designed service-learning course. I next explain how this course has operated in the first few years I have taught it.

THE SERVICE-LEARNING CLASS The syllabus for the course is available at http://www.coe.uga.edu/ ~smago/SL/SLSyllabus.htm. The course is open presently to any student in the College of Education who wishes to have a service-learning experience. In the first year in which it was offered, it drew students from each of the four grade levels of undergraduate education and primarily students who aspired to enroll in English education. Because it best serves students prior to the declaration of a major, it now enrolls sophomores for the most part. The course met on campus each week for roughly two hours and required an additional hour each week of tutoring and mentoring students at the alternative school. My goal was to place each of my students in a one-on-one tutoring relationship with a student who came from a radically different cultural environment in terms of race, ethnicity, social class, educational aspiration, family situation, and other such factors. I hoped to provide mutually educational experiences for my students and the young people they tutored: We would provide service to the community by helping struggling students with their schoolwork and progress toward graduation, and by entering a mentoring relationship that went beyond academics and into other life issues; and the students being tutored would educate my students about their life experiences, their perspective on school, the subject of English, the value of an education, their interests and achievements, their families and communities, their short- and long-term goals with their lives, and whatever else emerged from their extended conversations. The students in the alternative school generally met my criteria for the sort of person I hoped to put my students in contact with. The alternative school was designated a Performance Learning Center (PLC), an initiative of the Communities In Schools organization that helps to establish small, nontraditional high schools for students who are not succeeding in mainstream schools. PLCs, funded through the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors, construct a business-oriented environment that emphasizes online and project-based learning fostered by independent work supported by teachers. The aim of PLCs is to encourage students toward graduation while simultaneously helping them to plan their postsecondary lives, education, or careers, however envisioned. The students enrolled at the PLC are thus quite different from my UGA teacher candidates in many ways. They exhibit a range of races but

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tend to come from lower socioeconomic classes; a number bring their own young children to school with them to take advantage of the school’s nursery; some can be observed holding hands with same-sex partners, a behavior unlikely in the mainstream schools; and for the most part, they hate school and are forthcoming in their reasons for their antipathy. They thus provide the sort of interaction that I hope for in helping my students learn about how school may be viewed by students whose life experiences and perspectives on education are considerably different from their own. My students take on the role of tutor and mentor, helping the PLC students not only with schoolwork but with the life management and planning that is part of their education in this setting. Given that my servicelearning course is offered in the spring semester, the primary tutoring that my students provide is geared toward helping their PLC student pass the state graduation tests, a service that is greatly appreciated by the alternative school administrators, who base a degree of their claim to success on the graduation rates of their students.

Course Project For their course project, each student may choose from among three types of synthesis (see http://www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/SL/SLCourseProjects.htm). When I originally planned the course, there was a single option: to write a case study of the student they were assigned to tutor. Many students, however, had difficulty establishing such continuity with an alternative school student. The environment is, to say the least, often in flux. Some students tutored kids who dropped out or were dismissed from the school because of absences or other rules violations. Some of the PLC students were undependable so that when my students made the trip to the campus—something around which they planned their day—their mentee never showed up. On such occasions, they met with whatever student was available or otherwise tried to help do what needed to be done at the school. Because several students had such capricious experiences, we needed an alternative assignment so that students who made good-faith efforts to meet the course requirements could also write a course paper outlining what they had learned, even if they had to weave together their experiences with a variety of kids with whom they did not have the opportunity to develop a sustained relationship. I invited them to come up with an alternative assignment, which one student developed. For this assignment the teacher candidates could report their experiences at the PLC in a categorical report; I subsequently expanded the options for representing their experiences to other forms, including fiction, narrative, journal

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entries, and graphic forms. This adjustment was one of many that I made during the first, prototypical offering of the course. In the second year in which I offered the course, students requested a third final project, one that involves ongoing blogging about their PLC experiences. This option allowed for less formal, more process-oriented writing about their tutoring and mentoring in the same sort of online medium that the students at the PLC use for much of their schoolwork. As the course is offered over time, I expect additional options to become available as students propose them. I have begun to collect my students’ work (when they provide permission to do so) in an online library of course papers available at the syllabus website so that future students may get some sense of how successful students have undertaken this task. It also allows anyone interested in what students make of the course to consult this library to see what students have produced: to see what they have learned through their service to the community.

Book Clubs Class sessions on campus include attention to three areas. Early on, students learn procedures for how to conduct a tutoring session; and at various points during the semester, students are given class time to ask questions about how to develop their course projects. The majority of the class sessions, however, are devoted to book club meetings. Book clubs have become established as a legitimate pedagogy in English education (Daniels, 1994; Faust, Cockrill, Hancock, & Isserstadt, 2005; McMahon, & Raphael, 1997; O’Donnell-Allen, 2006; Raphael, Pardo, Highfield, & McMahon, 1997). Because I want to use the class as a way to open students’ eyes to alternative pedagogies, I adopted a book club format for running the campus-based classes. I wanted the menu of readings to represent a range of issues that might arise in students’ engagement with high school students of various cultural backgrounds. I thus conducted internet searches and got recommendations from colleagues who taught multicultural courses to assemble a reading list from which students could select their book club readings. The books that I identified included attention to socioeconomics, race, culture, social class, immigration, bilingualism, gender, and related issues. Because this list is online, I am able to continually update it when I learn of new titles. I found, for instance, that my students felt that my original list of “classic” texts lacked contemporary perspectives on the issues, and so I continued to add current publications as I hear of them. I invested my $1,500 from the service-learning Fellowship in a classroom library that

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allowed students to browse the original set of books I’d identified, and have since built this library with titles from my own shelves and from books I received as payment for reviewing manuscripts for book publishers. I was also able to apply to the Office of Service-Learning after my second year of teaching the course for a $500 grant to purchase additional books for the classroom library, which I expect to continue to grow over time. To help students further with their selections, I scour the internet for book reviews of each title (or sometimes add titles after I read a review from http://www.edrev.info/ or other source) and link them along with the book listing at the website. I also request student reviews of the titles they read in their book clubs as a way to validate their readings and to provide a student’s perspective (rather than a more experienced scholar’s) on the selections, linking them alongside the other reviews I have located. The class is structured so that each book club group of four to five students discusses three books during the course of the semester. Each book occupies them for 3 weeks. During the first session they discuss the book however they wish; during the second session they continue this discussion while also planning for what they will do during the third session; and during the third session they “present” their book to the class through whatever means they think will be most interesting, informative, and compelling for their classmates. The idea behind this approach is to put both the selection of topics (within the boundaries of the course’s goals) and the means of discussion in the hands of the students. The pedagogy I employ is designed to help students see that there are alternatives to the lecture-and-discussion approach to teaching that they have experienced throughout much of their school lives, including (and perhaps especially) at the university itself. I also chose this approach because I want the students to discuss issues that they might resist, without the problem of my initiating and directing their inquiries. In our location in the Deep South, most students come to UGA with conservative political values and often reject professorial attempts to reroute their values to more progressive beliefs. One student, during a recent interview I conducted as part of the research dimension I will describe later, described how angry she felt at the instructor who taught a Foundations of Education course required in our professional sequence, who used his position in class to berate and belittle George W. Bush, whose election she had supported in her first opportunity to vote as a citizen. Like this professor, I voted for President Bush’s opponents, but I feel that using my podium to preach liberal values to conservative students not only violates my authority but also works against my own goals for the course, which are for the students to wrestle with difficult ques-

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tions that are new to them and arrive at their own conclusions regarding what is fair and effective in education. With this recognition in mind, I hope that, given the value systems and experiences with which they enter the class, they choose books and undertake discussions during which they raise the questions most relevant to their growth as educators. I have no illusions that this approach would dramatically alter their politics; I make considerable efforts as a teacher not to impose my political beliefs on my students, even though I make no secret of them. The problem is a delicate one for any progressive educator working with students from conservative political backgrounds: how to invite a consideration of current and controversial educational issues without trampling on the students’ prior beliefs. My hope is that the book club format will enable students to express their beliefs honestly and forthrightly in the company of their classmates without concern for how I might interpret them as people in light of what they say. Their growing ambivalence becomes apparent during the class session that they lead about the book they have discussed. One group that read Jonathan Kozol’s Savage Inequalities (1992), for instance, got caught between value systems, saying repeatedly something along the following lines: “I reject Obama’s socialism, but what do you do about kids who are in classrooms where the ceiling tiles are falling on their head while they’re trying to learn?” This sort of wrenching internal conflict is, I believe, far more valuable to my students than professorial lectures about the value of progressive beliefs.

RESEARCH DIMENSION For a number of years, I have been interested in how beginning teachers develop conceptions of how to teach English (e.g., Smagorinsky, Cook, & Johnson, 2003). Toward that end, I recorded the book club discussions for each of four groups each time they met during one offering of the class. The questions driving the study are as follows: 1. What conceptions of teaching, schooling, social equity, gender issues, social class factors, immigration, racial factors, and related cultural influences do the preservice teachers demonstrate at the three stages of data collection (e.g., the recordings of the book club discussions for each of the three successive books)? 2. To what extent does their thinking demonstrate coherence as a concept over the course of the three stages of data collection, and to what extent does their evolving conception develop a linear vs. twisting path of concept development?

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3. In what ways can the participants’ concept development be attributed to the three primary variables designed into the course: the tutoring experience, the readings, and the book club discussions? 4. In what ways do the students’ written papers for the course corroborate or disconfirm the findings from the analysis of the book club discussions? Based on what I have heard in class, I believe that the students do go through concept development as a result of their engagement with the PLC, the readings, and the discussions. This study will enable me to analyze in detail whether or not such development actually occurs and which direction this development takes, and provide insights into the mediational role of each of the three variables central to the course: the tutoring, the reading, and the discussions. I have also gotten five students to volunteer to participate in a longitudinal study of their concept development throughout their university training and into their careers. I can imagine other sorts of studies available in a class of this sort, including an analysis of the tutoring meetings themselves, a study of the interpersonal dynamics involved in school/university partnerships of this sort, and many other possibilities.

COURSE OUTCOMES I compute the students’ grades based on three interrelated factors: 1. Tutoring Sessions 30%: 2 points awarded for each of the 15 hours spent at the PLC; 2. Class Sessions 30%: Includes book club discussions and student-led discussions; and 3. Course Project 40%: Awarded for successful completion of a case study, PLC report, or blog. Much of the course grade follows from participation in the routine requirements of the course. I find that the students who enroll in the class take their work very seriously, often spending more than the 15 required hours at the site, assisting the student with transportation on occasions, providing help filling out college application forms, and taking on other mentoring obligations that greatly exceed the course requirements. They develop strong relationships with the students they tutor; often they are roughly the same age, and after working past some very tough exteriors, develop close relationships that extend beyond the course experience. I

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have heard many of my students speak joyously of their intention to attend their mentee’s high school graduation and of the reciprocal satisfaction that followed from their relationship. Many of the students from my class return to the PLC the following year to meet their field experience requirements for program admission because of the positive experience they had their first time through. Many of my students’ projects are posted at the links available at http:/ /www.coe.uga.edu/~smago/SL/SLCourseProjects.htm. I will quote from one to reveal what I see as typical of the statements made by students in considering the influence of the class on their thinking: Throughout the Book Club readings this semester, every group has recognized the multitude of issues among conventional schools as well as those that resemble the PLC, but the books have left the solutions open-ended. In Jocks and Burnouts, Eckert [1989] primarily focuses on the differences that exist among students and how they view high school through different lenses. For the jocks, or students who value education, a desire to contribute to the school resonates, and so they actively participate in academics and extra curricular activities. The burnouts, on the other hand, tend to slack off, frequently miss school, as well as carry themselves with a defiant attitude. Students are very easily categorized as a burnout, because so few students correlate perfectly with the ideal student model that is set by schools. In reality, high school solely opens up opportunities for college bound students. But most burnouts do not see themselves as college material, and they will more than likely partake in a blue collar vocational job—so high school loses practicality for many students. It is very unlikely for burnouts and students like John to better fit the conventional model of school, so schools should consider better adapting to these students who need a push. All of our book clubs and class discussions have raised compelling arguments and problems with conventional schools. Some students believe that schools like the Performance Learning Center is a successful answer to our problems, and others see it as a way out for kids who refuse to cooperate with conventional schools. I believe the PLC is a magnificent thing and I am absolutely blown away by this transformation. Students are given a chance to prove themselves and are treated with respect, as their slates are wiped clean when they enroll at the school. John is a PLC success story and with his pending high school diploma, he is ready to continue his success in college. I believe the one key to inspiring the unmotivated student lies in respect. If a teacher is flexible, encouraging, and respectful—he or she is bound for success in the classroom. I hate that the burnout students have such a stigma placed with them and that the bad reputation follows them throughout high school. With each passing year, semester, or even within the separate classes—each child should be given the opportunity to succeed, a fair chance for a clean slate. I could almost guarantee a student is more likely to fulfill a teacher’s expectations if they are given the chance.I am positive that there are more students like John than there are like me in public schools,

Service-Learning in an Alternative School 99 and sometimes a second, third, or even a fourth chance is all that those kids need to regain the self-confidence that is required to succeed.

As this student’s reflection shows, the course allowed the students to construct their own understanding of their school experiences, their readings, and their book club discussions. They were able to customize the book clubs to match the issues they faced in teaching and mentoring at the PLC. In leading a class discussion, each group had an opportunity to share and develop its insights with their classmates. As one of the longitudinal study’s participants said in an interview, the opportunity to discuss a total of 12 books across the whole of the book clubs’ selections provided diverse perspectives on a range of key issues in education. The following remarks on an end-of-course evaluation are representative of how many students responded to the class: I believe this class has helped me more for my career as an educator than any other education class I’ve taken at the university. Most of the classes have a service component, but it’s not very long nor gets much attention in the classroom. Since the service portion is the largest part of the class and dominates the classroom discussion of how to operate a classroom, what to expect from students, as well as how to motivate a student—I was encouraged and learned more about my future classroom than any other class.

I do risk the accusation of self-aggrandizement in reporting this flattering impression, but should state that student satisfaction, I believe, followed from the control that they were given over the success of the class. The course provides a structure within which they operate and make choices: how to manage their PLC experience, which books to read, which perspective they develop, whom they work with, how they lead their discussions, and which project they undertake to render their experiences into text. I read their positive response to the course as an indication, more than anything, of the investment they make in the class when given the opportunity to take ownership over their own learning through providing service to students who greatly appreciate it, and through reading and discussing books that raise issues that provoke them to new levels of understanding.

CONCLUSION The service-learning class I have designed and taught helps to integrate the three major strands of professional conduct expected of faculty at universities with both research and outreach missions: It is a very satisfying class to teach in and of itself, it provides a research site that allows for a

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robust data collection, and it provides critical service to the local community through the outreach dimension of the tutoring and mentoring. My own role in the class is pretty minimalist: I design the structure and then eavesdrop on how the students make sense of their experiences. Most university faculty I know at research universities shy away from teaching undergraduates, but this class, which primarily enrolls sophomores, has become one of the most uplifting classes I have ever taught because of the profound realizations my students come to through their engagement with the people of the PLC and the university class, and the texts that help to give formal meaning to their lived experiences.

APPENDIX: SERVICE-LEARNING GRANT PROPOSAL

TAPPP Into the Community: A Partnership Between the Program in English Education at UGA and the Pinewood Estates Community in North Athens The UGA Service-Learning Fellows program would greatly enhance the development of the TAPPP Into the Community program, an outreach effort in the program in English Education now in its third year of service. TAPPP Into the Community is part of a larger project that, in recent years, has engaged UGA students with local communities in poverty. The project now involves a commitment from each English Education major in the Teaching as Principled Practice Project (TAPPP) to tutor young children in the Pinewood Estates community after school. The residents of this community are immigrants from two of Mexico’s most impoverished states and are direly in need of support. TAPPP students, after establishing relationships with children and other community residents, typically develop additional initiatives to benefit the Pinewood residents. The project is expected to evolve each year to adapt to new conditions either within the program in English Education or in the Pinewood Estates community and extended local environment. As the coordinator of this effort, I would learn more about how to make this program work more effectively to serve both the residents of Pinewood Estates and UGA students preparing for careers as secondary school English teachers (i.e., teachers of language, literature, and writing; not ESOL teachers). TAPPP Into the Community is not simply outreach. We anticipate that the experience of working with young people from immigrant and linguistic/ racial minorities will help them understand how to teach in culturally responsive ways. Luis Moll, whose research has influenced the design of the program, has argued that

Service-Learning in an Alternative School 101 “existing classroom practices underestimate and constrain what Latino and other children are able to display intellectually.” He believes the secret to literacy instruction is for schools to investigate and tap into the “hidden” home and community resources of their students. And he points out that his research calls the “deficit model” of student assessment into serious question. The home investigations revealed that many families had abundant knowledge that the schools did not know about—and therefore did not use in order to teach academic skills. (http://www.ncrel.org/sdrs/cityschl/ city1_1c.htm)

We believe, then, that the TAPPP Into The Community project will not only serve the Pinewood residents well, but will also enrich UGA’s English Education majors’ understanding of the resources and knowledge that “Other People’s Children” (Delpit, 1995) bring with them to school. This understanding includes recognizing the attributes of students from marginalized cultures that skillful teachers can draw on to expand all students’ knowledge, rather than viewing their cultural ways of knowing as deficits that stand in the way of their educational progress. We anticipate that UGA English education majors who engage with the Pinewood community will emerge as better educated about a segment of their student populations who have not experienced success in U.S. schools and often drop out well before their scheduled graduations. Our prospective English teachers will develop the foundation for providing culturally relevant instruction that draws on “hidden” abilities and knowledge so that students of Mexican origin may exhibit better performance and retention rates and become better integrated into mainstream U.S. society and contributing members of the U.S. economy—and thus have greater access to the American Dream. As both a land-grant and sea-grant institution, UGA has a fundamental mission to serve the people of the State of Georgia. As the UGA Strategic Plan states, In each of its programs, in each area of teaching, research and service, and in every dimension of its thinking, the University has as its first and foremost goal the high calling of “Serving Georgia.” … UGA will accelerate its work on cooperative projects with the Athens/Clarke community, and will develop new programs to bridge the University and its neighbors.

This sort of outreach is well-realized by the TAPPP Into the Community project, with a specific emphasis on some of the state’s most impoverished residents. The College of Education’s Strategic Plan for 2000-2010 includes Goal #3, to “Increase the COE’s Active Engagement with Constituents.” This goal is elaborated as follows:

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The COE is committed to developing more responsive, collegial, and effective models of interaction called for by the complex challenges faced by today’s communities. The COE seeks to become an engaged college whose faculty, students, and staff anticipate and respond to societal challenges through direct involvement with constituents in its programmatic efforts in research, teaching, and outreach.

The strategic plan includes the actions of “Develop[ing] responsive partnerships with schools, community agencies, businesses, corporations, and other universities” and “Establish[ing] resources and a reward structure encouraging faculty and student participation in engagement efforts.” As a formal partnership, TAPPP Into The Community brings UGA students and faculty into the kind of active engagement with community constituents that the College of Education seeks to achieve. National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, the agency whose standards the UGA College of Education must meet, requires that “Candidates are expected to study and practice in a variety of settings that include diverse populations, students with exceptionalities, and students of different ages.” The TAPPP Into the Community project helps the program in English Education to satisfy this standard by diversifying the setting of field experiences, placing field experiences in a community setting, involving prospective teachers with students of different age groups (e.g., elementary school children), and engaging them with diverse populations. Further, Curriculum and accompanying field experiences are designed to help candidates understand the importance of diversity in teaching and learning. Candidates learn to develop and teach lessons that incorporate diversity and develop a classroom and school climate that values diversity. Candidates become aware of different teaching and learning styles shaped by cultural influences and are able to adapt instruction and services appropriately for all students.

A UGA Service-Learning Fellowship would greatly enhance the program in English Education to implement this project with greater knowledge, skill, and coordination with other community stakeholders.

REFERENCES Daniels, H. (1994). Literature circles: Voice and choice in the student-centered classroom. York, ME: Stenhouse. Delpit, L. (1995). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom. New York, NY: New Press.

Service-Learning in an Alternative School 103 Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York, NY: Teacher College Press. Faust, M., Cockrill, J., Hancock, C., & Isserstadt, H. (2005). Student book clubs: Improving literature instruction in middle and secondary schools. Norwood, MA: Christopher Gordon. Gitomer, D., Latham, A., & Ziomek, R. (1999). The academic quality of prospective teachers: The impact of admissions and licensure testing. Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Guarino, C. M., Santibañez, L., & Daley, G. A. (2006). Teacher recruitment and retention: A review of the recent empirical literature. Review of Educational Research, 76, 173–208. Haycock, K., Lynch, M., & Engle, J. (2010). Opportunity adrift: Our flagship universities are straying from their public mission. Washington, DC: The Education Trust. Retrieved December 14, 2010, from http://multimedia.onlineathens.com/pdf/ 2010/011910_opportunity-adrift.pdf Kozol, J. (1992). Savage inequalities: Children in America’s schools. New York, NY: Harper Perennial. McMahon, S. I., & Raphael, T. E. (with Goatley, V. J., & Pardo, L. S.). (1997). The book club connection: Literacy learning and classroom talk. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Moser, B. (2004, Winter). The Battle of ‘Georgiafornia.’ Intelligence Report of the Southern Poverty Law Center, 116. Retrieved December 18, 2008, from http:// www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=505&printable=1 O’Donnell-Allen, C. (2006). The book club companion: Fostering strategic readers in the secondary classroom. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Portes, P., & Smagorinsky, P. (2010). Static structures, changing demographics: Educating for shifting populations in stable schools. English Education, 42, 236-248. Raphael, T., Pardo, L., Highfield, K., & McMahon, S. (1997). Book club: A literaturebased curriculum. Littleton, MA: Small Planet Communications. Smagorinsky, P., Cook, L. S., & Johnson, T. S. (2003). The twisting path of concept development in learning to teach. Teachers College Record, 105, 1399-1436. University of Georgia Initiative on Poverty and the Economy. (2004-2010). Dismantling persistent poverty in Georgia: Breaking the cycle. Athens, GA: Carl Vinson Institute of Government. Available at http://www.poverty.uga.edu/docs/GA_ Report.pdf Wilkerson, I. (2010). The warmth of other suns: The epic story of America’s great migration. New York, NY: Random House.

CHAPTER 6

SERVICE-LEARNING AND THE FIELD-BASED LITERACY METHODS COURSE M. MOORE

Michael Moore

My students and I were discussing the idea that literacy is a community responsibility and that early literacy, particularly, is much more complex than just the responsibility of parents. Students came to my course, their last course before student teaching, with varied, partly formed concepts of children’s early literacy experiences. My students tended to view parents and their roles in early literacy development as both allies and obstacles (Lightfoot, 2004). I knew my students had a common education core experience heavy on educational psychology, foundations, and cognitive understandings of literacy. Consistent in our discussions were such notions as expressed in Hart and Risley’s (1995) longitudinal study of families and early literacy experiences: “In the welfare families, the lesser amount of talk with its more frequent parent-initiated topics, imperatives, and prohibitions suggested a culture concerned with established customs. To teach socially acceptable behavior, language rich in nouns and modifiers was not called for: obedience, politeness, and conformity were more likely to be the keys for survival” (p. 134). These ideas would later be exploited by people such as Ruby Payne (2005) and her Framework for Understanding Poverty. Initially,

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 105–115 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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many of the students believed that lower SES meant kids come to school with smaller vocabularies. They were surprised to learn that this was not necessarily borne out in research (Walker, Greenwood, Hart & Carta, 1994). Some students expressed surprise that achievement gaps in schools were even more affected by inadequate school funding, high teacher to student ratios, deteriorating facilities (Greene & ComptonLilly, 2011), and that the widening literacy gap in schools might not be all attributed to home environments. As our discussions progressed, framed by one of our required course readings, which was Delpit and Kohl’s (1995), Other People’s Children: Cultural Conflict in the Classroom, we began to consider the language kids come to school with and the language schools expected kids to have when they came to school. Pellegrini (2001) pointed out that “There is no ‘Royal Route’ to competence” and that kids bring large varieties of language with them to school from their many social and cultural environments (p. 63). In the end it was a reasonable question that led to both service opportunities and service-learning. Jessica was a senior early childhood education major in my Literacy: Assessment and Instruction course that students take prior to student teaching. This course is also coupled with an intense field experience. Students met with me 3 days a week for 6 weeks for 3 hours a class session. Originally, there was no service-learning component to the course. After 6 weeks of class, the students moved into area elementary classrooms full time for 9 weeks. During one class session in the first week as we were in the midst of our discussions, Jessica asked, “If we really believe that beginning literacy experiences should occur in a variety of ways prior to kindergarten, then shouldn’t we be doing something about it?” I asked her to continue with this typical hypothetical-situation speculation. She went on to say that we should do something for kids before they come to school: “Shouldn’t we be talking to people about this?” For Jessica “this” was a new and immediate problem. Jessica was a typical early childhood student at our Southeastern state university. Jessica was 1 of 25 traditionally college aged female students in my course. There were no males. My course reflected the university’s demographics of approximately 75% Caucasian and 24% African American with 1% representing all other races. I told her that I think people knew about the problem around early literacy preparation in every community, but many figured that literacy was the school’s problem. A number of students were talking now, so I asked them, “Who would you talk to, and what would you tell them?” More talk circulated around what we knew to be effective practice in preparing kids for starting school: “Shouldn’t parents be reading to their children?” “Shouldn’t kids know how to hold a book and which way print goes?” I thanked them for their discussion. Jessica asked one more question, “Then why don’t we do something?” I asked, “What do

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you mean? Jessica replied, “I mean us … why don’t we, in here, do something?” Jessica’s question led to the first of a number of service-learning projects conducted by the students in successive terms of this course. No grades or credit were ever given for involvement. Participation was entirely voluntary. I asked the students of Jessica’s class to individually, in pairs, or in small groups come up with ideas for our effort to change our little slice of the world. The rules were simple. The project was for children aged birth to pre-K and their families, and it had to involve literacy development as we had studied it in class. At the next class session students presented their ideas, questioned each other, considered practicalities, and identified two or three ideas for further discussion. Among the ideas was the creation of “Big Books” from classic children’s literature for donation to an elementary media center. Another idea was to collect popular children’s literature and attach disc translations in Spanish. A subsequent section of this course would later design a similar project. The project Jessica’s class democratically chose was simple in design, but was one we felt held the potential benefit of familiarizing parents about an important preschool practice. First, we would conduct a book drive focusing only on picture books suitable for babies and books suitable to a prekindergarten level. We read Fountas and Pinnell (2009) (see http://www.fountasandpinnellleveledliteracyintervention.com/) on leveled books so we had a clear idea of what to include as appropriate in our drive. Students went to book sellers and asked for donations. A large number of books came from one student’s church group. The local city library was contacted and we obtained duplicate copies of some books and we were given a few books the library had planned to replace. Once the drive was completed, students decided books should be made available where families from low socioeconomic backgrounds might tend to publicly gather with their children. We thought this group was less likely to know to read regularly to their children. Also, we thought a number of mothers in this group might be teenaged mothers who were not aware of parent literacy practices. We came up with the following distribution sites: The Health Department, the Welfare Department, the battered women’s shelter, pediatricians’ offices, laundromats, The Family and Social Services Office, the unemployment office, and the county jail. The class decided that each book distributed would contain a half page message pasted in the book’s inside cover from the students on the benefits of reading to one’s children. Composing this message was the toughest part of the project. The message seemed to be under constant revision. Finally, we included the set of suggestions listed in Table 6.1 with every book.

108 M. MOORE Table 6.1.

Suggestions to Parents

These books have been donated by students from Georgia Southern University to promote literacy in our community Dear Parents: According to the National Commission on Reading, reading to your children is the single most important factor in reading success. When you read to your child, your child: • • • • • • •

develops a love and desire for reading develops communication and thinking skills strengthens YOUR relationship with your child expands vocabulary improves listening increases attention span develops an appreciation for reading

AND it’s fun!

The class acquired 575 books that fit our criteria. We contacted each place of distribution and made appointments to deliver the books and create arrangements for display, with the students’ message inserted into each book. Teams of students were assigned the various locales and were asked to place the books prominently. We hoped that the books would remain in these places, but this was not the case. A few weeks after distribution, most of the books were gone. However, our assessment of the project concluded that since the books were obviously taken, we were successful in attaining our early goal of having an impact on family literacy before school. Of course it was just our one-shot attempt, and we may have been successful if parents read our half sheet and shifted their behavior. However, there was no way of knowing. For most of our students, it was the first time any of them had visited a community health center, women’s shelter, welfare office, or even a pediatrician’s office. Teams of students came back from some of these venues with sobering stories of mothers sitting at the health department with six children, or at the unemployment office where kids played on the dirty floors while their parent filled out form after form. Our class debriefing discussion centered on the possible lives of the children observed in these various venues. To be sure, there were simplistic class-based and racebased assumptions, but students challenged each other by openly questioning and critiquing these assumptions. Before taking this course, students had already spent considerable time in local schools. Our area of the state is mostly rural with extremes of socioeconomic status. The visits to these community venues were, for many of the students, the first time they had seen area families together.

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MIXED MESSAGES FROM SERVICE-LEARNING According to the Learn and Serve Clearinghouse and their characteristics of Service-learning (http://www.servicelearning.org/what_is_service-learning/characteristics/index.php), we covered successfully “what servicelearning is” and, ironically, we also covered “what service-learning is not.” According to the site, our project was meaningful and real to participants; it was cooperative rather than competitive; we addressed complex problems in complex settings; we engaged in problem solving; we experienced a deeper learning of aspects of our community’s culture; and students reported the experience was personally meaningful. I have the following statement in my course syllabus that relates to our conception of service learning: “Reading and writing are complex developmental tasks that are intertwined with other developmental accomplishments. Reading problems are found among every group and in every primary classroom, although children with certain demographic characteristics are at greater risk of developing reading difficulties. It is of critical importance, then, that teachers at all grade levels understand the role of instruction in optimizing literacy development of all learners. With knowledge about the process of reading and writing, teachers will understand the rationale for instruction that comes from best professional practice, and will know how to adapt instruction when planning for and teaching diverse learners. Instruction that is tailored to learner needs heightens students’ engagement and enhances their ability to become proficient, strategic readers. Preparing educators to be reflective practitioners will be addressed by understanding the continual stream of professional decisions that affect learning. These decisions need to be made and implemented before, during, and after interaction with students. According to what service-learning is not, our project was episodic; it was an add-on to our class; we logged a set (but not preset) number of hours; and as far as we could tell, the project was one-sided: We benefited, but we didn’t know if anyone else did. What we really learned was that service-learning is complicated. Our notion of the community where we lived was actually only partially informed. We were altruistic in our work, but we really did not know anything about the families who went to the various sites where we thought lower socioeconomic families might visit or whether any of these families already read to their children. Yet students felt they were making a difference in a way they could not in their fieldwork placements. Perhaps I had done too good a job convincing them that our society’s efforts for schools to educate everyone for success were a pipe-dream. We had engaged a different community classroom as the literacy battleground. According to Astin, Sax, and Avalos (1999), “Volunteering encourages students to become more socially responsible, more committed to serving

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their communities, more empowered, and more committed to education” (p. 200). Interestingly enough, the next term brought a new class who had heard about the work of the previous class. Some of the students in the first service-learning project encouraged their junior classmates to create another project, and even though some of the students from the first group were now student teaching, they still asked to be involved. Again, participation was voluntary (perhaps it was peer pressure, but no one ever opted out of any of our projects), and again, no grades were assigned. None of our projects was ever an official part of our course, although we did our planning in and around class since it was one place all of us met. Also, projects became part of the larger literacy discussion that we held every day. Each of the students was an early childhood major, and early literacy development was our daily course topic. Every time we met, we discussed the ways children develop literacy identities. This new group decided (again through winnowing ideas) to affect children throughout our community. The “Hospital Project” provided this opportunity. This project was suggested by a pair of students and voted on by the class. A group of students contacted the administration of the large regional hospital in our area and asked about the children’s ward. We found that, especially in the long-term care wing, literacy resources were virtually non-existent. The hospital agreed to find space for a literacy resource center. The project was part book drive with a couple of added twists. This time we were seeking books spanning pre-K through elementary grades. As we collected books, we also leveled them so they could be arranged by reading level. In addition to collecting books, we also obtained donations from businesses that we used to purchase recorders. Some businesses like Walmart donated recorders to our effort. Students recorded all our books on compact disc and created colorful labels and drawings. Since we had two bilingual students in our group, we read each book aloud in Spanish as well as in English. Three hundred books were collected, and we glued the previous semester’s note regarding the importance of reading to children to the inside of the front cover of each. We bought a dozen audio recorders with headphones and accompanied them with a stack of discs in homemade picturesque sleeves. The class made the presentation to the hospital, which had provided a small literacy center replete with bookshelves, storage space, and chairs. The center continues to exist and is regularly supplemented with materials from parents and other groups. Since we did not do these projects as research projects, we were not funded by anyone; we officially did not exist. I never made any formal attempt to assess our projects although I constantly assessed our projects informally. In trying to understand the implications of our projects, it was clear that students identified themselves with a learned community of

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educators. Tidwell (2005) uses social identity theory to explain that “when volunteers feel oneness with their nonprofit and value this attachment, they work to enhance their organization through increased volunteerism and cooperation” (p. 450). However, the theory does not explain the initial attachment to the work. It is clear that elementary teachers in our community rarely engaged in such work outside school. Students’ commitment comes at the same time that they are immersed in extensive fieldwork for three semesters prior to student teaching. In fact, we knew of no other local literacy service-learning groups serving the community. Tracing the trajectory leading to our service-learning work, I can point to a series of class assignments that led to students’ ultimate attachment to our service projects. One assignment that I always have students complete in this class early on is writing about their own literacy identities. I ask them to try to remember when they first became literate. I urge them to call home and ask their parents or others who might have some insight. I expand literacy development as not just the first memories of reading and writing, but as all opportunities to engage in speaking and listening as well. It is clear as we listened and discussed our literacy lives that most of my students benefited from parents who read to them. They recall family style meals (Sunday dinners with grandparents figured prominently). Many recalled literacy activities connected with their churches, Sunday schools, and vacation Bible schools. Many, although not all, recalled books and magazines around the house, lots of music, newspapers, and travel. Students felt their continuing literacy development benefited from these early literacy experiences. There were some students who came from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and who credited both parents as well as the intervention of a caring teacher as the catalysts in developing their own literacies. Next, I have students construct cultural identities that we all read and discuss. I ask students to list the following: name, age, sex, marital status, order in the family, race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and religion. I then ask them to write openly and honestly about themselves on each of these cultural indicators. How do you really feel about your name? What does it mean to you? Where does it come from? What about your age right now? Do you have fond memories of a different age? What would be ideal for you? And so on. What we learn from each other is that we all come from very different circumstances. We learn that a number of cultural and social factors influenced our reading development. Payne (2005) would have us believe that the poor are very different from the middle class and somehow think and act differently from the rest of humanity. These service-learning projects seem to indicate that this is not the case. When students saw literacy as part of a larger social and cultural picture and not

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just the domain of schools, but part of something much larger, it expanded their entire world-view. Children were viewed differently as kids who suffered from missed opportunities. Smagorinsky (2007) makes an important point about Vygotsky’s perspective along these lines. Vygotsky helps us understand why people think the way they do within a social context. His “relativism,” as Smagorinsky calls it, helps us understand the backgrounds that some kids come from and how these backgrounds affect lifelong literacy. People’s thinking shapes their physical and symbolic worlds, and their engagement with those worlds in turn shapes how they (and others) think. In considering this possibility, students began to see that it was not a question of the “haves” and “have-nots,” but more a continuum where families find themselves constantly moving back and forth. This continuum manifests itself in the ways kids come to school and what expectations they might have, especially in social situations. This view formed the basis for our next two projects. Students enrolling in my literacy class now know all about our projects and know they would continue the tradition. In the third and fourth classes we discussed the origins of our service-learning projects, and we analyzed the kinds of projects we had done. Two classes decided to take different directions. The very next literacy course decided to create a project for our county orphanage, the Saint Joseph Home for Boys. This home is for about twenty boys aged upper elementary school through high school. The class reasoned that this group likely had very limited early literacy experiences. Contact with Saint Joseph’s, which is funded through United Way and a number of private foundations, indicated that our project was acceptable. Again, our project morphed into unanticipated experiences. The class decided to work with the kids individually through tutoring, book clubs, helping with homework, and read-alouds. We arranged a schedule where class members rotated in and out of the home in the late afternoon and early evening. The class found that the home administrators were in charge of meal preparation, and our class gradually took over and proceeded to cook a couple nights a week. Class lasagna was the most requested dish. Administrators and kids would assist my students and geared these family style meal discussions around literacy. We again had a book drive, and around 200 books were donated. The next semester found our students tutoring and organizing book clubs at the local Boys’ and Girls’ Club. This project involved working in the teen center and in the after-school program tutoring kids. As with every project, we conducted a book drive, leveled the books, and donated them to the Boys’ and Girls’ Club. One unanticipated result was that our semester ended, but the expectations of the Club did not. The Boys’ and

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Girls’ Club preferred ongoing projects and not ones limited by semester constraints. However, the University has its own office for service, and students who wanted to volunteer at the Boys and Girls Club could through the Office of Student Leadership. This office provides special recognition on student transcripts for carrying hours of service. A few students who participated in this project continued their service at the Boys and Girls club. Since then, we have participated in additional student-selected projects. The last project was for a newly created elementary school in the county that had limited materials for its resource center. Students created a number of “Big Books” from classic children’s literature for the school to house a “Big Book” resource center. The books were in both English and Spanish. Looking across the various service-learning projects over the many classes, I think that my students’ concepts of social class and culture in our community became complicated. Although our work was in the same county as a large university that clearly influences the community, my students became aware of the social problems that face many of the rural poor adjacent counties to the university. My students wrote daily journals throughout all our projects. Most of the time these were “dialog journals,” meaning the journals were dialogs with me on whatever we were reading, discussing, or doing in our class. Through these journals, I was able to notice their changing definition of what it meant to be literate in today’s society and the role of the citizen/teacher in this definition. In their final exam, I asked them about their educational philosophy. Nearly every exam throughout the years referenced the service-learning experience. Several reported that in job hiring interviews, administrators were impressed with their service-learning project, and students felt it helped them obtain jobs.

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME Students came and went. The usual problems with group work occasionally surfaced. Some students did more work than others. However, since no grades were involved, no attendance kept, and no contributions recorded, there were no rewards or consequences. Perhaps the biggest effect of the service-learning projects might be noted in my own change as their instructor. Much as in my days when I sponsored the high school newspaper and creative writing magazine, I found my role changing from instructor to coach. I also found as each term went on, that my own role diminished as students took over both the administration of our projects and the work associated. Although never appointed, student leaders

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always emerged. Work schedules were made, work assigned, appointments made, though none of this was my contribution. I found my value as a resource increased with each project. I was the institutional memory for each class. I was the one who recorded what we learned from the previous projects: the class historian of service-learning. I kept the changing demographics of the county, the cities, and the neighborhoods. I kept up with the schools, the civic organizations, the service work of the community, and especially the partisan politics. As my own notions of literacy changed, so did my instruction in my class, from the texts we used to the articles we read. My materials became more socially conscious. I focused on the theorists who seemed to fit both our classroom instructional goals and our service-learning goals. I went back to my graduate school John Dewey texts for direction. I found in Experience and Education (1938), “All this means is that attentive care must be devoted to the conditions which give each present experience a worthwhile meaning” (p. 49). How much care was I devoting to each present experience and its context? Were we just a course legacy? According to Giles and Eyler (1998), “Impact on traditional subject matter learning is a narrow view of expected cognitive benefits of servicelearning” (p. 65; emphasis in original). The first of their top ten unanswered service-learning questions was about how service-learning can enhance subject matter learning. I feel they asked this question from the service learner perspective. I recalled reading Freire (1990), who wrote, “One of the basic themes (and one which I consider central and indispensible) is the anthropological concept of culture.… I can affirm that the concept of culture, discussed imaginatively in all or most of its dimensions, can provide various aspects of an educational program” (p. 117). From my perspective, my students’ service-learning experiences continue to inform each new class and its subject matter learning. It is precisely the discussions about social class and culture that provide the biggest backdrop to the content learning in our classes.

REFERENCES Astin, A., Sax, L. J., & Avalos, J. (1999). Long-term effects of volunteerism during the undergraduate years. The Review of Higher Education, 22, 187-202. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience & education. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster. Delpit, L., & Kohl, H. (2006). Other people’s children: Cultural conflict in the classroom (updated version). New York, NY: The New Press. Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G. S. (2009). Leveled books: K-8. Retrieved from http:// www.fountasandpinnellleveledliteracyintervention.com/). Freire, P. (1990). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Continuum.

Service-Learning and the Field-Based Literacy Methods Course 115 Giles, D. E., & Eyler, J. (1998). A service-learning research agenda for the next five years. New Directions in Teaching and Learning, 73, 65-72. Greene, S., & Compton-Lilly, C. (2011). Introduction. In C. Compton-Lilly & S. Greene (Eds.), Bedtime stories and book reports (pp. 1-9). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Hart, B., & Risley, T. R. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes. Lightfoot, D. (2004). “Some parents just don’t care”: Decoding the meaning of parental involvement in urban schools. Urban Education, 39(1), 91-107. Payne, R. K. (2005). A framework for understanding poverty (4th rev. ed.). Highlands, TX: aha! Process. Pellegrini, A. D. (2001). Some theoretical and methodological considerations in studying literacy in social context. In S. B. Neuman & D. K. Dickinson (Eds.), Handbook of early literacy research (pp. 54-65). New York, NY: Guilford. Smagorinsky, P. (2007). Vygotsky and the social dynamics of classrooms. English Journal, 97, 61-66. Tidwell, M. V. (2005). A social identity model of prosocial behaviors within nonprofit organizations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 15, 449-467. Walker, D., Greenwood, C., Hart, B., & Carta, J. (1990). Prediction of school outcomes based on early language production and socioeconomic factors. Child Development, 65, 606-621.

CHAPTER 7

SERVICE-LEARNING AND THE ROLE OF “TEACHER” An Initiative Working With Homeless Youth H. HALLMAN AND BURDICK HeidiM.Hallman and Melanie Burdick

As beginning teachers are socialized into the role of “teacher,” teacher education programs must provide contexts for questioning what such a role entails. Service-learning, as a component of teacher education programs, has the potential to open new doors for considering teacher identity, and asks beginning teachers to question, and possibly re-envision, the relationship between teacher and students. English education has traditionally focused on how to prepare preservice teachers to teach literature, writing, speaking, and more recently, multimodal literacies, and we know that teacher candidates are still socialized into a traditional, teacher-centered model of instruction (Cuban, 1993; Portes & Smagorinsky, 2010), comprised, in part, of “a conception in which a teacher stands before students who face forward in seats and who are supposedly poised to listen and learn” (Portes & Smagorinsky, 2010, p. 236). Service-learning works against this model, thereby becoming both a counternarrative and conduit for prospective teachers to reconsider the relationship between teacher and students.

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 117–130 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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In this chapter, we highlight one prospective teacher’s reflections on how service-learning encouraged him to view interpersonal relationships as part of the teaching act, thus viewing “self ” and “other” as ultimately intertwined. We see the breaking of the self-other dichotomy through the act of service-learning as essential for beginning teachers’ reflection on “self ” as well as for their recognition of prior, and perhaps limited, understandings (Hallman & Burdick, 2011). As Flower (2008) notes, servicelearning must be pursued alongside a process of inquiry, and this must begin by “confronting the conflicts within the everyday practice of outreach” (p. 154). Service-learning, then, as inquiry, becomes not a series of interventions or programs, but instead treated as a situated sociocultural activity—an activity that is always socially, culturally, and historically located. We situate our inquiry in a semester long service-learning experience and study1 where a cohort of prospective English teachers worked with homeless youth in an after-school tutoring program. The context that these prospective English teachers worked within proved incongruent with a regular teaching context, thus allowing for a unique learning experience that helped complicate traditional expectations and socializations of what it means to become an “English teacher.” Despite interpersonal understandings comprising part of the teaching act, Portes and Smagorinsky (2010) assert that the paradigm of ‘teacher as authority’ is still the dominant model of classroom teaching into which beginning teachers are socialized. This model, one that “presents” knowledge to students in a way that encourages a passive consumption of knowledge, has been confirmed also as a dominant teaching method in studies of classroom discourse (e.g., Nystrand, Gamoran, Kachur, & Prendergast, 1997), linking it to a culture of schooling resistant to change. Because service-learning often takes place in after-school spaces or spaces not labeled as “school,” we wondered how beginning teachers might shift their understanding of the role of teacher within a service-learning context. The paradigm of “teacher as authority” resonated with us as we began to read the reflections that one prospective English teacher, Henry Taylor (all names of people and places are pseudonyms), wrote throughout the course of his service-learning experience working with homeless youth. Henry, a preservice English teacher in his early 20s, questioned his role as “teacher” in the service-learning space and how this might have bearing on his future work as a classroom teacher. Through reading Henry’s reflections, we explore how his stories of “self ” are important windows for identifying his understanding of himself as a future teacher, as well as his relationship with students. Mishler (1999) notes that the stories we, as people, tell about our lives are the ways we “express, display, [and] make[s] claims for who we are—in the stories we tell and how we tell them” (pp. 19-20). Therefore, the sto-

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ries that Henry told throughout the course of a semester are viewed as identity claims about who he wanted to be as a future teacher. We also view identity as grounded in Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, and Cain’s (1998) premise that “identities, the imaginings of self in worlds of action, [are] … lived in and through activity and so must be conceptualized as they develop in social practice” (p. 5). Identities, then, are always formed in relationship to others and are always historically and culturally situated (Harding, 2004). Henry’s stories of “self ” are featured throughout this chapter as opportunities to understand his work within a service-learning site, Family Partnership day center for homeless families. We view his negotiations as congruent with viewing teacher identity as a gradual formation of “becoming” (Gomez, Black, & Allen, 2007). Alongside other scholars who study identity, particularly teacher identity (e.g., Alsup, 2006; Zembylas, 2008), we understand that teachers are produced as “particular types of professionals” (Zembylas, 2008, p. 124, italics in the original), and take up their teacher identity as a project of continual “becoming” (Gomez et al., 2007) over time. Furthermore, teachers mediate their stories of self with the cultural and institutional expectations of what it means to be a teacher. In being witness to preservice teachers’ understandings of the role that service-learning takes in their process of becoming teachers, we attend to the negotiation they pursue concerning their role as teacher. This negotiation and “becoming” is evident through Henry’s conflicting and questioning counter stories told about and around the expected stories of teacher identity. When Henry met the students he would be working with at Family Partnership, he realized these students were not the secondary students he was expecting to tutor. He described them as primarily preschool and elementary aged children. At Family Partnership, Henry also worked within a context where the “learning” and “curricula” were fluid and undefined. He was not situated as the subject-area expert, and was not expected to be the traditional English teacher who organizes instruction and directs the literacy experiences of students. Despite these differences, Henry continued to engage with the service-learning experience at Family Partnership.In the following section, we more fully describe the context of the service-learning work at Family Partnership and our rationale for selecting such a context.

THE CONTEXT: FAMILY PARTNERSHIP PROGRAM FOR HOMELESS FAMILIES Family Partnership’s day center for homeless families, as well as the teacher education program in which the preservice teachers were

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enrolled, constitutes the context of the service-learning work described in this chapter. Family Partnership is a national organization framed by a model with a successful history (http://www.familypromise.org/our-work). The program has been implemented nationwide in multiple communities and was adopted in Cedar Creek, the community in which this study was situated, in November of 2008. Family Partnership, a nonprofit organization committed to helping low-income families achieve lasting independence, is oftentimes contrasted with a “shelter model” of assisting homeless individuals and families, as the program was founded on the premise of assisting homeless families through providing “an integrated approach that begins with meeting immediate needs but reaches much further to help people achieve independence and to alleviate the root causes of poverty” (http://www.justneighbors.net/povertyfacts-your-neighborhood-does-workingwork). Family Partnership works with a small group of families over the course of a period of three to four months with the intention of fostering lasting independence. In Cedar Creek, Family Partnership is one of several programs serving homeless individuals. Selecting Family Partnership as the communitybased field site for beginning teachers’ work with homeless youth was purposeful, as the directors at Family Partnership had sought connections with Green State University the summer before the program was implemented as they had hopes of creating an after-school initiative for the youth who were part of the Family Partnership program. Family Partnership’s day center, the site of the tutoring and teaching work that preservice teachers undertook, was located in a nondescript residential house in the center of downtown Cedar Creek. The director of Family Partnership told prospective teachers that the day center was unmarked so as not to draw attention to the purpose of the house when the morning bus picked up children for school. Families involved in the Family Partnership program spent their days (7 A.M.-5 P.M.) at the Day Center and then moved to rotate between participating congregations in the community for the evening hours. In Cedar Creek, 13 congregations were participants in the Family Partnership program, and the congregations’ role was to provide an evening meal and sleeping arrangements for the families. The role of the Day Center was to provide computer access and a stable place for families to reside during the daytime hours. The work that preservice teachers undertook at the day center was arranged on a Monday/Wednesday, 3:30-5:00 P.M., schedule. This arrangement allowed youth who were part of the Family Partnership program to arrive at the Day Center after school in time to meet prospective teachers for tutoring and homework help.

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THE CASE: HENRY’S SEARCH FOR THE ROLE OF “TEACHER” Dubinsky (2006) describes student reflection as an integral part of servicelearning, as it serves as a bridge from the service to the learning and makes the experience of service more educable and connected to the course curricula of which it is part. Written reflection assignments require students “to ponder and evaluate their experience, consider its value, and transform it into knowledge” (Dubinsky, 2006, p. 310). We asked Henry to keep a reflective journal during his time working at Family Partnership. His written reflections were used along with a class assignment called a “Life Graph” (see Appendix A), which required that he reflect upon the service-learning experience more holistically at the end of the semester. It is through these reflective writing assignments that we observed Henry question socially constructed views of secondary English teacher. From the very beginning of his service-learning reflections, Henry described his wonderings and conflicts about not only his identity as a teacher, but where he personally could fit in within the realm of education. Much of his early teacherly identity found its beginnings in his comprehension of society’s expectations of gender roles and teaching. In his journal, he described his students at Family Partnership as preschool and elementary-aged kids. Henry noted that “it was nice to interact with younger kids for once.” Later, in his journal, he reflected that perhaps his decision to become a secondary English teacher was prescribed in some ways because he did not view other choices as socially acceptable. He felt controlled by the societal expectations, and these expectations limited and defined his teaching identity from the start. Henry was still a student in education classes and had not begun working through teaching internships. Nonetheless, he was considering and adjusting his identity as a secondary English teacher: making decisions regarding how he would become a teacher and within which contexts and expectations this “becoming” would occur. Henry wrote: I’ve always gotten along with very young kids—I sometimes wonder if I’d be as certain about wanting to teach high school if I felt elementary school were a “real” option. There’s a level of suspicion males have to deal with in elementary school settings that I think has built a barrier in my mind that keeps me from having even giving elementary schoolers a chance … male teachers in the high school setting have had other pop culture niches carved for us.

Henry’s gender is clearly important in his becoming a teacher. As in most teacher education classes, he was one of a handful of male students surrounded by mainly White, middle-class, female students. Part of Henry’s path in becoming a teacher asked him to consider his gender and

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how it defines who he is in relation to society. Henry was able to reflect on these issues while working within Family Partnership. Since he worked outside the normal delineations of a high school, he was able to see more clearly how those norms demarcated who he was becoming, and was able to question whether he wanted to simply embody those norms or struggle against them. Henry was able to acknowledge what he was choosing and what was affecting his choice, and this meant he could critique his teacherly identity as it was forming. By working outside of the traditional context for secondary English teachers, Henry was given control over his becoming that perhaps would not occur within a traditional context. Henry was able to control the formation of “teacher” instead of merely, and unknowingly, allowing outside formulations to create and drive his becoming. Teacher education programs, in socializing beginning teachers into field sites, often bypass beginning teachers’ inquiry into the role of teacher. The role of teacher, after all, is fairly solidified in school classrooms. Most beginning teachers, therefore, are eager to assume this solidified role, only undertaking scrutiny of it long after assuming a classroom teaching position. Tutoring at Family Partnership urged Henry to deconstruct the role of teacher early in his teaching career. Midsemester, Henry described working with a very young child at Family Partnership, and reflected upon his desire to work with younger children. He saw this age of children as having potential to teach him. Yet, Henry never really acknowledged elementary or early childhood education as an option for him. He noted: When I first entered Family Partnership a baby boy named Riley toddled up, smiled and hugged my leg. It was fascinating to watch, because at that age his “reasons” for doing things don’t look anything like the “reasons” I have for doing things. My head is a jumble of words and analyses, but he doesn’t have the tools to place his feelings in that sort of order, he just does what he does. That, at the heart of it, is why part of me wishes I was going to be working with very young people instead of somewhat young people. When you are dealing with someone whose needs, impulses, and feelings are so obvious it makes your own [feelings and impulses] more obvious as a result … these things become apparent even though they continue to defy words.

Henry wanted to make sense of his decision to work with secondary agedstudents when he felt drawn to younger children. He was drawn to what he saw as the reasonless actions of Riley and other young children because they seemed to make his own impulses and feelings more obvious. As he considered the children he worked with at Family Partnership, he was forced to see them in contrast to the students he would face as a secondary English teacher, and he wondered if his identity as a teacher would be

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more suited to elementary or early childhood aged students. Henry described this when he wrote: “My head is a jumble of words and analyses,” and it is clear that as he worked through his service-learning and education coursework, he worked to find the “reasons” he wanted to become a secondary English teacher and how these “reasons” fit with the secondary teacher identity created by society at large. Like others in his cohort of beginning teachers, Henry struggled to view the work at Family Partnership as teaching work. The work was often different from that of a secondary English teacher in that there were varied ages of children in one setting; interactions were not focused through a traditional school time schedule; learning was not organized through teacher-driven curriculum; and the interactions took place in a residential space. Since the context was different from that in a traditional school setting, the work and interactions that the prospective teachers encountered were different as well. Because of this, teacher identity was no longer defined or cemented in the way it was manifested within schools. In his journal, Henry described continued conflicts about whether or not he should go into teaching. He said he wanted to be a teacher, and if he could not embody his first choice, an elementary school teacher, he seemed settled on becoming a secondary English teacher. Yet still, he had doubts about who he would become within society if he took on the persona of teacher. He saw this persona of English teacher as less problematic than that of elementary teacher, yet still struggled against his internalized notions of societal expectations of teachers and whether or not this role was one he could fully embrace. Henry spoke in his journal regarding the ways he saw gender limiting his identity as an English teacher: We carry these things in our heads. The majority of my male peers seem to fall into one of two categories—we all think we’re going to be laid-back football coaches or self-important trouble makers. It’s a silly sort of vanity either way, but I think it demonstrates an honest reflection of our values.

What he described as “an honest reflection of our values” could also be read as a projection of society’s expectations of masculinity. As an English teacher, Henry saw two possible identities: a coach or a trouble-maker. Both of these are traditional, masculine roles, and by stepping outside the school-defined context of teaching, Henry was able to identify such roles and see them as contrasting with the one he enacted at Family Partnership. The conflicts of identity came to bear with Henry’s imaginings of his role within society at large. He considered what it meant to be an elementary teacher in our society. What did it mean to be a man who works with young children and what assumptions will be made about a male’s iden-

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tity if he takes on this job? Although Henry was negotiating what he believed to be a less problematic role, as secondary English teacher, he still acknowledged social identity markers that he may not have wanted to embody. The service-learning space of Family Partnership allowed Henry to think largely about what it meant to even desire to become a teacher. He considered the idea of service and the idea of work and how these came together in his image of teacher. We hear all the time that teaching isn’t really worth the effort, and we’ve each individually decided that that’s bullshit, even though the evidence totally supports that conclusion … as an education student it’s natural to wonder whether I’m actually going to have the balls to go through with this, or if I’m going to spend the next 2½ years getting a degree for a job that will destroy me and send me running back to the safe arms of … academia? Art?

Here too, Henry’s response was gendered as he described his work in becoming a teacher as fraught with peril and, at times, outright threatening. He asked whether he “will have the balls” to do the job and whether it is a job “that will destroy” him. There was bravado in his reflection as he claimed what society says is “bullshit,” but there was fear expressed as well. Henry feared that he could be emasculated or even destroyed by the identity he had chosen to take on. At this point, he seemed to have no authority. Authority was not something he could claim, and was something he seemed to fear he may never have. There was a sense that he felt powerless, but perhaps that was because he had not yet claimed the authority that was also an important part of teacher identity. In later journals, Henry described two events that caused him to acknowledge the socially prescribed teacher role as authority figure. These two events display a transitioning of thought where Henry began to question and grapple with the social category of “teacher as authority.” Up until these events, Henry had described his relationship with the kids at Family Partnership as egalitarian. He depicted learning lessons from the children as he tutored and played with them after school, but he did not necessarily take on the traditional teacher role as one who controls or defines behavior or activities within the space of tutoring sessions. The transitional events that Henry experienced occurred due to the nature of the Family Partnership context. Because the context did not automatically define Henry’s role as “authority” in the ways that a classroom setting would, Henry’s interactions with the children were collaboratively driven. Often, these interactions even seemed to be child directed. Henry described helping students with their homework in a traditional studentteacher interaction, but he also described many non-school-like activities:

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playing games, reading books for fun, surfing the internet for humorous videos. These all appeared to be normal activities that might occur outside the school context, so it appeared that Henry was interacting with students in a way where authority was not obviously delineated. The first of the two transitional events came through a phone call, and the second event stemmed from Henry overhearing a mother’s angry interactions with her children. Both of these events are in themselves seemingly insignificant, yet Henry described them in his journals and Life Graph as turning points in the service-learning experience, thus forcing him to reflect upon his identity and authority as he interacted with the children at Family Partnership. The first transitioning event happened in early October, about four weeks into the service-learning experience. Henry was working at Family Partnership one afternoon by himself with five children ages 4-14. He described being worried that he was on his own with all the children, but also said the kids were well-behaved and no problems arose. At one point during the afternoon, however, the telephone rang, and 11-year-old Annie answered it. The caller wanted to donate a mattress and was calling to contact someone at Family Partnership to make arrangements to do so. Since there were no Family Partnership employees present, Annie decided Henry was the person who should handle the call. Henry describes her decision as a very significant moment in which he felt he was defined in an unexpected way: “Annie picked up the phone, listened for a few minutes, said ‘let me hand you to a grown-up’ and in one of the more surreal experiences in my life, handed the phone to me.… It took me a few moments to register that by ‘grown-up’ she meant me, and I had to fight this unsettling realization …” Henry took the caller’s contact information and was abruptly set off balance, “after I hung up I was strangely aware of something the kids had taken for granted—I was The Grown-up.” Henry described that “suddenly and without warning” he was forced to acknowledge a role he had never embraced before—a role that would be assumed without question if he were the teacher within a classroom. Legally, society saw him as a grown-up, a person who was no longer a minor, someone who was able to vote, drink and otherwise take on adult legal responsibilities. Situated as he was within the space of Family Partnership, Henry was also a grown-up, an authority figure to the children who were under his direction. Annie saw he was the authority figure in the room, and the caller also accepted his authority as someone with whom he could share “grown-up” information. Socially, Henry was made into a grown-up before he was willing to accept this role. He wrote in his journal about being somewhat shocked that he had been made into an authority figure without his conscious choice of that becoming:

126 H. HALLMAN and M. BURDICK I hadn’t learned anything or done anything—all it took to become The Grown-up was to remain in the room after everyone I thought was The Grown-up had left. The kids took this for granted, as I’ve always taken it for granted when identifying The Grown-ups in my life … it correlates more with accountability.… Maturity is something you grow into—something you seek and make a part of yourself. You become a Mature, but it seems like being The Grown-up just happens to you, oftentimes suddenly and without warning.

Henry said he had “always taken it for granted” when identifying the grown-ups in his life, and in saying this, he also acknowledged that the children at Family Partnership have likely “taken it for granted” that he was the authority figure. When he becomes a secondary English teacher, Henry will expect that he will take on a role as authority figure, but in the service-learning setting, this role was a shock to him, and forced him to consider if he was ready to become a grown-up, one who holds authority and responsibility over the children in his care. In his earlier journal entry that described the phone call, Henry capitalized the phrase “The Grownup” to portray the significance of the phrase. It is one (“The”) singular authority (“Grown-up”) being named within the situation as a proper noun. He felt he had been named, or at least labeled, and this naming was something he had not yet claimed for himself. In his last journal entry of the semester, Henry still struggled to see his role as authority figure, and he delineated this discomfort by using quotation marks around the phrase. He described a balloon game he and the children had played: “Thankfully as a ‘grown-up’ I was an obvious target.” He was no longer The Grown-up but a ‘grown-up.’ He saw himself as one of many (a instead of The) and without capitalization, yet with quotation marks around the word grown-up, he portrayed a questioning whether this role is truly his to claim. Henry had difficulties seeing himself in the authority role that the rest of society expected him to embrace, and his second transitional event was one that also questioned his position of authority at Family Partnership. This event forced Henry to grapple with not only whether he was a grownup, but also how he would embody and use that grown-up status. In this transitional event, Henry also began to comprehend how this new identity of authority-figure would play into his teacher identity, the responsibilities he would have toward his students and their families, and the expectations society had for him to keep children safe and provide them with literacy learning experiences. The second transitional event came toward the end of Henry’s time at Family Partnership. He was upstairs in the building, tutoring and playing with a group of children when he heard a woman downstairs screaming at someone to leave her alone. From what he understood about who was in

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the building, the woman was alone downstairs with her two young sons (whom Henry described as “barely verbal toddlers”). He described his reaction to this event in his journal: I was not in the same room as this scream, and I was scared.… I wasn’t sure what to do; I’ve never been a parent, but I know it’s stressful, and for better or for worse parents occasionally flip out and scream at their kids for stupid reasons. It certainly didn’t seem like my place to intervene.

Yet, he also looked down the stairwell to see if there were any signs of conflict. Though he worried about the children, he was also cautiously sympathetic toward the parent. Henry was himself conflicted about what this moment meant to the mother, the children and to himself. As a teacher I might well run into this sort of thing all the time; I’m going to need to develop some sort of sense of judgment to help navigate this. A family is a complex, unusual thing—impossible to unravel from the outside. How do you piece together what is happening? How do you keep someone from doing the kind of damage so many parents do to their children? How do you do that without damaging the parent … who probably loves their child … who is dealing with any range of stresses—homelessness, possible depression or other illness, or even the damage their own parents did?

He showed a great aptitude for empathy, and this reflection showed how the experience at Family Partnership was offering him lessons that would inform his future role as teacher. Henry comprehended that his role as English teacher would be just one of many influences in his students’ lives, and his authority, while expected and socially constructed, would also, in many ways, be bounded. He was able to see that he was “going to need to develop some sort of judgment” in order to fully embrace the role of authority figure and learn to navigate within that role in constructive ways. On his Life Graph, completed toward the end of his time at Family Partnership, Henry reflects on his puzzlings about teacher identity and authority, and how these puzzlings spilled over into his coursework at Green State University. The Life Graph, as the final reflection of the semester on the service-learning experience, asked prospective teachers to illustrate their service-learning experience in relationship to their coursework and their university semester. In his Life Graph, Henry described watching his classmates give presentations in their university classes, and pondered how they depicted their authority and their identities as college students as they are being made into teachers: “I marveled at how quickly people I knew as generally shiftless suddenly seem to grow up when given the authority. I began to think of maturity as situational.”

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Toward the end of the semester, Henry wrote the following on his Life Graph: “The overarching problem brought to light by the experience at Family Partnership seems to be how we construct solutions where we have imperfect knowledge, and imperfect knowledge might exacerbate problems.” Yet, Henry’s final episode, written on his Life Graph, is one of empowerment and hope. Henry wrote, “It seems clear, looking back, that the only solution to responsibility is courage.”Through reflection on his service-learning experience, Henry was able to position himself to face these future conflicts head-on. ‘Courage’ seems to encompass the tenets of inquiry that Flower (2008) advocates as essential to service-learning. Henry’s assertion that courage will lead him to continually question the teacherly roles that he assumes provides hope that, despite prospective teachers’ socialization into “teacher as authority,” opportunities such as the one at Family Partnership can provide a questioning ground for beginning teachers.

CONCLUSIONS Why should teacher education programs urge prospective teachers to take on this identity work head-on? What is the danger of socializing them into classroom teaching via field experience? Through exploration of the self/ other relationship present in the teaching act, Henry is able to reflect on how his biases as a future teacher may affect his perceptions of students, as well as his potential ability to extend himself beyond these initial perceptions. His stories of working in the service-learning space function as counterstories (Yosso, 2006) that synthesize his perceptions in his own past and present, and allow him to assert a new identity as beginning teacher. Yosso (2006) describes the purpose of counterstories as: to “build community with those at the margins,” to “challenge the perceived wisdom of those at society’s center,” to “nurture community wealth, memory, and resistance,” and to “facilitate transformation in education” (pp. 1415). Henry used the counterstories he crafted, particularly those about teaching as gendered work and teaching through a role of authority, as responses to his work at Family Partnership. His counterstories allowed him to begin to negotiate and embrace the identity he wished to assume as teacher. Many teacher educators (e.g., Cochran-Smith, 1995; Coffey, 2010; Gay, 2003) have asserted that what is needed in teacher education programs is space and opportunity for prospective teachers to undertake such identity work. Prospective teachers must be presented with contexts for broadening their belief systems and constructing more sophisticated understandings of students as learners. As Henry described, prior beliefs can be

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influenced through community-based, service-learning experiences. As the field of teacher education reiterates a commitment to prepare teachers to teach diverse groups of students, it is important that teacher educators and their students move beyond rhetoric and into the spatial and temporal contexts in which we live. Creating spaces within teacher education programs where beginning teachers can question assumed binaries in concrete ways is a worthwhile endeavor and a move toward embracing programmatic features committed to beginning teachers’ growth during the preservice years.

NOTE 1.

This study was funded by a research initiative grant from the Conference on English Education and a grant from the School of Education at the University of Kansas.

REFERENCES Alsup, J. (2006). Teacher identity discourses. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum. Cochran-Smith, M. (1995). Color blindness and basket making are not the answers: Confronting the dilemmas of race, culture, and language diversity in teacher education. American Educational Research Journal, 32, 493-522. Coffey, H. (2010). “They taught me”: The benefits of early community-based fieldexperiences in teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 26, 335-342. Cuban, L. (1993). How teachers taught: Constancy and change in American classrooms, 1890-1990. New York, NY: Teachers College. Dubinsky, J. (2006). The role of reflection in service learning. Business Communication Quarterly, 69(3), 306-310. Family Promise. (n.d.). Just neighbors. Summit, NJ: Author. Retrieved May 1, 2012, http://www.justneighbors.net/povertyfacts-your-neighborhood-doesworkingwork Family Promise. (n.d.). Our work. Summit, NJ: Author. Retrieved May 1, 2012, from http://www.familypromise.org/our-work Flower, L. (2008). Community literacy and the rhetoric of public engagement. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Press. Gay, G. (Ed.) (2003). Becoming multicultural educators: Personal journeys toward professional agency. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Gomez, M. L., Black, R. W., & Allen, A. (2007). “Becoming” a teacher. Teachers College Record, 109(9), 2107-2135. Hallman, H. L., & Burdick, M. N. (2011). Service learning and the preparation of English teachers. English Education, 43(4), 341-368. Harding, S. (2004). A socially relevant philosophy of science? Resources from stand point theory’s controversiality. Hypatia, 19, 25-47.

130 H. HALLMAN and M. BURDICK Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Identity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Mishler, E. (1999). Storylines: Craft artists’ narratives of identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Nystrand, M., with Gamoran, A., Kachur, R., & Prendergast, C. (1997). Opening dialogue: Understanding the dynamics of language and learning in the English classroom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Portes, P. R., & Smagorinsky, P. (2010). Static structures, changing demographics: Educating teachers for shifting populations in stable schools. English Education,42(3), 236-247. Yosso, T. (2006). Critical race counterstories along the Chicana/Chicano educational pipeline. New York, NY: Routledge. Zembylas, M. (2008). Interrogating ‘Teacher identity’: Emotion, resistance, and self-formation. Educational Theory, 58(1), 107-127.

CHAPTER 8

FROM SERVICE-LEARNING TO LEARNING TO SERVE Preparing Urban English Teachers to be Organic Intellectuals D. E. KIRKLAND

David E. Kirkland

“If you’ve come to help me, you’re wasting your time, but if you’ve come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” —Lilla Watson with Australian Aboriginal Group members A number of neocontemporary critical researchers have suggested that teaching English in the city is daunting due, in part, to the multiple and changing ecologies of languages and texts, and the endemic nature of persistent inequities that saturate urban landscapes (Kinloch, 2008; Kirkland, 2008; Morrell, 2008). For us, any portrait of urban geographies will bear its complexities, a layered image of fierce new educational requirements set against the backdrop of desperate social demands that coincide with teaching and living in the city. Peculiar to this image is a tone of deep despair evident in many urban schools across the country. In order to transform this image of hopelessness in ways that establish a more blissful portrait of social and academic possibility, there is a pressing need to bet-

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ter prepare critical English teachers willing to work with city students to meet the demands of the day (Morrell, 2008). While incredibly difficult, this challenge presents a powerful opportunity for English teachers who want to transform the unjust social conditions that blight urban schools and communities (cf. Fruchter, 2007; Noguera, 2003). In this context, service-learning has been forwarded as critical pedagogy (Morrell, 2005), where new urban teachers learn to teach by overcoming deficit stereotypes and embracing organic pathways to empathy. At the same time, service-learning gives new urban teacher learners opportunities to work with students and their assorted textualities in vast city spaces in hopes of helping teacher learners adjust and amend their thinking around the plight of many urban communities. In doing so, such teachers are expected to cultivate strong roots within the communities in which they work, forge powerful links with local issues and struggles that connect people and their experiences, and ultimately build real and relevant relationships to those communities most in need (Gramsci, 1971). Armed with an openness to serve and a desire to bring voice to the people and the stories of their communities, new urban teacher learners will also be expected to learn how to paint narratives of the everyday experiences, struggles, hopes, and triumphs of real families and neighborhoods, of people sharing their own visions of a new city (such as urban gardens and green urban communities) while taking an active stance on issues prevalent in urban settings, such as homelessness, poverty, violence, disease, hunger, and miseducation, which in many American cities can be seen as normal as opposed to aberrant. But if service-learning is the holy grail of urban English teacher education, why didn’t we turn to it sooner? What exactly are its outcomes related to effective English teacher development? And most importantly, what can we in teacher education learn from service-learning situations to prepare English teachers to enter classrooms and communities to inspire change and, in so doing, help to rewrite narratives of classroom and community in ways that promote learning and justice? In this chapter, I seek to answer these questions by making three broad points using comparative student interview data taken from a larger “New English Education” study I conducted at New York University. The first point I want to make suggests that in order to effectively prepare English teachers to meet the challenges of modern classrooms, English teacher education must respond to the initial beliefs that teacher learners bring with them to classrooms. I suggest that this response can be accomplished by embracing a broader and bolder approach to teacher preparation, moving beyond the limited structure of the ivory tower, and entering the complex ecologies where individuals and groups live and learn. At this level, service-learning as a departure from traditional classroom-based

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models for teacher education seems to offer a new way of socializing teacher learners into the profession, extending beyond their own experiences as students (cf. Lortie, 1975). Second, I posit that while service-learning has been proposed by many as a way to expand learning opportunities, the ideologies that students bring into it, if left unaddressed, can, in fact, promote a draining of community resources and reinforce stereotypes about nondominant communities. That is, if service-learning is a departure from tradition, does departure alone suggest effective teacher learning, or are there deeper politics involved in teacher learning that must guide our voyage beyond the traditional teacher preparation track? In addressing these questions, I finally argue that teacher learners, as a result of their service-learning experiences, must be prepared to serve (as opposed to just learn) as organic intellectuals rooted in and committed to the communities in which they (will) teach.

SERVICE-LEARNING AND A BROADER, BOLDER APPROACH TO ENGLISH TEACHER EDUCATION In university-based teacher education, service-learning is typically associated with a form of situated and activity-based experiential learning. The goal usually is to help teacher learners gain nuanced understandings of the spaces in which they teach—communities and kids and local textualities as they relate fully to the margins of experience. In recent interpretations, service-learning has also served the purpose of exposing novice teachers from middle-class backgrounds with the diversities of their students, their nuances, and the textures of their students’ communities and learning spaces to strengthen their habits of critical reflection (CarterAndrews, 2009). Carter-Andrews (2009) has defined service-learning “as an approach to teaching and learning that blends service and learning in a way that both are enriched by the other” (p. 274). She offers three broad but basic principles of service-learning that are key to understanding the concept as it is operationalized in university-based teacher education. These principles include (but are not limited to) (1) pragmatic and integrated learning, the idea of learning for practical application by tying knowledge and skills to authentic activities; (2) reflection, the opportunity to deliberate on experience as a method of learning; and (3) high-quality service, the ability to engage sites of difference and complexity for radical solutions to wideranging problems. According to Carter-Andrews:

134 D. E. KIRKLAND Service-learning has been adopted as a pedagogy at the program level and in individual classrooms of many teacher educators for various reasons. It is a means to foster deeper sociocultural awareness, civic participation, and social transformation in preservice students. It can make students “aware of issues and problems of equity, equality, power, voice, and resources in education” (Verducci & Pope, 2001, p. 7). (p. 274)

Service-learning in this fashion is used in teacher education to introduce foundational concepts in teaching and learning (Karp, Pedras, Heide, & Flottemesch, 2001; Miels, 2001), to illustrate specific approaches to teaching (Broadway & Clark-Thomas, 2001; Wade, 2001), and to bridge the distances between school and community, the academy and the real world, theory and practice, and other seemingly disparate entities (Medina, Morrone, & Anderson, 2005; Muscott, 2001; Stowell & McDaniel, 2001). In English education, for example, scholars have conceptualized service-learning as having the potential to disrupt dominant discourses operative in teachers’ fields of possibility (Sleeter, 2008), thus encouraging preservice teachers to interrogate the landscapes of learning that foster inequity. Further, English educators have also offered servicelearning as a lens for examining the relationship between teacher and students, with the potential to present a counter disruptive ideology to mainstream conceptualizations of learning based in deficit thinking (Hallman & Burdick, 2013, this volume). As a pedagogy, service-learning relies on praxis, the dialogic involvement of theory and practice, reflection and action, or thinking and doing (Jacoby & Associates, 1996). From this perspective, when university-based teacher education ties coursework with fieldwork in an intimately designed way, teacher learners find opportunities to dispel myths and obvious stereotypes, gain increased understandings of social and cultural difference, experience social and community transformation, and gain familiarity with students’ local funds of knowledge (Moll, 1990) and repertoires of practice (Gutiérrez & Rogoff, 2003). Hence, the theories grounding service-learning outcomes suggest service-learning as a pedagogical approach that offers opportunities for teacher development at complex levels of experience and intervention. Research suggests that teacher learners have largely positive experiences with and attitudes toward service-learning (Carter-Andrews, 2011; Cruz, 1997; Erickson & Anderson, 1997; Wade & Yarbrough, 1997). The research demonstratively highlights transformations in teachers’ social and cultural awareness of youth who are in various ways different from themselves (Boyle-Baise, 1998; McKenna & Ward, 1996). Other studies have suggested that participation in service-learning facilitates increased critical awareness of structural barriers to learning that adversely affect student development (Tellez, Hlebowitsh, Cohen, & Norwood, 1995).

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Many studies also suggest that teacher learners develop new forms of awareness to self and one’s possibilities for promoting change in classrooms and beyond. In this light, the research describes teacher learners who participate in service-learning activities as beginning to question their prior assumptions and beliefs about urban students and all the messiness implied in that label (Vadeboncoeur, Rahm, Aguilera, & LeCompte, 1996). While research dedicated to describing the cursory (or masking) effects of service-learning on teacher development is voluminous, the grand narratives of success based on service-learning teaching approaches mystify me. If service-learning is as effective as the scholarly literature suggests in transforming teacher learning, then why hasn’t it been implemented at scale in university teacher preparation programs throughout the nation? Further, we know very little about the deep structure of such programs, that is, what and how students actually learn from service-learning experiences. Nor do we have much information to distinguish transformation at the site of discovery to the developing teacher self. Other more productive frames of inquiry exist as well: After service-learning, do teacher learners abandon communities, particularly urban communities, that have served as labs for their learning? Does this sort of development-byconvenience model translate into something that complicates the rootedness in community and in students’ lives that many see as an expected outcome of service-learning? FRAMING SERVICE-LEARNING WITHIN A BROADER BOLDER APPROACH TO ENGLISH TEACHER PREPARATION I situate this work within Noguera and Morrell’s (2011) concept of a “broader bolder approach” to education. According to Noguera and Morrell, the “Broader Bolder Approach” is tied to at least five specific suggestions for improving education. These include (but are not limited to) the following tenets: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

working with key stakeholders and learning from successes; relying on evidence-based instruction; developing long-term collaboration and engagement with teachers; promoting community engagement; and developing strategies that respond to the nonacademic needs of children.

Service-learning as it has been applied to teacher education, and specifically to English teacher education, in many ways, captures this broader

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bolder model as a distinctive component of an educational program in formal or informal settings. This model integrates meaningful community service activities with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience by combining service objectives with learning objectives. Within a broader bolder framework, the reciprocal relationship developed with the recipients of service and those who serve is central to a service-learning experience. That is, teacher learners, through engagement with local people’s lives, learn something essential to their education through their practical experience with less advantaged community members while also offering a vital service to that community (CarterAndrews, 20011). Hence, combining the terms “service” and” learning” is less a means of linguistic pretention than a semiotic indicator of the twoway flow between service and learning in a service-learning/learning service relationship. Then, the chief idea behind a service-learning component to a university course is this: that, in conjunction with campus-based instruction, teacher learners are involved in some project in the community that simultaneously contributes to the quality of local people’s lives and provides unique, often transformative experiences for the students who provide the service (Blackburn & Cushman, 2013, this volume; Cushman, 1999). But does this rich, reciprocal process always occur? That is, does service-learning as a belief-blind construct work? If not, or at least if not always, then we might ask: How might a service-learning paradigm reinforce initial beliefs that teacher learners bring with them into the experience: deficit theories (i.e., oppressive assumptions about people and their communities), missionary models (i.e., teaching as saving communities as opposed to serving them), and other patronizing attitudes toward those of lesser advantage as well as community-rooted beliefs, empathies, and critical awarenesses? How might rethinking service-learning help expand the thinking of teacher learners whose beliefs are already rooted in community empathy and those whose beliefs are emerging in ways that envision teaching and teachers as serving and supporting communities? How might thinking more broadly and boldly help teacher educators to rethink the conceptual construct of service-learning as it pertains to the preparation of English teachers? Are we using service to learn teaching, or is learning to teach about more than the act of teaching itself?

TEACHING IN THE CITY: A SERVICE-LEARNING COURSE AT NYU In the spring of 2011, I taught a graduate course at New York University (NYU) titled, “Teaching in the City.” The course introduced students to wide-ranging issues of power, possibility, oppression, and privilege as con-

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stituted within and of urban geographies (see Diagram). The course sought to provide students with opportunities to read and access urban communities as texts, to live within and to learn from those communities in ways that make available local resources for improving students’ understandings of teaching and learning, in general, and to learn from the youth with whom they work, in specific. In the course I used a servicelearning design that blended city-based experiential exercises with classroom readings and reflections. Students enrolled in the course were at various points in their teaching careers. Several were classroom teachers with varying degrees of teaching experience. Others were MA-level teacher learners pursuing English teacher certification. Still others were MA-level nonteachers interested in urban education and textualities. The classroom cohort was unique in several ways. First, all of the students, at some point during the beginning of the class, expressed interest in teaching English in cities or working with urban youth in some capacity around literacy. This disposition distinguished these students from the many other students in English education programs, who typically desire and take teaching positions in nonurban environments upon graduation. Second, the cohort’s demographics were uncharacteristic of NYU’s larger English education programs, which are predominantly White, middle class, and female. Of the 15 students enrolled in the course, greater than 50% were students of color (3 Black, 3 Latin@, 2 of Asian descent). Also, 6 of the 15 students in the course were men. The service-learning components of the course included three projects, or approximately 25–30 hours exploring and working within local schools, neighborhoods, or community organizations. Students were required to creatively log their experiences, using various course themes and concepts to reflect upon their learning. The course covered topics in urban education that allowed students to examine factors that had an impact on teaching and learning at the individual, school, community, and societal levels. In order to align service-learning activities more closely with the course goals and objectives, I structured field experiences to include a variety of activities beyond one-on-one tutoring within schools to help students examine the contexts of education beyond school so that they could gain awareness of issues related to cultural difference, power, and social inequity at macro and micro levels within schools, neighborhoods, and communities. The activities included: 1. weekly reading summaries and an annotated bibliography aimed at critical reflections on how readings revealed or were revealed by (and existed in conversation with) semistructured field experiences;

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2. a public service project tailored to address a critical social issue specific to the teaching and learning needs of a particular undersupported/oppressed group within a neighborhood, school, or community organization; 3. semistructured field experiences aimed at raising awareness and introducing students to the textures, nuances, and funds of knowledge/repertoires of practice of specific urban geographies; 4. field reports aimed at providing critical space for reflective dialogue between course readings and service-learning experiences; and 5. learning exhibitions tailored to provide students a space to access and share their learning within a community of peers. Building upon these activities, the course was organized around four reflective/project-based assignments. These tasks were designed to help students make connections between what they were learning in our classroom and their experiences in the field. For example, the reading summaries project and related annotated bibliography gave students space to reflect on critical historical, social, and political issues relevant to developing a deep understanding of urban contexts. This assignment was also intended to put students in conversation with others who had thought about and experienced some of the issues and contexts in which they were enmeshed. The public service assignment gave students space to explore and begin to respond to a critical social issue resident within the context of the field experience. This assignment framed context as a revisable text not only capable of being read but also written. The field experience and report were the key assignments for the course. They were designed to give students exposure to urban schools, neighborhoods, and community organizations in ways that would buffet learning through a praxis model. Here, students would participate and act within communities and reflect upon their participation in conversation with course texts and other discursive entities informing their understandings of urban space-time. Finally, the exhibition project was designed to allow students at the end of the course to share what they had learned with peers and invited community guests in ways that could enable a conversation about effective teaching and learning practices in urban community spaces. While students in the course arrived at NYU from a variety of places, all 15 of them lived within or near the city of New York. Nine of the 15 students said that they grew up in an urban context (NYC or some other large or moderate size city). Each student agreed to participate in my larger New English Education research project, a study of new pedagogi-

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cal content design for English teacher preparation and the teaching of English. As part of the larger study, this service-learning element sought to examine the nature of new English curriculum design in relation to how teacher learners make sense of themselves and their work as teachers, the students they (will) teach, and the spaces in which they (will) teach them. All students signed voluntary consent forms to engage in individual and focus group interviews and to have their coursework collected and analyzed. Nonstructured interviews took place periodically throughout the semester, with more formal interviews occurring at the semester’s end. Finally, several pieces of student coursework were examined as a way of understanding students’ developing thoughts about their future roles as urban educators. I coded interviews and artifacts using MS Word and Excel spreadsheets. All data reported in this chapter were collected between January 2011 and May 2011. In this chapter, I draw from interviews to discuss the complex nature of a service-learning experience for a group of teacher learners leaving the field with varying understandings of what it means to teach in the city.

What They Learn From Service-Learning: An Analysis of Two Metaphors My analysis of interview transcripts suggests that, depending on the beliefs they bring into the service-learning experience and on how they engaged the field, teacher learners’ service-learning experiences yield different results. These results are revealed by a set of competing metaphors/perspectives that framed, for some teacher learners, service-learning as an opportunity to engage in missionary work. This metaphor (service as salvation) is typified by students who saw their time in the field as learning to save youth who lived in what they would consider “hostile” situations. The other metaphor (service as stem) is typified by students who saw their time in the field as learning to serve youth in ways that would ultimately root them within their communities. The metaphor here is about connecting, as opposed to disconnecting, service in place of salvation. What is of interest to me are the ways that each metaphor reveals different conceptions of teaching and teacher learning. Learning to save revealed deficit beliefs and positioned teachers in a dominant role usually detached from the communities in which the service-related field experiences had taken them. By contrast, learning to serve revealed profit beliefs and positioned teacher learners in a collaborative space of mutual solidarity typically attached to the communities in which field experiences had taken place.

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Service-Learning as Learning to “Save”: A Metaphor for Salvation At the end of their service-learning experiences, Sarah, Elizabeth, and John all had similar reflections on their course experience. To them, “service-learning was meaningful” in that it provided “an opportunity to be in the contexts” in which they might someday teach. For Sarah, this experience was important because, having been raised in suburban Philadelphia, she had limited contact with city youth and the communities from which they come. “I took this class,” she explained, “so that I could get some experience working in the city.” Her rationale for taking the course was thus personal and about enhancing her education by furthering her experiences “working with kids.” Like Sarah, John was also new to the city. He lived much of his life in rural Southern Utah. “The closest city to me,” he said, “is (Las) Vegas, which is about a two hour drive.” Despite having not been raised in a city, John took the class to “learn something new” and “for the service-learning component of the course.” He lamented, “Much of my course work in English education has been theoretical. I wanted to know what these ideas look like in practice.” Hence, John’s rationale for taking the course was pragmatic and personal, about his own learning and desire to bridge what he perceived to be a theory-practice divide. Unlike Sarah and John, Elizabeth was from New York City. She attended private schools in the city throughout her K-12 education such that the way she experienced the city was quite unique. She explained, “There are parts of New York I don’t really know. I think I can get a lot out of this class because it seems to be about a part of New York that is foreign to me. If I have to teach students who come from this part of the city, then I should probably get to know where they came from.” Sarah’s, John’s, and Elizabeth’s descriptions of their motivations for taking the course suggest an observer’s stance on experience that would surface in later conversations. For them, the city was something to see as opposed to a place to inhabit. They separated themselves from it though they were curious about it and, while at NYU, lived in it. When asked about her experience with people in the city, Sarah admitted: Most of the people I know in New York City are not from New York. And the people I hang out with go to school here (at NYU). So my first field experience was a revelation to me. I never had to deal with people like that. I mean, I feel bad for … the poor kids we visited for our field experience. Nobody should have to live like they do.… Some of them don’t get enough to eat … stuff like that. It’s hard for them.

Similar to Sarah, Elizabeth found the field experience eye opening:

From Service-learning to Learning to Serve 141 I was at a community center just 2 days ago. It was a “safe zone” for bisexual, gay, lesbian, transgender, and questioning teens who had been kicked out of their homes. These kids had it hard. I couldn’t imagine being them. One girl told me that she tried prostitution to feed herself. She couldn’t be older than 16. Another girl said that the community center is the only home she has ever known. The only thing I could think of is how awful that was and how better off I’ve had it in my life.

Based on their experiences in the field, both Elizabeth and Sarah felt a peculiar sympathy for the communities they visited. While it was at once eye opening, the experience also elicited a type of sympathy akin to pity. The thing they seemed to most learn from the experience was how they were different from and better off than the youth in the communities they had visited. Hence contact for them did not create empathy or connection, awareness or rootedness, but a numbing effect of sorts that reinforced the separation between them and the urban communities in which they were “service-learning.” For example, John questioned whether or not he would ever be able to teach in a city situation: I don’t know if this is for me. The one thing that I get from this experience is that life for those kids is harder, harder than my life could ever be. I wouldn’t know how to save them. So I feel like I would be doing them a disservice by trying to teach somewhere that I don’t … [pause] that I can’t fully appreciate. I am sure there are a lot other amazing teachers out here who could work in the city with these kids. I am not one of them. And I feel like someone like me, who is set up to fail with these kids because I don’t come from where they come from, would really be cheating them of a good teacher if I worked in these communities.

John’s reason for not wanting to teach in the city was telling. For him, teaching in the city would be morally unjust in that some people are not meant to be there. The postulation of service-learning offering a proving ground for who can or cannot teach in the city is central to John’s argument. However, it is based on an assumption that there are particular people who can or are meant to teach in cities, that one cannot learn to teach in cities; or, it is an excuse given for those not wanting to teach in the city. As excuse, this postulation works from the base fabric of deficit logic, of both the teacher and the city situation dispossessed. The idea that teaching is not about working with and for, but working over and against, and the idea that some communities and youth are beyond intervention seem convoluted, if not justification for the Salvationist impulse from which it emerged. Sarah and Elizabeth used more direct Salvationist rhetoric in their conversations about particular urban communities and particular urban

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youth—for their reasons for not wanting to teach in cities or with particular city youth. This rhetoric, perhaps, emerged, in part, from (in)experience, privilege, and a need to work to become more complex teacher learners and, hence, teachers with a wider set of experiences and vocabularies under their belt. Still, for teacher learners like Sarah: “These kids are bad … I don’t know how I can help them.” For this reason, Sarah admitted, “My ideal job would not be in a city. What this [service-learning] experience has taught me is that I really don’t want to work in urban education, and I think that that is okay.” One, however, wonders if Sarah is opting out of teaching in urban schools or whether she is opting out of teaching kids whom she perceived as bad or unsalvageable. Regardless of the reason, service-learning, in giving Sarah a chance to experience the city, taught her little about teaching in the city, but conversely it led her not to want to teach there. Instead of acclimating her to an urban climate, service-learning discouraged her from wanting to teach in it. By contrast, Elizabeth wanted to teach in the city to “save” the community and the “misguided youth” with whom she visited. “I just want to help the kids,” she explained. “I took the course because I thought it would give me a way to do that. Now leaving my field experience, I see how much needs to be done to fix the communities.… They all need some help.” While she seemed encouraged to teach within the city, Elizabeth operationalized the city in a deficit way. The things she learned about the city, thus, tended toward stereotypical savagery that characterized a broken place in need of fixing. I use the term savagery here deliberately to tie this perspective/ideology to a history of contact zones (Pratt, 1991) where individuals defined themselves as missionaries and the individuals in whose communities and cultures they lived in as savages. For Elizabeth, service-learning was, then, a sort of triage work, where one assesses damage and then moves in to repair what is perceived to be broken. Indeed, this idea of service-learning situates itself within missionary models, where the driving metaphor for service-learning is salvation or a fixing of the broken masses who, left on their own, would only continue to dissolve into primitive forms of development or worse exist in constant states of chaos and anarchistic crisis. Sarah echoes Elizabeth’s Salvationist refrain in her comments about the youth in the communities she visited for her service-learning experiences: These kids have it hard, and they don’t have anyone to push them to work harder so they can get out of this [community]. I think my service-learning project did a lot of good. It saved students who otherwise wouldn’t get help from home. So I think we did make a difference.

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In making a “difference,” one still wonders if Sarah, or Elizabeth for that matter, learned anything new related to teaching in the city. What of the community resources that are available to teachers to build upon to promote righteous learning? What of the communities that have long promoted thinking and knowledge in terms often invisible to outsiders? What of the youth who have things of their own to teach one another and those of their teachers who are willing to listen? What of the new textualities that have become central to the project of New English Education? What of the profession of English teaching? How shall it be defined—in conversation with and for communities in which teachers teach, or as a dictate over such communities in the service of the establishment? For the elite and the intellectually comfortable, these questions might seem irrelevant. For them, it might be intellectually repellent to force a choice between two mutually exclusive alternatives. But for the countless young people who dwell daily in our cities, who attend schools with people who care little for them or for their success as evidence by countless tragic narratives of city schools, this is the choice. And this choice has real consequences, consequences that determine life or death, a full belly or starvation, work or poverty, and so on. In a lighter vein, we might also ask: What of the level of the students’ knowingness and becomingness as teacher learners and then teachers? Might their Salvationist rhetoric be a beginning to their growth as, and transition into being, critical educators? And, thus, should we account for such rhetoric as we engage in conversations about critical teaching, learning, thinking, and acting? Too often the project of moving from one stage of critical development to completion is stalled. And too often, the processes of becoming for noncritical educators remain tragically incomplete (cf. Yosso, 2002). Then, the real question is this: How might we hasten and complete this process? Some might regard my analysis and depiction of the teacher learners in this section as over-the-top and harsh. It is not my intention to depict my participants as mean and insensitive, or charitable in the sense of noblesse oblige. My participants were young developing teachers, trying to figure out many things often by means of lenses well-established and difficult to revolutionize in a couple months. As such, it can be argued that their service-learning experience was perhaps a first step—a move toward becoming introspective and critical. There have been cases where researchers have noted such developmental movement, tracing processes of transformation where teacher learners interchange deficit perspectives for profit ones. Yet, the dire situation of schooling in the city suggests that while developing criticality and human empathy can be a process, for far too many teachers this process is never fulfilled. Our classrooms are filled, perhaps overfilled, with good-intentioned teachers who unwilling and

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unwittingly cling to deficit views of particular students, especially those students who occupy city schools. The point here then is not to disparage my participants, but rather to illustrate pervading ideologies that the consequence of service-learning might not shake (at least for some students in early stages of developing empathy and criticality). So I have discussed the issue in frank terms, naming oppression (even the willing oppression that 20-year-olds might choose and that we in the academy might prop up and, worse, defend). In spite of these acknowledgements, it should be reiterated that I do not think that Sarah, Elizabeth, and John were bad people, nor do I think that they would be poor teachers. Rather, they were individuals fitted within a system of preparation given too easily to metaphors of teaching that conceptualize service-learning as a reductive exercise that profiles social and cultural deficiencies as opposed to a community’s social and cultural wealth. For the one thing that each of these teacher learners came to understand in their service-learning experiences was that English teaching in the city would be akin to missionary work, that cities are missionary vineyards with little to offer but savage masses to be converted, and that city youth are savages themselves—victims of a godless culture denied the civilizing efforts of a particular type of involvement. For the three teacher learners profiled in this section, learning to teach through service-learning, then, was about learning to save through service-learning. But is service-learning only, if at all, about salvation? What other lessons might teacher learners who experience service-learning differently take from such an experience?

Service-learning as Learning to Serve: A Metaphor for Rootedness and Humility Gail’s and Zhanae’s service-learning experiences differed markedly from Sarah’s, Elizabeth’s, and John’s. Their service-learning experiences were rooted in community wealth and governed by service to their communities as opposed to deficit logic and missionary escapades. According to Gail, “I took this course because I knew that it would put me in contact with real people, and I think real people have as much, if not more, to teach me about how to teach than these books.” Gail, thus, entered the course with an idea that the communities in which she would teach had valuable assets worthy of understanding. She echoed this sentiment when she said, “Teaching is not about being served; it is about learning to serve. I came into this class wanting to know what this looked like for me.” Similarly, Zhanae took the course because “it made sense to” her. She explained, “That’s my community. I want to know how I can be in it to

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make it better.” Fundamental, here, is Zhanae’s ethic of service. Unlike Sarah, Elizabeth, and John, even in seeking improvement for the city, Zhanae didn’t start at deficit beginnings, that the city or its youth is at all worse than some sanitized normal model. Since she conceived teaching as the work of the servant, Zhanae was able to see the community from its residents’ perspective. For example, she explained, “I wanted to be in the community with our people, in the place [where] they live so that I could learn from and with them, so that we would be an ‘us’ as opposed to a ‘them.’” Zhanae’s critique of a type of divisive othering that can be reinforced in teacher preparation embraces the ethic of “us” as opposed to othering philosophies of deficit epistemology. In so doing, she offered a critical argument for service-learning not rooted in savior logics. This position is also distinguished from the logic of the saviors and the condemned, a logic that fetishizes and, hence, objectifies students as missionary targets as opposed to coactors performing with us cosubjectivities on a shared community stage. In a logic that refuses to fetishize, the saved and the condemned are both erased. In their place is a oneness—and hence, the absence of the other (and of othering). The all-inclusive “us” that survives, though not alone, is a communal us, based in the principles of some shared commitment to a larger corporate self. In this light, Zhanae was clear about how she saw service-learning operating in her emerging practice. She explained: By service, I mean I learned to serve. It’s like you said: Teaching is public service, and most people don’t know how to serve. We like to get served, and even when we help people, it’s about our own selfishness. I think teachers have to learn to serve if teaching is a public service. So for me the course wasn’t so much about service-learning as it was about learning service.

Gail was no less clear about the importance of learning service (or “learning to serve” as she called it) within the space of a service-learning course. According to Gail: You can be in communities, but that don’t mean you have to be learning much. Or you can be learning, but what you learn don’t have to deal with things that will actually help people. I know that some of my classmates, they “visit” communities and schools and leave worse off than they were before they “visited.” Are they learning? Yes. But the question is: What are they learning? They sometimes go in expecting one thing, then they see stuff they never seen before, and be like, “These kids bad,” “This community is messed up,” or “They need a lot of help.” The only things they learn are stereotypes. After hearing some of them talk, sometimes I wish they never had gone into my community in the first place. They’re not helping. They’re hurting. And the worst part about it is that the course is supposed to be about challenging stereotypes. But at the end of the day, they end up

146 D. E. KIRKLAND with worse stereotypes. So for me, the focus has to be on serving the communities, and if we start here, then we have a chance to grow.

What’s most interesting about Gail’s statement is her idea of teacher growth related to change in how one sees the world as opposed to how one acts upon it. She also alludes to an idea that all service-learning and, thus, all service-learning experiences are not created equally. Hence, students within the same service-learning programs can learn completely different things from their experiences. This variation occurs even when the service-learning course design explicitly articulates clear objectives related to a particular stance on teacher learning. Then what is imagined here isn’t a statement about the efficacy of the service-learning experience, but the theory guiding the service-learning event. These examples suggest that service learning (or learning to serve) is itself an incomplete intervention. Students who enter the process already rooted in the communities they wish to serve carried ideologies or perspectives less deficit-driven than students not rooted in those communities. This sense of affiliation is no coincidence. As one group entered the course with beliefs that were reinforced, the other group did too, but with different beliefs. The point, then, is that entering beliefs frame experience within service-learning; hence, service-learning as in learning to serve should attend to initial beliefs as these influence what teacher learners may gain in the process of service learning. Therefore, service-learning, as curriculum particularly in English teacher studies, must be more than an experiential program. Indeed, the idea of experience-driven teacher preparation approaches something broader and bolder than the education our current Ivory Tower provides. But experience alone is not capable of putting to conclusion the historical equations of bias invented in the calculus of experience that first imprinted judgment onto our identities in the first place. What is needed are particular types of experience that yield a more broad and a more bold, hence a more fruitful approach to teacher learning. Within this approach, service-learning must find reconceptualization through metaphors of humility and rootedness, in service as opposed to salvation.

BEYOND SERVICE-LEARNING: A MORE BROAD AND A MORE BOLD APPROACH TO ENGLISH TEACHER PREPARATION The five tenets of Morrell and Noguera’s (2011) “Broader and Bolder Approach” conceive of service-learning experiences as offering ways for teachers to develop broader and bolder dispositions that embark on a radical rethinking of teacher preparation. However, service-learning

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separate from learning service is not sufficient to transform how teachers think and, more importantly, how teachers think about and care for children, particularly nondominant children. In fact, particular contact zones, as this chapter suggests, can end up reinforcing oppressions (e.g., stereotypes, salvation ideologies, deficit theories, etc.) as opposed to creating change in local learning environments. It is not that these students were not critical, but that they were critical of things that many of us in urban education find misplaced. Notwithstanding, this criticality never extends to the reflexive gaze that may open up opportunities for the teacher learners to interrogate their own beginning and continuing/reinforced deficit perspectives of urban communities and students. Through the “Broader and Bolder Approach,” learning service through service-learning becomes a critical ethic of teacher preparation, framed in an idea that sees teachers as more than learners in transit, but as organic intellectuals rooted to place and its people. Now service (noun) is the action of helping or doing work for someone; the function of serving (see Merriam-Webster). The idea of action here changes the scale of ordering in the contested arrangement of teaching and learning, for servant is under (as opposed to over) the subjects to whom their services have been rendered. My argument, then, is that we need a particular type of service-learning, designed to do the work of preparing teachers as, what Gramsci (1971) calls, organic intellectuals. According to Gramsci, organic intellectuals are a particular stratum of intellectual who are connected to the dominant social class. They act as both organizers of society and its diverse organisms, and as its thinking element, leading the ideas of their class. The organic intellectual is set apart from the traditional intellectual, those who are “people of letters” and believe themselves, falsely, to be independent of the dominant social group. If the goal of the service-learning approach is preparing teachers to be organic intellectuals, then English teacher preparation must take bolder broad and broader bold approaches, expanding dramatically what it means to teach. Moreover, service-learning in English teacher preparation should take an overt stance for teaching service in response to the implicit framings of Salvationist rhetoric that indicate ways in which teacher learners become subject to and followers of missionary models. In her 2012 AERA Presidential Address, Arnetha Ball, evoking the Latin phrase Non Satis Scire, suggested that teacher learning is about more than knowing, for knowledge absent critical action is not enough to create thriving and successful urban schools. Hence, service-learning as a pathway to knowledge is not enough, particularly when it divorces itself from action and a theory of action that roots teachers within the communities in which they (will) teach. In the same address, she challenged

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educators to move beyond knowing because, for Ball, to know is not enough, particularly when many in our country face educational crises. To know is not enough particularly in the midst of the crisis in teacher education: Even while teacher educators want teacher learners to know their students, service-learning that only allows teacher learners to play tourists to their students’ communities is not sufficient. Hence, to know is not enough, because in spite of our knowledge and sometimes because of it, novice teachers are rarely prepared to meet the needs of urban students. To know is not enough particularly when schools of education are under assault, precisely for producing not only knowledge and information that bears little resemblance to the contexts in which urban youth learn, but also practices that refuse to rely on the things urban youth and communities have to offer. To know is not enough particularly when knowledge reifies stereotypes and promotes oppressive teaching practices and philosophies through which deficit models endure.

APPENDIX NYU Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development Department of Teaching and Learning New York University E11. 2049 Teaching in the Inner City: From Service-Learning to Learning to Serve Spring 2011 Any student attending NYU who needs an accommodation due to a chronic, psychological, visual, mobility and/or learning disability, or is Deaf or Hard of Hearing should register with the Moses Center for Students with Disabilities at 212 998-4980, 240 Greene Street, www.nyu.edu/ csd.

Course Overview “Teaching in the Inner City” thoughtfully explores how the English classroom can become a site of positive change for urban students. This course will examine critically the ways in which such factors as lack of material and human resources, attitudes toward nonmainstream language and literacy practices, and the legacies of social prejudice in education can inhibit language and literacy learning opportunities for urban stu-

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dents. At the same time it will also explore curricular and instructional strategies that can help to address these obstacles.

Course Objectives The course deals with three issues imperative to the teaching of English: (1) English teacher narratives; (2) self-reflection; (3) action. Several core themes will carry us through the readings and discussion in our class meetings. These themes are: • developing curriculum to address language varieties in urban schools; • multicultural and culturally responsive teaching; • working with and against the media; • race and ethnicity in urban schools; • poverty and lack of resources (their direct and indirect effects on teaching and learning); and • surviving and thriving as a teacher of inner city students.

Course Texts Course material will be available on Blackboard and distributed in class.

Course Requirements 1. Weekly Reading Summaries and Annotated Bibliography We will be studying several texts this semester, including academic and nonacademic texts, fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, and music to stimulate our classroom & Blackboard discussions. We will study these texts as university students; however, the approaches to inquiry that we will practice are geared toward fostering and illuminating strategies and dispositions for teaching. Weekly Reading Summaries (responses) (20 pts.). This semester, you will be responsible for writing ten 250-word analytical responses, summarizing, synthesizing, and analyzing the week’s readings. You will also be responsible for responding each week to two of your classmates’ posts. I encourage you to address issues you feel are important to teaching in the

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city. So that I can account for them, please post your responses on Blackboard the Sunday before each Monday class session. As your responses are to help you understand the readings, you will not receive feedback from me. Late responses will not be accepted. Strategies for Active Reading: As you study and think about the course readings, please keep in mind that there are various ways to read a text. You can apply certain analytic frames to illuminate issues and themes within texts. For example, you can read a text from a feminist perspective, making sense of it with respect to how the relationship between gender and power permeates the text’s meaning. There are other orientations to reading that, for this class, I want you to adopt. I describe these “ways of reading” as reading propositions. These include the following: • Reading within the text: You should read all texts for meaning and understanding with the attempt of first understanding the author’s argument and the ways in which she attempts to achieve it. • Reading around the text: You should read all texts sensitive to the context in which they were written. • Reading against the text: Only after you have made sense of a text and situated it within its context, you can be critical of the text. Keep in mind that individuals, who are not very different from you, have written the texts you will encounter in your lifetime. As such, disagreeing with texts is not intellectually presumptuous. Rather the opposite it true. It is intellectually permissible. Framing Questions for “Weekly Reading Summaries”: Whenever you set out to do a critical reading of a particular text, you can use the following questions as a framework to guide you as you read. Whenever you set out to do analytical writing, you can use the following questions as a framework to guide you as you write. An analytical text is effective if it is written in a manner that allows the reader to answer all four of these questions satisfactorily: • What’s the point? This is the analysis/interpretation issue, which examines the author’s angle. • Who says? This is the validity issues, which examines on what (data, literature, hearsay, etc.) are the claims based. • What’s new? This is the value-added issue, which explores the author’s contribution to existing knowledge. • Who cares? This is the significance issue (the most important issue of all—the one that subsumes all others), which asks, (a) is this work

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worth doing; (b) is this text worth reading; c) does it contribute something important? 2. Service Project I: “Public Service” Assignment We will be studying several texts this semester, including academic and nonacademic texts, fiction and nonfiction, poetry, drama, film, and music to stimulate our classroom and Blackboard discussions. We will study these texts as university students, hopefully to gain awareness to issues in the teaching of secondary English. As you read and reflect upon your readings and our conversations, you will be responsible for creating a public service announcement, which responds to, summarizes/synthesizes, or analyzes a key issue related to teaching in urban contexts. Your announcement should take some creative/nontraditional/nonacademic form. For example, you might choose to make a brief commercial to put up on YouTube, encouraging teachers to teach environmentally friendly texts. You might create a website, showcasing a lesson that helps urban English teachers teach Shakespeare more effectively. The form and the topic of your public service announcement is up to you. You will be graded based on your creativity, awareness of issues, and cleverness. Sample Genres for Production: (a) (b) (c) (d)

Flyer Commercial Blog Pamphlet/brochure

We will hold an in-class expo as a midterm where you will have an opportunity to present your public service announcement. (Note: Your PSA is intended to be real and put to actual use. You may be penalized for hypothetical productions.) 3. Field Experiences and Reports The class is entitled “Teaching in the City” for a reason. In New York City, we have a great opportunity to think about the urban landscape and what it might offer to teachers. Throughout the course, you will be required (with your exhibition partners) to explore some aspect of the City and think about ways to teach it (or use it to teach English). Your exhibition partner(s) and you will choose two locations in the City to visit during the course of the semester. The locations can be museums, neighborhoods, parks, etc. Your task will be to think of ways that these locations offer you insight into the city. You will use your insights to prepare two lessons—one that uses the city to teach a critical issue in your discipline and one that seeks to intervene on critical issues that further social injustice.

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You may talk with peers as a part of your process, but you should tailor your responses to the particulars of your growth and learning in line with the course objectives. As such, your responses should differ in significant ways from those of your peers. You are encouraged to draw on outside resources but are required to make use of your field experience and course readings. Please submit your reports in class on their due dates (which are listed below). Your responses will be held to high standards of quality and presentation, as befitting teachers in this program. Field Report Options. Choose one of the options below. Develop your reports in response to the course objectives outlined in the course syllabus. Please use knowledge that you have gained from your field experiences. Your report should provide evidence of what you have learned from that experience. Option A: Unit or Lesson Plan Create a unit plan for an adolescent age group of your choosing. In your unit plan, please indicate the context for which the plan has been developed. (By context, I mean descriptions of grade level, school environment, student population, students’ prior knowledge, and standards the unit aims to meet.) Your plan should focus on some aspect of your field experience, considering the following questions: what about the experience would you teach? How would you teach it? Please outline your unit plan as follows: Unit objectives (in correspondence with IRA/NCTE and NYS Learning Standards for ELA); Activities designed to stimulate learning, capable of moving students who experience the activities from one developmental level to the next; and Assessments. After you have written your unit plan, write a statement of no more than two pages explaining how your unit plan responds to what you have learned in your field experience. Specifically discuss how it demonstrates course objectives and accounts for the big issues the course is designed to address. Option B: Create Your Own Create your own genre to report what you have learned in your field experience. Your report, however, should

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respond to the course objectives outlined in the course syllabus. 4. Service Project II: Exhibitions At some point in the semester, you will be divided into groups to prepare and facilitate/curate a 45-minute interactive exhibition (think museum exhibit) in relation to one of the special topics or themes indicated below. Your exhibition should be innovative and creative and should consist of the following components: • Plan • Interactive experience • Presentation Grading. Grades are criterion-referenced. That is, grades will be assigned based on the percent of the total possible points that you receive on the assignments. Points are distributed as follows: Reading Responses Public Service Announcement Field Experience & Reports Exhibitions Total

10% 25% 40% 25% 100%

Participation: You will spend much of the next few weeks with classmates sharing ideas, theories, advice, and experiences. You are a valuable resource for your peers, and the stronger the community we build in this class, the richer the experiences we will have here. No percentage value has been assigned to class participation. However, if your final average falls between grades (for example between an A– and a B+) the following criteria will be used to determine your final grade: (a) clear evidence that you have read the weekly readings (i.e., productive, consistent participation in discussions, completion of assignments); (b) completion of tasks that support the work in class; and (c) active and supportive listening in the classroom and offering constructive feedback to peers and instructors. Attendance. Attendance matters. It matters to us as instructors; it matters to peers who count on your support and feedback. I expect you to attend all class sessions of “Teaching English in the Inner City.” You will be allowed one unexcused absence. More than one unexcused absence

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may result in failure of the course. If you know you are going to be absent, notify me before class. If you are unable to reach me, call my office and leave a message. Blackboard. This course has a Blackboard site. Required readings for some class sessions will be available on this site, as indicated on the course calendar. The syllabus, details about assignments, and any other general course information will be available on the site as well. In addition, postings will be made regarding events or other items of importance regarding this course. Please also feel free to use the site to continue conversations started in class or raise new points for discussion during future class meetings. Ground Rules for this Course* 1. Acknowledge that oppression (e.g., racism, classism, sexism, etc.) exists. 2. Acknowledge that one of the mechanisms of oppression (racism, classism, sexism, etc.) is that we have been systematically taught misinformation about our own group and especially members of devalued/subordinate groups (this is true for both dominant and subordinate group members). 3. Agree not to blame ourselves or others for the misinformation we have learned in the past, but accept responsibility for not repeating misinformation after we have learned otherwise. 4. Agree not to blame victims for their oppression. 5. Assume that people (both the groups we study and the members of the class) are always doing the best they can. 6. Actively pursue information about our own groups and that of others. 7. Share information about our groups with other members of the class and we will never demean, devalue, or in any way “put down” people for their experiences. 8. Agree to actively combat the myths and stereotypes about our own groups and other groups so that we can break down the walls that prohibit group cooperation and group gain. 9. Create a safe atmosphere for open discussion. If members of the class wish to make comments that they do not want repeated outside the classroom, they can preface their remarks with a request and the class will agree not to repeat the remarks.

From Service-learning to Learning to Serve 155

*Written by Lynn Weber Cannon, Memphis State University, 1986; adopted from Fabienne Doucet, New York University, 2007. Course Organization. The following table denotes readings and other materials to be discussed in class on the corresponding date. Therefore, all required materials should be read before attending class.) Part 1: Context Date

Topics and Readings

Assignments Due

Jan. 24

Understanding and Dissecting Urban English Education: An Introduction 1. Syllabus 2. Freire, “Pedagogy of the City” (in-class)

• Meet with Groups

Jan. 31

What’s Unique About Urban Schools? 1. Fine and Weis (Chapters 1 & 2)

• FE1 and PSA Workshops • Exhibition Dates Assigned

Feb. 7

What’s Unique About Urban Schools? (Continued) 1. Noguera, “What it will take to improve America’s Urban Public Schools” 2. Fruchter, “Organizing Effective Schools and Districts”

• FE1 and PSA Workshop Continued

Feb. 14

Setting the Context 1. Anyon, Ghetto Schooling, Chapters 1 and 2

• Share FE1 Plans

Feb. 21

Field Experience I-No Class President’s Day 1. Urban Communities

Feb. 28

Literacy in Urban Context: Curricular and Pedagogical Considerations (Continued) 1. Morrell, Chapters 1-3

March 7

• Field Report I: Lesson that uses the city to teach a critical issue in your discipline (Due) • FE1 Reflections (Jigsaw and 2-min group shares)

PSA Expo and Potluck PLEASE NOTE: No Class March 14 due to Spring Break Part 2: Presentation and Pedagogy

Date March 21 (Morrell, 2005)

Topics and Readings Literacy in Urban Context: Curricular and Pedagogical Considerations (Continued) 1. Morrell, Chapters 4-7

Assignments Due • FE2 Groups and workshop (*note: this will be the only in class time devoted to FE2)

156 D. E. KIRKLAND March 28

Gender and Sexuality 1. Fine and Wise, Chapter 9

• Exhibition 1

April 4

Race and Culture 1. Tara Yosso (article)

• Exhibition 2

April 11

Field Experience II-No Class 1. Urban Schools

April 18

Class and Economic Oppression 1. MacLeod, Ain’t No Making it, Chapters 1 and 11

• Exhibition 3 • Field Report 2: Lesson that seeks to intervene on critical issues that further social injustice (Due) • FE1 Reflections (Jigsaw and 2-min group shares after exhibition)

April 25

New Urban Media and Technologies 1. Kirkland, “Researching and Teaching English in the Digital Dimension”

• Exhibition 4

May 2

Multilingualism and ELs 1. Rose, “Lilia”

• Exhibition 5

REFERENCES Boyle-Baise, M. (1998). Community service-learning for multicultural education: An exploratory study with preservice teachers. Equity & Excellence in Education, 31(2), 52–60. Broadway, F., & Clark-Thomas, B. (2001). Service-learning in a science methods course at the University of Akron. In J. B. Anderson, K. J. Swick, & J. Yff (Eds.), Service-learning in teacher education: Enhancing the growth of new teachers, their students, and communities (pp. 172-176). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Carter-Andrews, D. J. (2009). “The hardest thing to turn from”: The effects of service-learning on preparing urban educators. Equity & Excellence in Education, 42(2), 272-293. Cruz, B. C. (1997). Walking the talk: The importance of community involvement in preservice urban teacher education. Urban Education, 32, 394-410. Cushman, E. (1999). The public intellectual, service-learning, and active research. College English, 61, 328-336. Erickson, J. A., & Anderson, J. B. (1997). Learning with the community: Concepts and models for service-learning in teacher education. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Fruchter, N. (2007). Urban schools, public will: Making education work for all children. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the prison notebooks. London, England: Lawrence and Wishart.

From Service-learning to Learning to Serve 157 Gutiérrez, K. D., & Rogoff, B. (2003). Cultural ways of learning: Individual traits or repertoires of practice. Educational Researcher, 32(5), 19-25. Hallman, H., & Burdick, M. (2011). Service-learning and the preparation of English teachers. English Education, 43, 341-368. Jacoby, B., & Associates. (1996). Service-learning in higher education: Concepts and practices. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Karp, G. G., Pedras, M. J., Heide, T., & Flottemesch, K. (2001). The enhancement of service-learning and educational foundations at the University of Idaho. In J. B. Anderson, K. J. Swick, & J. Yff (Eds.), Service-learning in teacher education: Enhancing the growth of new teachers, their students, and communities (pp. 154157). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Kinloch, V. (2008). Writing in the midst of change. English Journal, 98(1), 85-89. Kirkland, D. E. (2008). “The rose that grew from concrete”: Postmodern Blackness and new English education. English Journal, 97(5), 69-75. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Medina, M. A., Morrone, A. S., & Anderson, J. A. (2005). Promoting social justice in an urban secondary teacher education program. Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 78(5), 207-212. Miels, J. (2001). Integrating service-learning into “education in a democratic society” at Ball State University. In J. B. Anderson, K. J. Swick, & J. Yff (Eds.), Service-learning in teacher education: Enhancing the growth of new teachers, their students, and communities (pp. 158-162). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Moll, L. C. (Ed.). (1990). Introduction. In Vygotsky and education: Instructional implications and applications of sociohistorical psychology (pp. 1-27). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Morrell, E. (2005). Critical English education. English Education, 37, 312-321. Morrell, E. (2008). Critical literacy and urban youth: Pedagogies of access, dissent, and liberation. New York, NY: Routledge. Morrell, E., & Noguera, P. A. (2011). A framework for change: A broader and bolder approach to school reform. Teachers College Record. Retrieved from http://www.tcrecord.org ID Number: 16503 (online only). Muscott, H. S. (2001). Using service-learning to enhance the preparation of preservice special education teachers at Rivier College. In J. B. Anderson, K. J. Swick, & J. Yff (Eds.), Service-learning in teacher education: Enhancing the growth of new teachers, their students, and communities (pp. 188–192). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Noguera, P. A. (2003). City schools and the American Dream: Reclaiming the promises of public education New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Pratt, M. L. (1991). Arts of the contact zone. Profession, 33-40. Retrieved from http://writing.colostate.edu/files/classes/6500/File_EC147617-ADE5-3D9CC89FF0384AECA15B.pdf Sleeter, C. (2008). Equity, democracy, and neoliberal assaults on teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 1947-1957. Stowell, L., & McDaniel, J. E. (2001). Service-learning in middle-level teacher education at California State University-San Marcos. In J. B. Anderson, K. J.

158 D. E. KIRKLAND Swick, & J. Yff (Eds.), Service-learning in teacher education: Enhancing the growth of new teachers, their students, and communities (pp. 193-198). Washington, DC: American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education. Tellez, K., Hlebowitsh, P. S., Cohen, M., & Norwood, P. (1995). Social service field experiences and teacher education. In J. M. Larkin & C. E. Sleeter (Eds.), Developing multicultural teacher education curricula (pp. 65-78). Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Vadeboncoeur, J., Rahm, J., Aguilera, D., & Lecompte, M. D. (1996). Building democratic character through community experiences in teacher education. Education and Urban Society, 28(2), 189-207. Wade, R. C. (2001). Social action in the social studies: From the ideal to the real. Theory Into Practice, 40(1), 23-28. Wade, R. C., & Yarbrough, D. B. (1997). Community service-learning in student teaching: Toward the development of an active citizenry. Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, 4, 42-55. Yosso, T. 2002. Critical race media literacy: Challenging deficit discourse about Chicanas/os. Journal of Popular Film and Television, 30(1), 52-62.

CHAPTER 9

SUPPORTING SERVICE-LEARNING TUTORING PARTNERSHIPS FOR ENGLISH LEARNERS IN SCHOOL, COMMUNITY, AND COURSE SETTINGS P. H. MATTHEWS

Paul H. Matthews

In the past 2 decades, the state of Georgia experienced unprecedented growth in its Latin@ population, from just over 100,000 in 1990, to well over 400,000 in 2000 and over 850,000 by 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2010). Much of this rapid growth was from immigrants from rural Mexico and Central America, settling across the state in areas that often had little experience or infrastructure to accommodate and support this new population educationally, socially, or linguistically (Bohon, MacPherson, & Atiles, 2005; Portes & Smagorinsky, 2010; Wainer, 2004). In 2003, I became the codirector for the newly created Center for Latino Achievement and Success in Education (CLASE), a grant-funded organization in the College of Education at the University of Georgia (http:// www.coe.uga.edu/clase/). Established with an initial 3 years of funding from The Goizueta Foundation, CLASE’s primary mission focused on

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 159–174 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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working with K-12 educators across the state of Georgia to better serve their Latin@ and English-learning student population, among the fastest growing nationally at the time (Kochhar, Suro, & Tafoya, 2005). From 2003 to 2009, much of CLASE’s work centered on a team-based approach to professional development of in-service educators, including teachers, administrators, counselors, and other staff. Program evaluation (Matthews & Musetti, 2006) confirmed that this university-sponsored, team-based, long-term model of statewide professional development was quite successful in leading to attitudinal and knowledge changes in participants and their schools. While undeniably valuable, this focus on in-service educators bypassed preservice teachers and other undergraduates in the College of Education (and indeed campuswide), even though the local Athens-Clarke County community where the university is situated was significantly impacted by these demographic changes as well. As Smagorinsky (this volume) compellingly describes, the juxtaposition of an affluent, primarily White, monolingual, suburban-Atlanta-origin university student body with the local community’s growing poverty and increasingly diverse K-12 student population created both a challenge and an opportunity for service-learning.

CREATING A SERVICE-LEARNING COURSE TO SUPPORT TUTORING At about the same time that CLASE was formed, three retired Catholic nuns founded a ministry in a local trailer park occupied by some 200 Latin@ families, including in their scope the goal of implementing a tutoring program for local children, many of whom were not successful in school (see http://www.georgiabulletin.org/local/2002/11/07/e/). The program relied on university student volunteers to serve as tutors. At the nuns’ request, an independent-study course was made available to tutors through a professor in agricultural economics who volunteered at the ministry, as a way to incentivize the university volunteers to follow through on the tutoring throughout the semester. Shortly thereafter, my CLASE codirector agreed to take on this course, which seemed well suited to CLASE’s overall goals of improving education for Latin@s; the following semester (fall 2005) I volunteered to teach it, not only for tutors at the original venue but also for two other local tutoring venues also seeking support. One of these sites was a newly opened library learning center trailer in the same neighborhood as the Catholic program; the other was a branch of the local Boys and Girls Club, housed in a duplex in another predominantly Latin@ neighborhood (see more detailed descriptions of each program in the following section).

Supporting Service-Learning Tutoring Partnerships 161

My initial motivation to become involved with the service-learning program was threefold. First, developing opportunities for university students (whether future teachers, or future leaders in Georgia’s business, politics, or social services) to engage meaningfully with the growing Latin@ community was in line with CLASE’s mission and met a niche that was not being filled otherwise in the College of Education. Second, it seemed that having a course-based support system for these community programs was a good idea, not only to encourage tutors to treat their weekly commitment seriously, but also to ensure that the university was not simply sending untrained or ineffective volunteers into the community where they might flounder or worse. Finally, I approached the course with some skepticism about whether the university students were in fact learning, or were simply being given a grade as a reward for volunteer work with no academic component, and wanted to see for myself if this was the case. After the initial semester of instruction, I realized several things: first, it was clear that a great deal of learning—including in domains that I had not initially considered, such as students’ self-reported increase in “patience”—was in fact evident and emerging in the students’ reflective writing. Second, the instructional skills, background knowledge, and discussions focused on in the course were indeed enhancing the tutors’ effectiveness to move them beyond being well-meaning but unskilled volunteers. Third, I realized that I did not really know what I was doing in terms of effectively carrying out a service-learning course such as this that required a careful balancing of the various needs of the community, university, and students. Spurred by the latter realization, I applied and was selected for our university’s first (spring 2006) cohort of Service-Learning Fellows, a new faculty development program of the Office of Service-Learning, focused on best practices in designing and implementing academic servicelearning. This award afforded me an opportunity to consider more carefully the structure of the service activities and the in-class assignments, and resulted in the development of a new, dedicated course on ESOL (English to Speakers of Other Languages) Service-Learning Tutoring. I taught this service-learning course each semester through spring 2010, after which I left CLASE for my current role as assistant director in the Office of Service-Learning. The course was initially taught face to face, then increasingly, through blended or even online-only instruction (see Matthews, 2011, for more on this “service e-learning”). Although housed in the College of Education, this elective, variable-credit, split-level course routinely drew students from a range of majors universitywide, and in many cases was the course participants’ first or only education course. Although course topics evolved based on participant feedback, typically they included topical

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overviews surveying the basics of second language acquisition, tutoring theory, literacy and math instruction, Latin@ cultural competence, strategies for building relationships and supporting prosocial behavior, and the sociopolitical and educational contexts in which the children and their families were situated. Assignments included weekly tutoring sessions throughout the semester, themed readings, reflective responses to prompts related to the tutoring and the readings, and class presentations on instructional and cultural topics. I also began more systematically collecting and analyzing the university students’ reflective writings (with their informed consent and following institutional review board approval) to help understand and demonstrate the impact of participation on the university participants (e.g., Matthews, 2010).

VENUES With the arrival of Pedro Portes as endowed chair and new executive director of CLASE, additional emphasis was placed on developing new tutoring programs at local schools, primarily coordinated by CLASE graduate students. These tutoring partnerships were intended to have three main purposes: to extend educational opportunities for elementary and middle school English-learning students in the area; to provide additional grounded experiences for preservice teachers as well as noneducation majors; and to generate data to investigate educational interventions for students placed at risk per Portes’ (2005) model (e.g., Matthews, Portes, Mellom, Moreno, & Stubenbaum, 2010). Thus, in addition to the original three community-based tutoring venues—which continued to independently recruit, train, and supervise course-based and volunteer tutors—from 2007 to 2010 CLASE established new programs at a series of elementary schools in the Clarke County School District. While tutors at these venues were invited to take part in my service-learning course, this measure was not required, and in fact very few tutors at the school-based sites were enrolled in my classes. Instead, each semester, a list of venues was publicized to other courses in the College of Education (e.g., lower division educational foundations courses requiring 10 hours of work with children) and the Department of Romance Languages (e.g., a Spanish service-learning practicum), as well as on campus (bus cards, volunteer fairs, e-mails, flyers) to recruit noncourse-based volunteer tutors. Participants at these CLASE-sponsored school venues were also invited to take part in ongoing (also IRBapproved) studies investigating the impacts of participation on them and the tutees. Occasionally, feedback from the children being tutored was also obtained (e.g., short questionnaires in spring 2009).

Supporting Service-Learning Tutoring Partnerships 163

Thus, I had the opportunity to observe, participate in, and evaluate several related but distinct elements of these service-learning tutoring partnerships. In addition to visiting each site on various occasions before and during the semesters of operation, I also had access to the richly qualitative reflections of students in my service-learning courses. These students principally tutored at the community-based venues. CLASE faculty and graduate students also regularly discussed the status, challenges, and progress of the venues they helped coordinate; and end-of-semester feedback was solicited from tutors working at the school-based sites, most of whom were a distinct group of students from those in my courses. While the data don’t allow for a direct comparison of the school- and community-based programs, they do point out some potential differences between the settings and some implications for practice.

Community-Based Programs As mentioned, the after-school tutoring of Latin@ children in the Athens-Clarke County area initially took place primarily at three communitybased venues. In fact, as of this writing all three of these community centers continue to maintain robust programming and participation, including the tutoring programs described below. Since 2003, the tutoring programs at the trailer park venue operated by three retired nuns (members of the Sisters of the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart of Jesus) grew from being housed in the nuns’ own trailer, to having a separate community center building with ancillary classroom trailers, a biometric fingerprint scanner for tracking tutor attendance, grant-funded student clerical help, and a well-established orientation program, Facebook page, and reporting system. As of 2010, the program served about 90 neighborhood children (all Latin@, primarily first or second-generation immigrants from rural Mexico) from pre-K through third grade, Monday through Thursday afternoons, for 12 weeks each semester; about twice that number of tutors volunteered one or more afternoons per week, following a schedule including homework help, assisted reading time, educational games, outdoor activities, and a structured debriefing of tutors. The Boys and Girls Club venue was originally established by the university’s school of social work as an outreach site in the late 1990s, then became a small branch of the local Boys and Girls Club with the director continuing in that role. Housed in a duplex in a north Athens neighborhood, this venue provided after-school and evening programs for the neighborhood’s elementary and middle school students, including a standardized “Power Pages” curriculum of reading and educational enhance-

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ment. Tutoring took place Monday through Friday afternoons from 3:00 to 6:00 P.M., serving up to 40 children with a variable number of tutors, and included homework help, Power Pages, computer work, and outdoor games. The third community venue was a grant-funded “library learning center” sponsored by the local regional library system in an effort to more effectively serve the Latin@ population. Housed adjacent to the nuns’ site in the same trailer park, the library trailer was staffed with a part-time director and computer lab, as well as shared resources from the main library branch. Established in 2005, the learning center also collaborated with several other initiatives and grants to provide adult literacy and health programs, as well as an after-school tutoring program. Tutors were available Monday through Thursday afternoons for homework help, and attendees could also access the computer lab. Although open to any student, the tutoring programs primarily attracted upper-elementary and middle school students in varying numbers, as the lower-elementary students attended the nuns’ program.

School-Based Programs Following Pedro Portes’ arrival at CLASE in 2006, additional schoolbased tutoring programs were established, in part as a way to test his multipart model for reducing the academic achievement gap for students placed at risk (Portes, 2005); however, school involvement varied year by year depending on CLASE personnel and resources as well as school interest and tutor availability. For instance, in 2007-08, a single school was the focus, while during 2008-09, three elementary schools participated: School One … enrolled approximately 450 students (52% Black, 44% Hispanic; 26% limited English proficient [LEP]). Additionally, only 40% of third graders, 34% of fourth graders, and 28% of fifth graders at the school “met or exceeded” state standards in 2007. The two schools added in [2008] were similarly diverse. School Two’s population was 41% Black, 49% Hispanic, and 30% LEP; and School Three enrolled 50% Black and 38% Hispanic students, with 27% LEP.… Well over a hundred (55 at School One, 48 at School Two, and 20 at School Three) university students from a variety of majors tutored one, two, or three times per week for 30-120 minutes at the school, under the supervision of university graduate assistants (one lead assistant per grade level) as well as teachers from the school. Tutors provided homework assistance, computer activities, and social/sport activities. Eighty-three Latin@ and Black elementary students (31 at School One, 33 fourth and fifth graders at School Two, and 19 fifth graders at School Three) were chosen by their teachers as potentially benefiting from supple-

Supporting Service-Learning Tutoring Partnerships 165 mental tutoring, primarily based on their scores in the state’s criterion referenced test. (Matthews et al., 2010, p. 2)

By 2010, however, CLASE funding, staffing, and priorities had shifted, and only a single school-based collaboration (School Two) was still being supported, with tutors primarily from courses in the College of Education working with a small number of children once or twice a week. Despite the variation in settings, supervision, and participants, over the several years the programs were run these school-based tutoring programs showed benefits for the children and the university students taking part.

OUTCOMES, IMPACTS, AND SOME CHALLENGES In our analysis of the three school-based tutoring programs during 200809 (Matthews et al., 2010), we found that participating university students identified six primary positive outcomes from their involvement. These included deriving intrinsic enjoyment from serving as a tutor; increased awareness of education and teaching; enhanced understanding of issues of poverty and immigration; a sense of making a difference; development of personal attributes such as patience; and increased interest in pursuing teaching as a profession. The last consideration is important, both for students majoring in education, as well as those for whom this may have been their only experience in an educational setting. As one tutor (spring 2009) explained: It definitely helped me to understand that there is more to teaching than just sharing knowledge. Teachers must adjust to help students of all learning styles, with all types of interests, while also trying to get the unmotivated students involved. It was a challenge at times but definitely very rewarding. (Matthews et al., 2010, p. 4)

The school-based tutors also had the opportunity to report their perceptions of their work’s impact on the children. They generally agreed that their tutees were “doing better academically” because of the tutoring, but were generally unsure if they were “doing better socially” due to the tutoring. The tutees themselves tended to agree; while 96% of the 50 tutees who responded agreed that “tutoring helps me get better grades,” only 74% agreed that it “helps me behave better” (Matthews et al., 2010). Despite differences in the specifics of timing, location, and activities of the tutoring venues, some common challenges were also identified by the tutors in their responses to open-ended prompts at the end of each semester (Matthews et al., 2010). These related to concerns about behavior and motivation of the children assigned to them; logistical issues at

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the venues such as insufficient time, communication with teachers, or scheduling; and tutors’ own perceived lack of knowledge about effective tutoring and teaching. While about 15% of the school-based tutors’ comments indicated that they were satisfied with the program, many asked for better supervision (22%), more program time (14%), more materials or equipment to work with the students (11%), different locations for the tutoring (9%), or improvements in how tutees and tutors were paired (9%), among other suggestions. Tutors also identified their perceived lack of skills or knowledge on how best to tutor as the third most frequent “challenge” they encountered; likewise, many of the tutors’ comments about their concerns with tutee behavior also reflected tutors’ lack of training in strategies to motivate and promote appropriate behavior. In fact, more than a quarter of the tutees agreed that they would have done better if they had “received more training.” In our analysis, we noted: While 53% of the fall 2008 tutors who provided feedback, and 66% of those during spring 2009, indicated that they were receiving credit for their tutoring participation (typically for Educational Foundations, Educational Psychology, Language Education, or Spanish), “credit” does not necessarily indicate “training” relevant to the [tutoring] activity.… Clearly, providing more formalized ways for tutors to be prepared for the tutoring, to learn the skills necessary, and to debrief and reflect upon their tutoring experiences is an important component that should be considered. (pp. 6-7)

Tutors in my courses, who generally tutored at the community venues, were also invited to evaluate the experiences at these programs in their semester-final reflections. The tutors were quite impressed by the dedication of the program staff at the venues and the organization and structure of the programs, though they identified an ongoing need for additional tutors and, at some venues, for more program staff and other resources. Tutors’ recommendations for improvement most often targeted the library learning center, where they felt that the “drop-in” nature of the setting, the lure of the computer lab as more appealing than homework for the children, and the inconsistent staff support in addressing tutee behavior, all reduced their effectiveness in helping the children. However, students in my service-learning courses found that the structured support the course provided often helped ameliorate challenges of the program sites. With its focus on relevant skill development and readings, as well as opportunities to discuss concerns with peers and me and to reflect and link their experiences to their learning, the tutoring support course was identified as worthwhile (“by far one of the most rewarding classes I have taken at the University of Georgia,” according to a fall 2007 participant).

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In my analyses of the benefits accrued to the university students taking part in the course across six semesters, I found that four major multiculturally oriented themes emerged from their written reflections (Matthews, 2010, p. 8). These themes included the development of tutors’ cross-cultural competence, including increased knowledge about Latin@ cultures (identified in 62% of students’ reflections) as well as improved language/ communication skills (49%). Tutors also reported a reduction of negative stereotypes toward Latin@ children, families, and culture (32%); an increased commitment to future action through continued tutoring (31%) and other social justice efforts (22%); and a deeper understanding of complex issues facing the community, especially immigration (29%) and poverty (20%). These multicultural learning outcomes might initially seem to be expected simply from having interaction with diverse tutees. Eyler and Giles (1999, p. 177), for instance, found that students who “had an opportunity to work with people from diverse ethnic groups during the course of their service-learning” demonstrated increased tolerance and personal development. As I have noted, however (Matthews, 2010), while it might seem unsurprising that “working with Latino children led to perceived development of knowledge about Latino cultures and reduction of negative stereotypes toward Latino youth, families and culture” (p. 12), these outcomes are not necessarily guaranteed. Indeed, Sperling (2007) has pointed out that the opposite may happen when affluent White students tutor Black or Latin@ children, in that such settings could provide reinforcement for “acting out cultural deficit thinking” (p. 309). Sperling’s contention, that such placements might “actually exacerbate participants’ misperceptions by exposing them to the very people who may appear to match socially sanctioned stereotypes” (p. 315), was on my mind when reading the feedback from tutors taking part in CLASE’s school-based programs. One fall 2007 university student, in responding to the prompt asking what had been learned through participation in the school-based tutoring experience, offered that “students, particularly of another ethnicity, need help learning”—not exactly the desired outcome! In purposefully looking through reflections of students who took part in my classes, I was relieved to find no evidence of this cultural-deficit thinking (Matthews, 2010); in that analysis, I suggested: It seems likely that the support structures in place in the course—specifically, opportunities for critical reflection; readings that provided different information and perspectives on the issues; and the presence of a higher than average number of non-White students enrolled as participants who also shared their experiences with classmates—helped minimize this potential pitfall. (p. 12)

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CONSIDERING THE COMMUNITY AND SCHOOL TUTORING VENUES While all of the programs that our students took part in, whether through course-based or non-course-based tutoring, and whether in community or school sites, were broadly oriented toward the same activities—literacy, homework help, mentoring, and some games—there were also differences in their experience and outcomes. In thinking through some of the differences that emerged in the data as well as filtered through my experiences as a participant and observer across the settings, I argue that at least some of the differences in outcomes also related to the particulars of how these partnerships were structured. Taken as a whole, the school-based, university-led programs seemed to provide a different experience than did the community-run programs. As past service-learning research has demonstrated, program characteristics and quality can make a difference in student outcomes. Eyler and Giles (1999), for instance, characterize program quality through features such as student opportunity for meaningful work; important responsibilities; varied tasks; direct work with community partners; support and feedback from program staff; and a sustained period of service. Although many of these features were found in both school- and community-based sites, the sites differed in how they were structured administratively (e.g., who was “in charge”), the relevance of the tutoring to their missions, and their ability to sustain and develop consistent personnel and support structures. Finally, logistical considerations also factored into the programs’ success. The community venues—especially the Catholic program and the Boys and Girls Club—had the advantage of consistent program staff (with the same personnel at both for a decade or more), in-house expertise at managing after-school activities, and the tutoring programs as a primary aspect of their organizational focus and mission (though tutoring was not the only program activity undertaken at these settings). Furthermore, these community programs had established schedules, routines, instructional materials, behavioral expectations, and orientation materials. It was clear that the tutoring was under the community venue’s authority, and the tutors staffed preexisting, ongoing programs. Being located in the neighborhoods where the children lived, it was relatively easy for the tutees to take part without the need for separate transportation; and because they operated four or five afternoons per week, the children were accustomed to attending regularly. At the school settings, on the other hand, the tutoring was not the principal focus of the schools. Generally speaking, there was more than one after-school program or activity already taking place at the school. The

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CLASE-sponsored programs typically took place one or two afternoons only, rather than daily. The combination of competition with other afterschool events, the need for children to “remember” to stay after school on a given day, as well as the logistical challenge of transportation home after the school buses had left for the afternoon, affected participation by potential tutees. So, even though the stated intent of the programs that CLASE was initiating was to serve English-learning children, at most of the elementary schools the tutees also included English-only, African American children, selected based on whom teachers thought might benefit from tutoring as well as whom they could get to remain after school. At the request of the school administration, school-based tutoring activities also tended to focus on homework help and on remediation for standardized testing, with less emphasis on overall academic and social development or relationship-building with a consistent tutee or set of tutees. Although the schools were willing to partner with the university to undertake these tutoring sessions, the lines of decision making were less clear than in community-based venues. For instance, some semesters it was not apparent whether the school principal, on-site teachers, the CLASE graduate student, or CLASE faculty had the authority or responsibility to set the program’s schedule, goals, activities, or even the participation criteria, and these rules and routines were sometimes changed unilaterally by the school administration. A fall 2007 participant noted, “the first few weeks was kind of confusing because I didn’t know what exactly I had to do so we kind of wasted time” (Matthews, Portes & Moreno, 2009). Even when teachers or paraprofessionals were involved in supervision, these on-site personnel as well as the graduate assistants available often fluctuated from one year to the next, leading to a limited sense of ownership. Likewise, the tutoring program often was viewed as a low priority, subject to being moved to a different room, interrupted, or even cancelled at the last minute, based on more pressing school scheduling or events. As one (spring 2009) tutor commented: While [CLASE supervisors] did a great job of organizing and keeping everything under control, it seemed that the only “problems” to arise were always more related to what happened within [the school], rather than what CLASE did. For example, one day we had to move everything to the gym when we got there because something was going on in the cafeteria. We ended up sitting on the gym floor to do work. This wasn’t really a big problem, but if [the school] had let us know ahead of time, we may have been able to organize an activity to do in the gym.It seems like better communication between [the school] and CLASE would be helpful. (Matthews et al., 2010, pp. 7-8)

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CONCLUSION Overall, I feel confident that the students taking part in these servicelearning tutoring programs, whether through my dedicated course or otherwise, benefited from the experiences, as did the children being tutored. Past research clearly supports the value of “integrat[ing] servicelearning throughout a variety of courses in the teacher preparation program” (Erickson & Anderson, 1997, p. 8; Krebs, 2012), with many of the same benefits I have seen, including positive change in participants’ views of students and teaching, enhanced commitment to teaching (Root, Callahan, & Sepanski, 2001), and increased sense of efficacy as a teacher (Stewart, Allen, & Bai, 2010). However, in thinking through my experiences and reflecting on the data we have gathered as well as from relevant service-learning literature, I suggest some caveats and recommendations for those considering programs involving service-learning tutoring of English learners.

What Kind of Venue? First, consider carefully whether there needs to be a new program created. While university faculty may believe that implementing a program at a school where they can put their own “stamp” on things is the best solution, Morton and Callahan’s (2009) caveat is worthwhile: “As straightforward as they seem, however, service-learning partnerships with K-8 schools are complicated” (p. 41). Indeed, in their case studies, Morton and Callahan identified a range of specific challenges that eventually led to the dismantling of their university-school partnerships, many of which were similar to challenges in CLASE’s school-based collaborations, including leadership, busing logistics, funding, and institutional buy-in. Based on some of the logistical challenges CLASE’s programs and students experienced, especially relating to programs that were more “owned” by the university than the community partners, attempting to create and direct multiple university-staffed programs for the community may not actually result in a successful collaboration. Sustainable university-community partnerships are ideally integrated not only into the mission of the university, but also that of the community partner (Scheibel, Bowley, & Jones, 2005, p. 67). As the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (n.d.) puts it, partnerships “require a high level of understanding and intentional practices specifically directed to reciprocity and mutuality” between campus and community, which is challenging to put into practice in many settings, especially with new programs. So, when community venues already exist with similar tutoring

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programs in place, it may be worthwhile to focus on strengthening them, rather than attempting to create new ones with collaborators for whom a new program is not the top priority.

Course Support I would also advocate for building the tutoring experience into a particular course that can closely link the service with the learning objectives. While some venues may implement some elements of these best practices even with volunteers, and while a service experience may be beneficial to students even when there is not a dedicated service-learning course supporting it (e.g., Furco, 2001), “service-learning experiences need to be well designed if candidates are to experience the desired attitude changes which service-learning in teacher education is intended to achieve” (Warchal & Ruiz, 2004, p. 240). Having the tutoring take place in an academic service-learning setting, rather than just as a voluntary or unstructured service experience, thus seems important. In addition to factors such as the placement experience quality and the diversity of the community setting, which are admittedly important predictors of student outcomes (Eyler & Giles, 1999), service-learning research across a range of content areas and settings has likewise established the importance of elements that can best be incorporated through an actual course. The inclusion of critical reflection, preparation of students for the service experience, and articulation between the service and the academic learning goals are key elements of effective service-learning, regardless of the content area (Eyler & Giles, 1999; Heffernan, 2001). On a related note, there may also be additional benefit from a dedicated, tutoring-focused education course for the service-learning, rather than simply including the tutoring as one of many possible “menu options” for accomplishing service hours across a host of courses that may not relate specifically to the work the students are doing. As mentioned, at least half the students taking part in CLASE’s school-based venues reported receiving course credit in conjunction with their tutoring; however, their feedback suggested that many of these students did not feel adequately prepared, debriefed, and supported in effectively finding connections between their tutoring experiences and their course activities. Eyler and Giles (1999) have noted that application—“the degree to which students can link what they are doing in the classroom to what they are experiencing in the community and vice versa” (p. 170)—is a significant predictor of academic learning outcomes for students. If the service activity is not tightly linked with the actual course content, it is unsurprising

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that simply receiving credit in conjunction with the tutoring is not sufficient. Finally, a number of research studies have shown (e.g., Erickson & Anderson, 1997; Krebs, 2012; Root et al., 2001; Stewart et al., 2010) that incorporating service-learning coursework into teacher education programs has numerous potential benefits for preservice teachers and beyond. Even if the course enrollment is broader than just declared education majors, such a course may also function as a teacher recruitment pipeline. For instance, Warchal and Ruiz (2004) found that the servicelearning experiences and placements that college students had did influence their choice of employment. Tutors in my classes also occasionally reported deciding to change their majors to pursue teaching careers based on their experience tutoring; and even those not planning to become teachers typically left the experience with a greater understanding of the challenges and rewards of teaching, especially regarding work with diverse learners. Thus, the development of a course specifically dedicated to the particulars of this sort of tutoring service-learning with English learners may well be worth the effort in terms of the benefits it conveys to both the university students, the institutions, and the children being tutored.

REFERENCES Bohon, S. A., Macpherson, H., & Atiles, J. H. (2005). Educational barriers for new Latinos in Georgia. Journal of Latinos and Education, 4(1), 43-58. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. (n.d.). Community engagement classification. Retrieved from http://classifications.carnegiefoundation .org/descriptions/community_engagement.php Erickson, J. A., & Anderson, J. B. (Eds.). (1997). Learning with the community: Concepts and models for service-learning in teacher education. Washington, DC: American Association for Higher Education. Eyler, J., & Giles, D. E. (1999). Where’s the learning in service-learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Furco, A. (2001). Is service-learning really better than community service? A study of high school service program outcomes. In A. Furco & S. H. Billig (Eds.), Service-learning: The essence of the pedagogy (pp. 23-50). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Heffernan, K. (2001). Fundamentals of service-learning course construction. Providence, RI: Campus Compact. Kochhar, R., Suro, R., & Tafoya, S. (2005). The new Latino south: The context and consequences of rapid population growth. Washington, DC: Pew Hispanic Center. Krebs, M. M. (2012). Crossing boundaries in service-learning professional development: Preservice and inservice teachers learning together. In J. A. Hatcher & R. G. Bringle (Eds.), Understanding service-learning and community engage-

Supporting Service-Learning Tutoring Partnerships 173 ment: Crossing boundaries through research (pp. 129-156). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. Matthews, P. H. (2010). Multiculturalizing the academy: University service-learning tutoring of young English learners. Information for Action: A Journal for Service-Learning Research with Children and Youth, 3(1), 1-18. Retrieved from http:/ /nslp.convio.net/site/DocServer/MulticulturalizingtheAcademy. Vol3No1.pdf?docID=4182 Matthews, P. H. (2011). Online education and service-learning. In S. Clouser & C. Clark (Eds.), Teaching with technology Volume 2: The stories continue. Retrieved from http://ltcessays.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/05-matthews-service.pdf Matthews, P. H., & Musetti, B. (2006, April). Professional development for Latino success: Responding to the New South’s changing needs. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Francisco. Matthews, P. H., Portes, P. R., Mellom, P. J., Moreno, D., & Stubenbaum, K. (2010, April). Testing the pipeline: Year two of a model of university support for tutoring elementary students placed at risk. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Denver. Matthews, P. H., Portes, P., & Moreno, D. (2009, April). Testing the pipeline: Implementing a model of university support for tutoring elementary students placed at risk. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego, CA. Morton, K., & Callahan, J. (2009). Reflections on university-school partnerships at Providence College’s Feinstein Institute for Public Service. In T. Kelshaw, F. Lazarus, J. Minier, & Associates (Eds.), Partnerships for service-learning: Impacts on communities and students (pp. 37-74). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Portes, P. R. (2005). Dismantling educational inequality: A cultural-historical approach to closing the achievement gap. New York, NY: Peter Lang. Portes, P., & Smagorinsky, P. (2010). Static structures, changing demographics: Educating for shifting populations in stable schools. English Education, 42, 236-248. Root, S., Callahan, J., & Sepanski, J. (2001). Service-learning in teacher education: A consideration of qualitative and quantitative outcomes. In A. Furco & S. H. Billig (Eds.), Service-learning: The essence of the pedagogy (pp. 223-243). Greenwich, CT: Information Age. Scheibel, J., Bowley, E. M., & Jones, S. (2005). The promise of partnerships: Tapping into the college as a community asset. Providence, RI: Campus Compact. Sperling, R. (2007). Service-learning as a method of teaching multiculturalism to white college students. Journal of Latinos and Education, 6, 309-322. Stewart, T., Allen, K. W., & Bai, H. (2010). Service-learning and preinternship teacher sense of efficacy: A comparison of two designs. In J. Keshen, B. A. Holland, & B. E. Moely (Eds.), Research for what? Making engaged scholarship matter (pp. 121-145). Charlotte, NC: Information Age. U.S. Census Bureau. (2010). American FactFinder. Available online at http:// factfinder2.census.gov

174 P. H. MATTHEWS Wainer, A. (2004). The new Latino south and the challenge to public education: Strategies for educators and policymakers in emerging immigrant communities. Los Angeles, CA: Tomas Rivera Policy Institute. Warchal, J., & Ruiz, A. (2004). The long-term effects of undergraduate servicelearning programs on postgraduate employment choices, community engagement, and civic leadership. In M. Welch & S. H. Billig (Eds.), New perspectives in service-learning: Research to advance the field (pp. 87-106). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.

PART III SERVICE-LEARNING IN THE HUMANITIES

CHAPTER 10

SERVICE-LEARNING AND DISTANCE Sustainability in Traditional and Organic Service-Learning Relationships L. BLACKBURN AND E. CUSHMAN Lorelei Blackburn and Ellen Cushman

In this chapter we profile two of our service-learning courses that have developed across physical distances, while we, and our students, remain at the home institution. In one, Ellen describes a course she taught, “Writing in the Public Interest,” a project-based, professional writing class that relied on relationships the Michigan State University (MSU) Center for Service Learning had developed within nonprofits in the East Lansing/Lansing area. In the next, Lorelei discusses how she maintains relationships with a Ugandan-based nongovernmental organization (NGO), Bagwere Kusetuka Association, and how those relationships have opened opportunities for her professional writing students to engage with global community partners. Our goal will be to demonstrate the possibilities and challenges for geographically removed scholars and students to serve as a bridge between communities and the academy. We find that traditional service-learning courses, which are project based, tend to rely on institutionalized paths, focus on the products students produce, and thus emphasize providing services through

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 177–194 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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learning; while organic service-learning courses focus on maintaining and extending relationships with community partners as part of the product of the course. By “organic” we mean those initiatives that emerge from authentic and situated mutual interests, connections, and goals, rather than being constructed and implemented by one institution (usually hierarchically positioned as the university) to be enacted on another (often considered as receptive and subservient, even as it is served). While each type of relationship, in the end, can prove beneficial for all stakeholders, organic servicelearning models work from relationship-based structures, authority, and allegiances built and maintained with instructors/researchers and communities. We suggest that distances among students, professors, and community members impact sustainability and that maintaining organic relationships is an important aspect of that sustainability. In order to proceed with a more holistic analysis of the case studies, it might be useful to articulate a taxonomy for community engagement, research, and teaching that relies more on organic relationship-building than on project-based relationships. Realizing that some generalizations are involved in making these distinctions, and, not wanting to set up binaries, we propose that engagement, research, and teaching relationships fall within a continuum of sorts. Traditional relationships between the university and the community work within already-institutionalized relationships and focus largely on completing short-term projects. Organic relationships built from connections between scholars and the communities with which they work are relationship-based in structure; authority is obtained through a combination of relationships and respect; and primary allegiances to the relationship or to the community results in tactical actions (Blackburn, 2012). Traditional university-community relationships are based on projects and mediated through a structured institutional relationship. Often, these relationships are established through preexisting networks between the university and communities. And this seems to make perfect sense, as most universities measure scholars in academe by their works/projects/ products; so university performance evaluations play an important role in influencing scholars to pursue project-based relationships. However, we argue that by considering the relationship as product, we can shift the way in which we engage with the community, with our research, and with our students (Blackburn, 2012).

ECOLOGIES OF WRITING: A SERVICE-LEARNING INFRASTRUCTURE To surface the distinctions we are making between traditional and organic service-learning relationships, we discuss our cases in terms of the struc-

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tures, authority, and allegiances produced in the ecologies of writing within our classes.

Structure Traditional university-community relationships are based on projects and mediated through a structured institutional relationship. In his article “Alinsky’s Reveille: A Community-Organizing Model for Neighborhood-Based Literacy Projects,” Eli Goldblatt (2005) states that most often, initiatives are developed by university faculty who then propose the projects to community organizations and then locate the initiatives within the communities. This observation rings true in our experience, and we assert that this approach is how traditionally structured relationships generally work. Scholar has an idea—scholar develops idea—scholar looks for a viable site in which to enact idea either through the university clearinghouse or community itself—scholar-as-university-representative makes contacts with community institution—and thus, a traditional relationship is born. Often, these relationships have been institutionalized through a servicelearning clearinghouse. Community members contact the clearinghouse on campus; their needs, goals, and purposes are posted; and professors and students seek matches for their learning objectives. Projects that arise from these are typically one semester long. Goldblatt (2005), however, seems to endorse a more organic way of doing things as he calls for those of us in academe to encourage alternate research and outreach models to better support the communities we hope to serve (see Luetzow, Macaluso, & Goldblatt, this volume). He suggests that we “reorient our vision,” to shift “the setting for our model building from the campus to the streets” (p. 372). Goldblatt invites us to reconsider our approach and maintains: “When we think of ourselves as members of more than an academic community,” we will set up a dynamic in which students encounter community partners as collaborators and not simply needy clients (p. 294). Perhaps he might have been envisioning the other end of the continuum—something like the organic scholar-community member-university interactions structured around relationships. This movement toward attention to relationships is nothing new. In her book Tactics of Hope, Paula Matthieu (2010) explores some of the challenges of traditional relationships and suggests an alternative model for creating collaborative community-university relationships that produce tactical and localized projects. She proposes that instead of developing projects based on institutional concerns—what we are calling traditional relationships—scholars develop projects that “foreground the needs and

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expertise of communities” (p. 90). And, while Mathieu suggests that instead of developing projects based on institutional needs, we begin basing projects on the needs and expertise of the community, Cushman (2010a) has long been calling for a move toward research-based service learning that “sustains itself through inquiry that’s spurred by community concerns, that’s guided in large part by the partner’s need,” to replace researcher-based service learning, which follows “a top-down, missionary approach where the researcher forms rigid questions around topics she/he is interested and applies them in a ‘community laboratory’” (p. 61). We assert that it is these kinds of projects that will naturally develop out of relationship-based structures (Blackburn, 2012).

Authority In traditional university-community relationships, the university bestows authority upon its scholars, who then move into communities as representatives of the institution. This authority is based on universitygranted resources, from which the community benefits, as well as on the reputation and respect of the university itself. In organic relationships, the authority is bestowed both locally—from individuals within the community—and by the university, and is based on the relationships formed by the scholar and community members, as well as upon respect for the university of which the scholar is a representative. Organic relationships do not rely exclusively upon standing within the academy, but, rather, respectfully interact with community members, thus establishing personal relationships, which in turn can lead to a scholar’s personal authority (Blackburn, 2012). In her oft-quoted essay “When the First Voice You Hear Is Not Your Own,” Jacqueline Jones Royster (1996) makes a viable suggestion for building organic relationships when she asserts, “when we are away from home, we need to know that what we think we see in places that we do not really know very well may not actually be what is there at all” (p. 32). Royster’s concept of “home training,” which “underscores the reality that point of view matters and that we must be trained to respect points of view other than our own” is also essential to building healthy organic relationships within communities, and, we maintain that without respect of members of said communities, there may be no authority given (p. 32). It is by establishing mutual respect and relationship between individuals who represent institutions that authority is conferred in organic relationships (Blackburn, 2012).

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Allegiance In traditional university-community relationships, the commitment to the university is of utmost importance; relationships are built between institutions, and are generally strategic and focus on forwarding the vision, mission, and goals of the university, while building and sustaining permanent community networks and stabilizing growth and community development. At the other end of the spectrum, the dynamics of organic relationships are focused on allegiance to the community and to personal and professional relationships. These organic relationships are built by individuals who, by necessity, must rely on tactics to accomplish things, as they often work outside (traditional) conventions. Matthieu (2010) advocates that scholars adapt tactical logic to reimagine the types of community work possible. David Coogan (2010) also seems to advocate for these types of relationships, and for using tactical logic. He discusses his involvement in working for social change with a distressed community by making a middle space, not by “generating and then disseminating ideal strategies for rhetorical intervention but generating publics capable of addressing their own social problems” (p. 159). Coogan advocates looking for common ground and serving as activists invested in the community instead of as academics steeped in university politics. He asserts that, activated in this way, “rhetoric … can actually impact material conditions … [and] indirect movement of public inquiries can move people to change more than just their beliefs” (p. 163). While it’s difficult to prove exactly what material conditions are affected by Lorelei’s students’ writing, we hope that the brochure they produced will prompt scholars, volunteers, and Ugandan community members to work together to effect practical and physical change in the communities served by the Bagwere Kusetuka Association (Blackburn, 2012). And, while DeCerteau (1984) would assert that tactics are used for the short term, we argue that some tactics—if taken up and championed by scholars, and later, by universities—could eventually be accepted as long-term institutional processes and lead to permanent change that could affect sustainability. Paying attention to relationships, with allegiance being shared equally between all stakeholders, Goldblatt (2005) calls for us to “use our research, teaching, administrative, and writing abilities for the sake of the people our students tutor, not only for the sake of the college programs we run” (pp. 282-283). He asserts that we must reconsider our approach and suggests, “when we think of ourselves as members of more than an academic community,” we will set up a dynamic in which students encounter community partners as collaborators and not simply needy clients (p. 294). And, while none of the projects discussed below involved student

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tutors, the idea that allegiance matters still applies, especially because each of the two courses involved multiple stakeholders: the university, the community organization, individual community partners, the students, and the instructor. We next describe two service-learning initiatives that we undertook at Michigan State University. First, Ellen describes a course in which, in the end, she believed she could have established more organic relationships than her design afforded. Lorelei then provides an account of her class, also in MSU’s Professional Writing Program, housed within the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. Her approach extended Cushman’s to produce the sort of relational service-learning approach that we advocate in this chapter. By presenting these accounts, we hope to illustrate the genesis of service-learning emphases in our teaching and how particular constraints, affordances, and understandings contributed to the design and conduct of each.

A TRADITIONAL MODEL OF WRITING AT A DISTANCE: WRITING IN THE PUBLIC INTEREST When asked to teach Writing in the Public Interest for our Professional Writing program in 2009, I (Ellen) had serious reservations. I was deep into the development of a line of ethnohistorical research with my tribe, the Cherokee Nation, in Oklahoma. And, whenever possible, I was trying to link courses I was teaching at MSU to developing online educational materials with representatives of the Cherokee Nation. As such, I would have preferred to continue creating service-learning courses related to this research. But Writing in the Public Interest was unrelated to my current research. The class was structured to equip students with rhetorical skills (those intellectual, analytical, and persuasive skills) that help them learn to write in the public interest no matter what the setting, exigency, and audience. Students write with and for a number of organizations and communities in this class after they’ve learned how to learn about organizations. In other words, the class was designed to also offer students a set of methodological skills for learning about organizations. The objectives of the course had students studying genres as artifacts of the organization; collecting streams of data to determine the capacities and needs of the organization; proposing to the organization a set of materials; and negotiating which of these deliverables the organization wanted students to write. In other words, the students were learning to establish relationships with organizations as they learned the ecologies of writing within the organization while working on projects.

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In “Sustainable Service Learning Programs,” I discuss the need for outreach projects to take into consideration the roles of the professors in creating research-based service-learning courses. I argue that research-based service-learning courses are more likely to sustain themselves “through inquiry that’s spurred by community concerns, that’s guided in large part by the partner’s needs” (Cushman, 2010a, p. 61). My thinking was that: The professor as researcher adds consistency and specialized knowledge to the overall community-university collaboration, methodological rigor to inquiries, and task integration to the curriculum. In many ways, then, the researcher’s on-site presence in community literacy programs can facilitate the creation of institutional stability that service learning teachers and programs are striving to achieve. (p. 59)

Key to my thinking was the idea that the professor’s relationships with communities were central to maintaining the types of community literacy projects that programs and universities hoped to establish. And I had been practicing what I preached with the Cherokee Nation, developing a research-based service-learning curriculum for a Multimedia Writing class that dovetailed with a 6-year-long ethnohistorical research project on Cherokee language and identity (Cushman, 2006, 1010b, 2010c; Cushman & Green, 2010). Given that Writing in the Public Interest had a completely different set of goals that didn’t lend themselves to working with the Cherokee Nation, I was reluctant to approach the Nation with the offer for more work related to this class. And, as students were learning to do the work of researchers within organizations, it made little sense to build into a partnership what already had been researched and established as I had already done with the Cherokee Nation. Too, they needed to learn to work within different organizations and projects.1 To this end, I decided to draw upon the relationships MSU had already established through the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement. Karen Casey, the director of the center, listened to the types of goals and objectives of the class and suggested several possible organizations we could work with. She and I met to talk over the possible partner organizations, and I made initial contact with those organizations to see if they were still interested in working with MSU students. They were, and we began partnerships with the Technology Innovation Center in the city of East Lansing, The Asset Independence Coalition, the YouVote program between the city of East Lansing and Michigan State University, and Crime Busters. Other than the original phone call, I had no working relationship with these community organizations, but instead, had asked students to learn to establish these relationships and learn about the work of these organizations from the ground up.

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The class of juniors and seniors was divided into teams whose members had expressed interest in working with specific organizations. Then, the teams made contact with the organizations, scheduled several meetings with organization representatives, and decided what types of work they might be able to do and if that work was viable. In the case of Crime Busters, it turned out that the students became quickly frustrated with the lack of challenge and mission; the organization wasn’t really an organization so much as it was one person running a grassroots initiative that students felt lacked vision and direction, and couldn’t give them enough writing. Students asked to be taken off this project and to instead dedicate their time and efforts to developing the mission, goals, and materials needed for the Professional Writing student group, Writers’ Bloc. At my request, they wrote a letter to the director of Crime Busters, and they respectfully stepped aside. The response letter from Crime Busters was courteous, though it did express disappointment and acknowledged that perhaps the project was better suited to freshmen. While space does not permit a detailed description of students’ work for all four of these organizations, a sample of the type of work that emerged from this class from the YouVote team will illustrate the traditional nature of the relationships in this class and the writing ecologies it involved. As described on the website created by the team of students, “the YouVote campaign began after the 2000 Presidential Election because of the confusion from students about registering, candidates, and voting. This [initiative] began the talks between East Lansing and Michigan State University to form a campaign to inform the youth voters in the area.” With an impending 2011 national election, the some 40,000 undergraduates at Michigan State University and in East Lansing needed information on absentee ballots, where to register to vote, who was running in the 2011 general election, where to get provisional ballots, and where to find voting locations.2 The students worked with representatives from the MSU Office of the Vice President for Student Affairs and Services to develop the content for the website, particularly focusing on the capacities of the office to run and update the site after they finished the project and handed it off to the organization. Junior and senior professional writing students revised the original website because it was out of date and lacked a uniform navigation system from one page to the next. It was large, having relied on tables in html, and did not have a cascading style sheet to streamline the code. The site needed a new logo and color palette, as well as a clear organizational strategy for content as the original site included far too much information that wasn’t neatly categorized under tabs. As far as students are concerned, generally speaking, they gained an understanding of how to learn about community organizations through

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this project; they learned to research the capacities and needs of organizations; and they learned to propose useful forms of writing that would continue to meet the purposes and customs of those who used them. And, the community partner benefited from this arrangement by having its immediate needs met. The fact that the YouVote team’s site is still in use and being continually updated for current election information suggests an important success for this form of writing: it meshed so well within the ecologies of writing in the Office of Student Affairs that staff members can continue to use the site for their own purposes and needs. This projectbased course served the very purposes it needed to in modestly successful ways. The pre-established structures worked as they should have, and the students developed their own authority within the organizations by dint of their initial genre analyses, careful research, proposal, and final products. Yet it’s with the allegiances that the course seemed to miss the mark. For me, the one component missing from this traditional, projectbased service-learning course was my relationship with the community organizers. Save for an end-of-semester presentation in which students unveiled their final projects to community members, I didn’t even see community members or make the lasting kinds of relationships I strived to in my other outreach projects. I still see several of the community members and say hello, but the relationship was very much transactional, satisfying immediate learning goals and offering immediately gratifying projects to community members and students alike. To me, though, it was simply another new prep. My heart was and still is in the relationships I developed with my own research and with the teaching I was able to do that relates to the research with the Cherokee Nation. In hindsight, I could have predicted that I would be uneasy and dissatisfied forming this traditional, project-based type of class. In 2002, I had described these courses as part of a problem with sustainability: “Studentbased service learning courses often require students to create their own liaisons through an on-campus community service office that puts them in touch with an agency of their choice. The professors in these courses rarely, if ever, go on site with their students to research, leaving these kinds of courses prey to a host of problems that can compromise the program’s accountability, curricular integrity, and, ultimately, its sustainability” (p. 44). Happily, though, aside from the initial problem of working with Crime Busters, all the other teams had fairly rewarding experiences. They handled their own accountability; the curricular integrity was maintained as we walked through the methodologies of studying and working within organizations. And the fact of the matter is that the MSU Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement is indeed still sustainable and placing students in these types of classes; students are still working on project-based learning; and community members are, judging from their

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repeated use of the center’s services, satisfied with the products. The course was not “prey to a host of problems” as I had expected, but worked, even if long and lasting relationships between the community members and myself weren’t part of the bargain. As we see from Lorelei’s class, however, it’s precisely in these organic relationships between researcher and community members where the structures, authority, and allegiances align in ways that make the class a rich and rewarding experience for all involved.

AN ORGANIC MODEL OF WRITING AT A DISTANCE: MANAGING PUBLICATION PROJECTS It is the summer of 2010. I (Lorelei) am a PhD student and graduate teaching assistant, and I have been given the coveted opportunity to teach a course for Michigan State University’s Professional Writing Program, housed within the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. The program director, Dr. Laura Julier, and I are discussing the particulars of “Managing Publication Projects,” which is part of the writing, editing, and publishing track within the major. The course description is rather vague—“Design theory, task management research, collaborative problem-solving approaches, and team processes involved in designing and creating large-scale publications”—but, because I have industry experience under my belt, I am given latitude in designing the curriculum for the following spring semester. So, I decide that the main objective of the course should be teaching students to work collaboratively—both with one another and with clients—to bring large-scale projects from concept to print. So, in Spring 2011, after significantly redesigning the curriculum, I instituted my plan: The class would function as an advertising agency, with me serving as the creative director, and students as employees. Students/employees would be divided into four teams, each consisting of a project manager, an assistant project manager, a writer, a designer, and an editor. As such, students were required to submit résumés the first day of class; I conducted interviews on the spot and “hired” students to fill specific positions within each team. The revised class structure was exciting enough on its own, but, to make things even more interesting, I decided to add a service-learning element to the class. This dimension upped the stakes immensely, because, instead of working on fake projects for imaginary clients, students would be working with real clients—community partners—who, at the end of each project, would approve one team’s design and actually use it. This project provided realistic and tangible learning experiences for students, as well as examples of work they could

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present to prospective employers. Their involvement also upped the stakes for me, too; I would be putting my professional reputation on the line, outside the academy and somewhat publicly, and hoped my students would rise to the challenges. Dr. Julier had suggested I contact the Center for Service Learning and Civic Engagement (referenced by Ellen above), but I decided to tap into already-existing personal relationships to find community partners on my own. While considering potential community partners, I thought back to the summer of 2007. I was teaching in Uganda, and I became fast friends with “Dr. Paul,” a Ugandan physician’s assistant who was in the village for an extended period of time visiting and caring for his ill mother. We were introduced by the village’s orphanage director, and we cemented our relationship via evening walks through the fields during which we discussed, among other things, plant medicines, Ugandan history, the challenges faced by the child soldiers populating the orphanage, and Italian food. As a visiting teacher who knew a bit about alternative medicine and who had studied up on tropical medicine in anticipation of my work in Uganda, I partnered with Dr. Paul to treat my students’ maladies. I’d dispense Motrin and cold medicines to malaria victims; apply butterfly bandages to split-open heads or treat smashed hands after ambushes; or clean and bandage animal bites. Dr. Paul would see anyone with a more serious ailment. And, in addition to being my evening walking partner and an experienced medical practitioner, Dr. Paul was also a source of wise advice. When I ran into problems—cultural, political, or otherwise—I could count on him to give sage counsel. Because our relationship had grown organically through mutual interests and camaraderie, and because it wasn’t merely project based, it didn’t end when my stint in Uganda was up. Rather, when I left the village, Dr. Paul and I stayed in touch via e-mail. He passed along news about my students and about the political goings on in the village. He kept me in the know about events occurring in Uganda that were not considered newsworthy in the American media. Sometimes we strategized ideas for remediating the malaria problems among children in the slums, and for helping the Karamajong people who were (are) being treated by the Ugandan government in much the same way the Native American people were treated by the American government in the 1800s. Occasionally, I asked Dr. Paul to provide medical attention or to advocate for one of my former students. He asked about my family, and shared with me about his. And then, several years after my visit, when Dr. Paul began organizing an NGO, he invited me to assist with the writing component, and our organic relationship continued to grow. Because of this existing relationship, Dr. Paul was among the first people I contacted when I needed clients for the large-scale productions class

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I was teaching, and I was thrilled when our relationship offered a mutually beneficial professional opportunity: Dr. Paul needed marketing materials for his newly registered NGO, and I needed clients for whom my students could create projects. Thus, each student team was charged with developing an informational fundraising brochure for the Bagwere Kusetuka Association, Dr. Paul’s NGO in eastern Uganda. While this was the first major project for the class, students adapted quickly to working within teams—probably because they had to, both for the sake of their colleagues, as well as for the client—and the project progressed smoothly. Although Dr. Paul had cautioned that, because of civil unrest occurring in Uganda at the time, he might not be able to get to an internet café to communicate with students and to answer their questions, he remained in steady—if slow—contact with teams throughout the first half of the project. And then, disaster struck. Students needed feedback to complete the projects, but no responses from Dr. Paul were forthcoming for several weeks. So, we were forced to put the project on hold and move on to the next one. And then, toward the end of the semester, I heard back from my friend, who told me that he had been quite ill, and had suspected the ebola virus. Fortunately, that was not the case, and he had recovered fully, but slowly. We returned to the project, in between working on projects two and three, and teams were still able to complete the project with great success. They presented Dr. Paul with four excellent final products from which to choose; the client was absolutely thrilled with the results and was overwhelmed by the students’ professionalism. In the end, Dr. Paul’s organization was able to choose a professionally designed and written document that he did not have the time or resources to produce on his own, though he identified the purposes, audience, and need for this document, as well as suggestions for revision. The document itself worked well within the ecologies of writing that he was practicing as an NGO director. The brochure raised awareness about the charity throughout English-speaking countries in order to encourage donation and to provide information and further resources about volunteering. In addition, I was afforded the benefits of engaging further in lasting, ongoing interpersonal and sustainable interactions, as well as having the opportunity to work with someone who was a trusted friend. At the same time, my students gained valuable real-life experience with a global community partner. This engagement offered the opportunity for students to research global Englishes, which they had never before considered. Generally speaking, from this project, students learned to work closely with one another and the client to produce rhetorically sound, beautifully designed, professional-quality brochures (40% of the total project grade). The client was able to immediately use digital copies

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of the brochure in international e-mails he distributed, and as soon as I contact someone traveling to Uganda, he will receive copies of the printed brochure, paid for using institutional resources.3 And, because this course also focused on the processes of managing large-scale productions, teams also submitted tracking sheets, timelines, status-update memos, and a project styleguide (30% of the total project grade). In addition, in keeping with my interest with relationship-building, students were also required to submit copies of both client and intrateam communications, as well as reflections regarding their interactions with team members, discussing triumphs and challenges (30% of the total project grade). Above, Ellen states that, for her, the missing component in her traditional, project-based service-learning course was her relationship with the community organizers. That problem was not an issue for me, as the course I taught was more of an organic, relationship-based servicelearning course. I, however, encountered a different challenge. Because I had stable, already-existing relationships with my community partner, my students, unlike Ellen’s, had no need to build their own relationships with the client, as a strong one already existed. And, I may have been overzealous in protecting my community partner’s time—perhaps because I understood the challenges Dr. Paul faced just to get to an internet café to read and respond to student messages, and perhaps because my allegiance at the time was with the community partner with whom I had an existing relationship. Students were advised to compile a list of questions to send as a class so that the client would not have to respond to the same questions from each individual team. They were then instructed to wait for Dr. Paul’s response before individually contacting him. After hearing back from him, open communication was allowed. Unfortunately, by running interference for the sake of considering the community partner’s time and resources, I may have slightly alienated students from the client, as well as neglected the allegiance I should have had to my students. This allegiance issue righted itself throughout the semester as I was able to build relationships with my students. Looking back, I am sometimes disappointed at the initial decision I made and wonder what kind of relationships might have been built had I encouraged the students to interact more freely with the community partner in that first project. Might students have developed deeper and more sustainable relationships with the community partner and the organization? And if so, how might that have further affected those material conditions Coogan (2010) discusses? But, as a relationship-based service-learning course, the class worked, for the most part, as was expected. The already-established relationships worked as they needed to, and the teams developed their own authority and relationships with the client—even though they were not afforded the

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opportunity to interact as much as they could have been. Yet, as with Ellen’s experience, it’s with the allegiances that the project seemed to miss the mark. My allegiances to be specific, as indicated in the paragraph above. Happily, though, neither the client nor the students seemed to suffer from this oversight. But I did suffer—from pangs of conscience. I quickly learned from this mistake, though, and I was able to change my approach with the next project that same semester—again working within an already-existing relationship. The client was the Autistic SelfAdvocacy Network national chapter, and our community partner/contact was my good friend Dr. Melanie Yergeau, with whom I have been working since 2006. Students were charged with creating a suite of marketing materials for the organization. In order to encourage students to interact more naturally with Melanie, and to balance the allegiance—I had, by now, also built relationships with my students and recognized all too well that they had been short-changed in the previous project—I set up an allteam Skype conference with the client. During the hour-long conversation, Melanie, then at Ohio State University, briefed students about the organization’s purpose, structure, and writing/project needs. Students were then encouraged to converse with Melanie after her presentation. Afterward, my students shared with me that they really liked Melanie and that she was cool, that they thought the organization’s purposes were current and necessary, and that they were excited to be involved in the project. Individual teams immediately began communicating with her, but, keeping in mind all they had been taught during the previous project, they did not bombard her with e-mails. Instead, their communications were brief, to the point, and respectful of the client’s time. And I was proud of them. Melanie, in turn, responded promptly—and even sent some cool autism activism buttons (with the slogans “celebrate neurodiversity” and “autistic and badass”) to several of the students who had expressed interest in them, thus cementing a superb working relationship with the students. At the end of the semester, sustainability won out: I’ve received requests from some of the clients/community partners to do further work with future classes; I’ve maintained relationships with some of my students; and some of my students have maintained relationships with the organizations with which they worked. It’s a win-win-win situation. In addition, it seems clients have been talking. Because of the success of several of the projects, and the clients’ word-of-mouth endorsements of my students’ work, last year I received requests from community partners with whom I hadn’t ever worked. So, in spring semester of 2012, my students were afforded the opportunity of working with a national antibullying campaign (the results of an organically built relationship from an

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introduction by a friend) and with a digital press (a direct result of the work done with Melanie for Autistic Self-Advocacy Network). From these experiences, and a host of other similar experiences with organically built relationships, I have come to believe that methods of organic relationship-building could be beneficial to those involved in community engagement and in service-learning. I’ve been exploring this concept for some time, and I think I can say that I know this experientially: The opportunities I have been afforded that have arisen from organic relationships seem to work out much better than ones I have constructed for project purposes.

CONCLUSION Ellen (Cushman, 2002) maintains that service-learning programs are more sustainable when professors are invested in the community site “as a place where their research, teaching, and service contribute to a community’s self-defined needs and students’ learning” (p. 40). Or, as we have observed in these case studies, the shorter the distance among professors, students, and community members, the more feasible sustainability becomes. Ellen also asserts that stable and consistent relationships between professors who serve as university representatives and the community are essential, as too often, these communities are exploited for the benefit of the university. So, Ellen calls for collaboration among professors, students, and the community in order to produce better research and more relevant learning assignments and activities for students. In the article, she appeals to us to consider the importance of relationship so that the product is better. But here, we shift the focus a bit to consider the relationship as product and believe that in doing so, the ways in which we engage with the community, with our research and with our students, will shift as well. Relationships, specifically, organic relationships—ones that arise easily out of mutual interests and connections, or from a common or collaborative goal or vision, as opposed to being constructed or forced or conveniently arranged by institutions—become the primary focus. In the organic model described above, sustainability happens. The dynamic does not end when the project is finished, because the relationship doesn’t depend on the project, but, rather, on the interactions among stakeholders. These stakeholder relationships among the student, the instructor, the community partner, and the university are integral to the success of the projects as well as to the success of the pedagogy. But, if the relationship between any of the players is problematic, the community

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engagement experience could be compromised, which, in turn, could compromise research and teaching—and, ultimately sustainability. We suggest further that organic relationship-building, in giving primacy to relationships in community engagement, research, and teaching, will afford different opportunities to serve not only our community partners, but also our students, our institutions, and our scholarship. Paula Mathieu (2005) makes some cogent points regarding this potential when she suggests that the field may be undermining itself with its “disciplinary conceptions of what rhetorical research, teaching and service look like” (p. 121), and she calls for professionals to examine their roles and motivations as teachers, writers, scholars, and public intellectuals. Yes—undermining, and perhaps limiting, too. However, we think it might be useful for professionals to begin examining relationships in these situations, as well—and, for the specific purpose of this chapter, to examine distance— among students, professors, and community members. The point here is that if we pay attention to building sustainable and organic relationships, we will, by default, build sustainable and organic projects as the products of those relationships. These cases have tried to demonstrate the similarities and differences between types of service-learning initiatives that work at a distance. In the first example of Writing in the Public Interest, the distance existed between Ellen and the community partners. While the class worked instrumentally and while the structures are still in place for the class to take on different iterations, its project-based focus emphasizes an instrumental transaction of writing to meet an immediate need. This emphasis was not inherently bad, or even detrimental, to the sustainability of the class. However, the class and project itself ultimately didn’t provide the kind of intellectual sustainability that Ellen, as a researcher, looks for in her work. Lorelei’s class enjoyed a different form of sustainability because it was built upon a longstanding relationship she has with Dr. Paul and with the other community partners. This class was rewarding to students because it worked from similar ecologies of writing, but the relationshipbuilding and maintenance were of primary importance as noteworthy outcomes of each project. In addition, professor-to-student and studentto-student relationship-building was also built into the curriculum and functioned as a pedagogical tool. Our comparison of these classes reveals that the ecologies of writing involved in traditional and organic relationships differ substantially in terms of the interpersonal relationship systems developed in them. Cooper (1986) describes these ecologies as systems “that reflect the various ways writers connect with each other through writing: through systems of ideas, of purposes, of interpersonal interactions, of cultural norms, of textual forms” (p. 369). In the type of traditional relationships

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Ellen describes, ecologies of writing are reduced to the one-time transaction in which community stakeholders realize a return on their investments of time with students when they accept delivery of “professionally” written products. And within such transactions, the interpersonal interactions can be informative for students as they learn about the organizations’ needs and the basic purposes, ideas, and textual forms necessary. In the end, so long as the cultural norms of politeness and courtesy are maintained, the pre-established relationships between community partners and universities remain. Allegiances, in the traditional model Ellen describes above, amount to a kind of brand loyalty: The community partners continue to come to the MSU Center for Service Learning to seek students to help with projects; the Center for Service Learning continues to cultivate and farm out these connections; professors continue assigning project-based learning; and students engage in Dewey’s experiential learning (Deans, 2010). In other words, the transaction of delivering writing as a product and service is emphasized in this ecology of writing. Learning outcomes for the semester are met, students have portfolio pieces, and community members’ immediate needs are met. While there is certainly value in the ecologies of writing produced in traditional service-based courses, the products are substantially different from those produced through organic relationships. The ecologies of writing in the types of organic relationships that Lorelei describes emphasize the interpersonal interactions with respect to cultural norms as central to the workings of the class. In the organic model discussed above, learning goals are still met; students still produce textual forms needed by the community organization; and students still have pieces they can use in their portfolios. Students also engage in systems of ideas important to the community organization, and their purposes in writing are shared by the instructor, students, and community members. The key difference here is that the lasting, ongoing interpersonal interactions of professors and students with the communities and cultures with which they continue to work after the semester- or year-long project are emphasized as learning outcomes of the project. The textual products in these ecologies of writing are secondary to the primary product: sustained and sustainable interpersonal relationships.

NOTES 1. 2.

The class website describing these goals and objectives can be found at: https://www.msu.edu/~cushmane/wpi.htm. http://www.youvote.msu.edu/index.html

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Sending packages to Uganda through mail is expensive, and they do not usually arrive intact, if they arrive at all; therefore, I usually send things with people whom I know.

REFERENCES Blackburn, L. (2012, March). The affordances of organic relationship-building in civic engagement projects. Presentation made at the annual convention of the Conference on College Composition and Communication, St. Louis, MO. Coogan, D. J. (2010). Sophists for social change. In J. M. Ackerman & D. J. Coogan (Eds.), The public work of rhetoric: Citizen-scholars and civic engagement (pp. 157-174).Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Cooper, M. (1986). The ecology of writing. College English, 48, 364-375. Cushman, E. (2006). Toward a praxis of new media: The Allotment Period In Cherokee history. Reflections On Community-Based Writing Instruction, 4(3),12443. Cushman, E. (2010a). Sustainable service learning programs. College Composition and Communication, 54, 40-64. Cushman, E. (2010b). Gadugi: A Cherokee perspective of working within communities. Reflections on Community-Based Writing Instruction, 9(3), 7-17. Cushman, E. (2010c). Gadugi: Where the fire burns. In S. Kahn (Ed.), Rhetorical activists (pp. 56-61). New York, NY: Routledge. Cushman, E., & Green, E. (2010). Knowledge work with the Cherokee Nation: Engaging publics in a praxis of new media. In J. M. Ackerman & D. J. Coogan (Eds.), The public work of rhetoric: Citizen-scholars and civic engagement (pp. 175-193). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. Deans, T. (2010). English studies and public service. In T. Deans, B. Roswell, & A. J. Wurr (Eds.), Writing and community engagement (pp. 97-117). Boston, MA: Bedford. deCerteau, M. (1984). The practice of everyday life. Berkley, CA: University of California Press. Goldblatt, E. (2005). Alinsky’s reveille: A community-organizing model for neighborhood-based literacy projects. College English,67, 274-295. Mathieu, P. (2005). Tactics of hope: The public turn in English composition. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann. Mathieu, P. (2010). Students in the streets. In T. Deans, B. Roswell, & A. J. Wurr (Eds.), Writing and community engagement (pp. 277-297). Boston, MA: Bedford. Royster, J. J. (2010). When the first voice you hear is not your own. College Composition and Communication, 47, 29-40.

CHAPTER 11

PARTNERSHIP SERVICE-LEARNING BETWEEN MAYA IMMIGRANTS AND THE UNIVERSITY Searching for a Path to Maya Children’s Success in the Schools A. LEBARON

Alan LeBaron

The vehicle of service-learning described in this essay is the Maya Heritage Community Project at Kennesaw State University (GA). In 2001, the Maya Heritage Community Project (MHCP) began as a class exercise where students and local Maya immigrants joined together to hold a small conference on Maya history, language, and culture, beginning a decade-long relationship of education and attempted problem solving based on reciprocity and respect. This chapter is the story of how the MHCP and Maya Native Americans in Canton, Georgia, worked together on several projects between 2007 and 2010 in order to help Maya students succeed in the schools and to help parents maintain family unity and the respect of their children.

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 195–210 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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Difficulties in the schools faced by the children of immigrants have been well documented, but children of the Maya face additional problems. In Canton, Georgia, Maya children often speak nonstandard or underdeveloped Spanish upon entering schools, since the primary language at home might be one of the Maya languages, and not Spanish. Neither do they, in most cases, speak standard “academic” English. In early 2007, some Maya parents expressed their worries to the MHCP that children were not doing well in the schools. In addition, parents complained about losing influence over children once they entered school. Parents believed that children had grown disrespectful and purposely uncommunicative, and some of the parents were saddened that children had lost their ability or desire to speak Mayan native languages.The Maya suggested the concept of a “Maya School” that might take place in the homes or church, where children could be taught valued aspects of culture, history, and language. Working in partnership with Maya parents to establish Maya schools or similar education projects presented us with an enticing service-learning opportunity, and during the first year university students and Maya parents remained optimistic about eventual success. However, our partnership greatly weakened when the national economic troubles began to spread during 2008, and some of our principal partners lost jobs or returned to Guatemala after being denied asylum. In 2011 and 2012 we have begun constructing new approaches and service-learning projects to work once again with Maya parents and the education of their children. We are faced, however, with the realization that many of the obstacles we discovered during 2007-2010 currently remain and indeed have become increasingly formidable; and most Maya children in Canton continue to drop out of school before graduation, or not complete high school, because of failure to pass the state exam. University students and faculty have learned much about the Maya from the projects, but we remain unsure of the value of the service we could supply to the Maya community.

THE MAYA IN GUATEMALA AND GEORGIA The ancient Maya Indians have long fascinated academic researchers and the general public. This interest follows from their many achievements, such as their construction of great cities; their independent discovery of the mathematical concept of zero; their calendars, which achieved high accuracy before those of the Europeans; and their sophisticated system of writing. Indeed, considering the grandeur and mystique of the ancient Maya—known for their abandoned cities in the jungles, with the imposing pyramids, writings in glyphs, and the calendars that have led to the

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present discussions over the “apocalypse of 2012”—the image of Maya can appear exotic.1 But the descendants of the ancient Maya have not disappeared and currently number about ten million, most of them continuing to live in the approximate areas of their pre-Conquest ancestors in Mexico and Central America. But people identified as “Maya” do not constitute a monolithic bloc. There is great variety among them, and linguists have recognized approximately 30 different languages and some 60 dialects, the exact numbers of which are obscured by linguistic uncertainties. Adding to differences among the Maya are the particulars of the nation-states where they live and the fast changes that have come to many areas from globalization and transnational migrations. In recent decades, increasing numbers of Maya have achieved formal education and better economic status. However, for the majority of Maya people, the hardships, violence, and levels of poverty they have faced since the time of the Conquest remain stubbornly consistent. The Maya who became our partners in the MHCP and who took part in the service-learning projects described in this essay originated from highland areas of Guatemala, where the majority of the people continue to speak the Maya languages, and mixtures of ancient and modern ways prevail in daily life. Chronic malnutrition among the Guatemalan highland Maya might be the highest in Latin America, and approximately 80% of the indigenous children and adolescents live in poverty (UNICEF, 2012). Especially alarming has been the escalating violence and lawlessness as drug lords and gangs have moved into these areas of the Maya. Based on estimates obtained from the census and other available data, and information obtained from Maya groups around the United States, the MHCP project team estimated the Guatemalan Maya population in the United States to be around 500,000, with the population in Georgia about 15,000. The first significant waves of Guatemalan Maya refugees and migrants to the United States began during the intracountry fighting that dominated Guatemala from the late 1970s to the peace accords of 1996, with continued migration thereafter as Maya sought escape from ongoing political and economic oppression. Maya began arriving to Georgia in the mid-to-late part of the 1990s and continued through the 2000s, to fulfill the demands of the expanding economy, with the Atlanta Olympics of 1996 providing a major opportunity for laborers. Leaders of the Maya community whom we came to know had arrived in Georgia after spending years working in older settlement areas such as Los Angeles and south Florida. Significant numbers of them had already obtained legal residency or legal temporary residency while they awaited asylum hearings. Some of these leaders had arrived into the

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United States during the heavy fighting in Guatemala and had eventually obtained refugee status. By the time I became introduced to them, they had organized themselves into a “Maya community” and a self-help association named Pastoral Maya, which had original connections to the Pastoral Maya of Los Angeles, under the auspices of the Office of Pastoral Care of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. In Canton, however, the Pastoral Maya acted autonomously and focused their energies and activities on the local needs of the Canton Community, such as helping people who needed medical help, financial help, or help returning the bodies of their deceased to Guatemala. Catholic Christian faith provided a foundation for the Pastoral Maya community, but Maya identity and community protection were of substantial importance as well. Language was a major consideration behind community togetherness, given that about 50% of the women spoke only their native language, but not Spanish or English. Many of the women who spoke Spanish remained more fluent in the Maya language. At home most families preferred speaking Maya languages, at least among the parents. In 2007, at the time we began the children’s education project, the community numbered around 300 men, women, and children. According to the Maya leaders (LeBaron, 2006, p. 147), the community was in part organized “to establish a mutual exchange and education between the immigrant community in its new life and the local North American community so they understand we are not people who bring only problems, but that in us, they can find value in our contributions to this society, values such as our spirituality and our sense of community and solidarity.”2 (For a more detailed explanation of the Pastoral Maya, see Lopez and LeBaron [2012] and LeBaron [2012].)

THE MAYA PROJECT AND PASTORAL MAYA The MHCP was not preplanned, but developed through evolution as the relationship between the university and Maya community blossomed into friendship and mutual self-interest. For me, it began sometime in late 1999 when I recognized that a young man shopping in a local grocery store appeared to be a Maya Indian, a people I had seen many times in the Guatemalan highlands since my first trip to Central America as an undergraduate student in 1972. Subsequently, I began teaching about the Maya immigrants in my class on Mexico and Central America, and in 2002 my students suggested that we arrange a class meeting or class event with the Pastoral Maya community in Canton.

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This request led to a 1-day event where students prepared information tables on Maya history and culture. Initially, I saw the event as an opportunity for students to experience an interaction with people of Maya heritage, and there were no plans to establish a comprehensive servicelearning project. But the seven leaders who came to campus engaged the students with remarkable dignity and patience, answering questions and teaching bits of language and culture. They left us, students and faculty, enthusiastic to establish deeper and ongoing relations. In one memorable moment, one of the leaders, Juan Kuyuch, said to me, “We Maya are looked down upon in Guatemala, and we often don’t like our past, but when I see how interested the students are toward us, I feel that the Maya as a people still exist.” In 2003, I assigned students in my Mexico and Central America class to participate in our second Maya Conference. In preparation for the conference, we established the group called the Maya Heritage Community Project. By 2004, several dozen students and faculty, including some from outside Kennesaw State University, worked through the project as volunteers, interns, and researchers. Over the years we have conducted health clinics, English classes, law seminars, tutoring, and other community engagements, including the language project described in this chapter. In return, members of the Maya community visited classes and participated in campus activities where they talked about Maya history, language, and culture. In addition, directly or indirectly, they shared their aspirations to retain valued aspects of Maya life while accessing benefits from the global world. During these initial years, the format for service-learning remained simple: to engage new immigrants while learning about Maya people and the complexities of immigration realities. Beginning in 2004 the MHCP became a national project as we connected to other groups in the United States, such as Pastoral Maya groups in South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, Colorado, and California; and other organizations such as Corn Maya in Florida and the Maya Kiche Organization in Massachusetts. During 2004-2007 we held four National Maya Conferences at Kennesaw State University. Another milestone came in 2007 when the MHCP became an approved Returned Peace Corps Fellows Program, and in 2009 the MHCP was recognized as a model of “integrative and interdisciplinary programs that emphasize civic engagement” (Lucas, 2009, p. 105). However, the MHCP’s primary focus remained on the Maya community in Georgia, a population that was rapidly growing. Initially, Georgia had been a new destination for Maya people, many of who were young, male, and unmarried. Eventually, the number of families grew significantly. Several of the men we knew returned to Guatemala once they

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secured resources and became confident in knowing where to find work, coming back some months later with a wife. As the number of married couples increased, the number of children likewise increased, and dozens of people bought houses even though they had not yet secured residency. Unfortunately, their faith in, and hope of, having secure and dignified lives in the United States, which had been denied to them in Guatemala, produced an optimism that for the majority of the people proved unwarranted. Perhaps the initial 6 or 7 years of the decade should be termed the “honeymoon” period for the Maya in Georgia, because even as immigration policies became more complex and politically volatile, steady economic expansion prevailed, and work remained easy to find. In addition, indications remained strong that some kind of national comprehensive reform would be passed, allowing many of the immigrants authorized residency. Although the complexities and difficulties connected to immigration caused dilemmas for the MHCP and produced ambiguous feelings in some students and faculty, we saw the increasing need to work with the families as they fell on hard times, especially with the growing numbers of children of Maya heritage, the majority of whom had been born in the United States.

THE PROBLEMS DESCRIBED BY THE LEADERS In early 2007, about a year before the intensified economic hardships began, Maya community leaders came to us with concerns that they thought the university might help them solve. They were worried that parents were losing influence over their older children, and that the children were unhappy in schools and wanted to drop out. The leaders explained that children had become distant and disrespectful, which would not have been the case in Guatemala. In addition they had lost their ability, or desire, to speak the Maya languages, and could not join conversations during phone calls with grandparents and family members living in Guatemala. The leaders thought that children were ashamed of being Maya and Indian, and wanted to hide or deny their heritage. An ideal solution, according to the leaders, would be to establish an afterschool or weekend “Maya school” to teach language and culture, and to teach an appreciation for the difficulties faced by their parents in Guatemala. The leaders understood that children must adjust and assimilate to the United States, and they realized that losing fluency in their native languages would in many cases be unavoidable. But they hoped the languages of their ancestors would be respected and carried on by some, a hope that was expressed by each year’s chosen Maya Princess when she

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made her public proclamations in Maya, Spanish, and English (a practice followed in many communities in the United States). The leaders admitted that some parents thought it best to reject Mayan identity and language in order for the children to better assimilate into life in the United States. Indeed, parents were divided on whether or not keeping the Maya language would be good for the children. This ambivalence was captured in a survey conducted by The Consulate General of Guatemala in Atlanta and the Maya Heritage Community Project (2010). In the survey, consulate staff asked: If you have children born in the United States, would you like them to learn your Maya language? Those who responded yes numbered 331; 362 responded no; and 508 did not answer the question.

THE SITUATION FOR THE MAYA The Maya situation in the United States provided a new demographic, but we found scant academic material that considered education and the relationships between Maya children and their parents. Most often, Maya and other indigenous (or Native American) groups from Spanish America have been broadly characterized as Latino/as because they presumably share many of the national characteristics of their nation states. Thus, academic research on Latino/a immigration typically includes Maya and other indigenous groups in the Latino/a category, and children of Maya immigrants have seldom been separately analyzed.3 Menjívar (2002) studied Guatemalan children in Los Angeles (she did not distinguish between Maya and non-Maya) and found that Guatemalan children fully embraced neither the homeland of their parents nor the geographic context of United States. She concluded that “Rather than being participants of both societies, these children remain on the margins of both societies” (p. 549). In Canton, Maya children confront many of the same difficulties that face other Guatemalans and all other Latino/a immigrants, and in Georgia educational opportunities are especially poor. Bohon, Macpherson, and Atiles (2005) described educational opportunities in Georgia for students in general as “fairly bleak,” and particularly bad for Latino/as, and therefore especially for Maya (cf. Portes & Smagorinsky, 2010). As the partnership developed with Pastoral Maya, faculty and students became increasingly involved with families or individuals experiencing difficulties with medical facilities, schools, or government agencies. We’d had continual interaction with the Maya community; thus, we had begun to understand their troubles and their ways of coping. In one case, focus groups conducted in Canton in 2005 by Odem and González (2006) dis-

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cussed with Maya parents, mostly mothers, concerns over health and wellbeing, which included discussions about parents’ concerns for raising children inside the United States. These focus groups gave us comprehensive perspectives from the women and provided us with foundational research that proved helpful in understanding parents’ difficulties navigating the complexities needed to work with government, health, and education agencies. Perhaps language would constitute the primary complexity for the Maya community in Canton, beyond immigration status. Community leaders estimated that about 50% of the women had never learned Spanish, keeping them isolated from the Latino/as. The men, too, often felt more comfortable in the native language. Adding complexity, the community spoke various Maya languages that were mutually incomprehensible. The majority spoke Q’anjob’al, followed by K’iche’, Mam, and Chuj. Language for the Maya gave them identity and safeguarded many parts of their culture and spirituality. It also highlighted the continuing social and racial prejudices maintained by some Spanish Americans of Hispanic heritage. The children often grew up in an environment of Spanish, Maya, and English, and all too often, without proficiency in any of the three languages. Similarly damaging, perhaps, would be the expectations of teachers and other English speakers that the Maya are HispanicLatino/as and should speak native Spanish, thus potentially leading to misunderstandings regarding the reasons behind their lack of fluency in any one language. Research has supported the notion that young people who value their ethnic culture and languages improve academic performance, although the reasons are not completely understood. Marks, Szalacha, Lamarre, Boyd, and Coll (2007), for example, note that “in spite of a sound foundation of research documenting the importance of strong ethnic identity for adolescent and adult well-being, strikingly little is known of the development of ethnic identity prior to adolescence” (p. 501). Warikoo and Carter (2009; cf. Li, 2006) found that the interconnections of identity, culture, and academic achievement were not yet well understood. They noted a “complex and dynamic relationship between ethnoracial identities, culture, and achievement” (p. 384). However, several Maya in Canton had experience with after-school programs in Florida and California and thought that the schools successfully taught children to value culture and language. Some members of the community had visited post-civil-war schools in Guatemala where Maya languages and cultures were taught and respected. These multilingual environments suggest that Guatemala has increased its acceptance of multiculturalism in recent years. I thought the Maya school might make a fascinating service-learning program for university students. Of course,

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teaching native languages would have to be done by parents, but university students could help with other skills. Insurmountable obstacles stood in the way, at least for the short term. No place for a school existed except the local church, and space would be difficult to insure. Transportation would be difficult, and not everyone had driver’s licenses. Most of the women did not drive. Sometimes cars were shared and were in constant use for work, which took place around the clock. Money would have to be collected for books and materials. Moreover, the leaders came to the consensus that the Maya themselves, including most of the leaders, had received only a few years of school in Guatemala, and they were unprepared to teach Maya history, culture, or language. Eventually, the president of Pastoral Maya told me that the Maya school would be too difficult to establish, and that it would be too difficult to find Maya parents to teach. He told me sadly that some parents had begun to express feelings of uncertainty and ambiguity about the viability of the proposed school.

PARTNERSHIP SERVICE-LEARNING As noted above, the MHCP had not been planned, but evolved from the passions of the Maya and university students and faculty. When it all began, I was unfamiliar with service-learning literature or theory, but by 2007 we had clear ideas of what we felt were valuable in our program. The methodology of research and engagement that we pursued might best be described as partnership service-learning, although for a model of service-learning, the MHCP has much in common with community service-learning, participatory action research, applied anthropology, and the Boyer model of research. Partnership emphasizes the building of trust, commitment, and shared research methods and data interpretation. It had taken time to gain the trust of the Maya leaders, and following my first meeting with the president of Pastoral Maya, it took a year of small steps before he and the other community leaders agreed to work with the university. In this effort, one of my students was a great help because of her idealism, her travel experience in Mexico and Central America, and her status as a Catholic, but above all else because she easily engaged and made friends with people in the Maya community.4 As students and faculty became friends with the Maya, we aimed for partnership relationships and reciprocal learning, and we placed a high priority on long term commitments based on mutual values. Paramount to this trust and relationship building was allowing the Maya leaders to dominate the direction of the research. We did not impose unwanted and intrusive data collection and human analysis based on research methodol-

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ogies that positioned the “other” as separate object (Brayboy & Deyhle, 2000). Maya leaders were strongly aware that they were an intensely studied people, and several had experienced being researched in their towns in Guatemala. As the popular saying goes (with variations): “a typical family among the Maya consists of a father, mother, five children, and one anthropologist.” The theory of partnership that I taught to my students was that the Maya were our equals, and we should not impose research or programs without their approval and participation. Engaging as partners instead of outside experts or data collectors also increased students’ and faculty members’ life-changing experiences through service-learning, as we believed that greater friendship and trust created honest, productive dialogue and mutual benefits. We believed that we could produce a setting conducive to more profound knowledge acquisition and indelible experiences if we collected less rather than more data. Intensive note taking and gathering of private information would have weakened trust by causing discomfort and creating impressions of authority or paternalism.

THE FAMILY FOCUS GROUPS 2007 During the summer of 2007, we began discussing the need for focus groups, thinking that more detailed information from the families might help secure grant funding for education projects and possibly the foundation for a Maya School. The first step was a planning meeting together with the MHCP and Pastoral Maya leaders. My students and I spent hours producing a dozen questions for consideration, which we brought to the meeting, but after discussion the leaders chose four questions for the parents and two questions for the children. Focus groups were to be organized and managed by the Maya, with university faculty and students acting as advisors and participants. Two group meetings took place, the first in the public park and the second in the house of one of the Maya. The meetings were highly informal, and the children spent most of the time playing or away from the parents; some people talked a lot and some very little. The goal was to inspire discussion and to come to agreement about the programs that would be needed. Although the men had planned and organized the two meetings, the women talked the most. Information came from about 20 families, and although detailed notes were not taken, the opinions concerning the problems faced by families in general were agreed upon. Parents were asked these four questions: Which language do you speak at home? Do you teach your children your native Maya? Do you teach

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Maya values? Do you feel that your children have become Americans and not Maya? In response to these questions, parents reported that they were grateful for the health services and education available in the United States, and they believed that chances for survival, health, and successful lives are much greater in the United States than in Guatemala. They were hopeful, perhaps confident, that their children would obtain an education and opportunity in life seldom achieved for the Maya in Guatemala. But living in the United States weakened the close family structure they remembered being the way of life in the villages in Guatemala. Parents understood that English must become the primary language for the children, but they wanted more respect from the children concerning Maya languages and culture. Several complained that children did not want to wear traditional clothing or eat traditional food. As most Maya children became more proficient in English while losing their native language, parents felt isolated from their children, and suspected that children did not understand or respect their parents. Some families had children who spoke among themselves in English, keeping the parents in the dark. Suspicion emerged that children might be making jokes about their parents or plotting ways to avoid parental authority. Our deepest discoveries, in my opinion, came from ambiguities during the conversations, as worries and anxieties appeared under the surface. Parents felt ashamed and inadequate that they were unable to help the children with language, homework, navigating the school system, or assimilating into the society. Children were asked these two questions: Do you feel accepted at school, and by Americans? Do you know what Maya culture and values are? Maya children during the focus groups admitted that they had trouble in school because of language. Their biggest complaint was the perceived racism of White kids at school, especially high school. Mexican and Guatemalan children, however, were friends. Some of the teachers were nice, many were not, but teachers in the lower grades were nice. The older children did not like school and wanted to drop out. But mostly the children were reticent and appeared unsure how to answer the questions. None of the oldest children joined our focus groups. Likewise discouraging was that children appeared uninterested in additional tutoring. Possibly we were seen as allies to the parents; and from the children’s point of view, the parents themselves might have been the problem. THE EDUCATION GRANT FOR MAYA FAMILIES With the information and knowledge acquired from the focus groups, I proposed and, finally in 2009, received a Kennesaw State University small research and project grant to expand work related to the hoped-for Maya

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school. The stated purpose of the grant proposal was to discover the reasons behind poor academic performance by Maya students in Canton schools, to discover why parents seemed powerless to help children, and to create projects to promote education for the Maya. The proposal described a plan to have MHCP students and faculty work with ten families over the period of a year to exchange dialogue with family members and establish education projects. Education projects thought possible included tutoring of children, advising parents, taking parents to parent/ teacher meetings, becoming liaisons between parents and schools, checking dietary habits of households, helping parents understand the school system, and helping students establish study habits. After consulting with the leaders of Pastoral Maya, we decided to meet with families as a group once a week at their church before services. Ideally we would have parents and children attend together, and following some general discussion and instruction, break into smaller working groups. Women who spoke only their native language posed a potential problem because none of the university faculty or students knew the Maya languages, but we hoped working in groups with mixed men and women or women groups that included bilingual women would succeed. (The men spoke Spanish as well as their native languages.) Our servicelearning goals would be for students to tutor the Maya in return for learning about culture, language, and immigrant lives in the United States.Among the university students, and some faculty, there was an interest in learning a Maya language, which might encourage the Maya students who remembered some language to work with parents to learn more. Unfortunately, before the program became completely functional, the Maya community began to disintegrate. During 2008 and 2009, people began losing jobs or had work cut back. Several key leaders were denied asylum status after their cases had been pending for years, and returned to Guatemala or left the state. Family houses and apartments, always crowded, became more crowded, and the number of cars to which they had access declined. Some people lost houses, and the president of Pastoral Maya lost his two retail stores that he had laboriously built up over 5 years. As thing fell apart, it seemed we had achieved little.

DISCOVERIES AND CONCLUSIONS When the Maya leaders approached us about their desire for a Maya school, we saw the potential for a service-learning project that would be of service to the Maya and an effective learning tool for university students and faculty. The parents were concerned about the children’s success in

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the schools, and they had expressed great concern about the children’s loss of interest in Maya languages and culture. In addition, parents feared that they had lost the respect of their children. We believed that working with parents to teach their children to respect and have an interest in their heritage would enhance student success in the schools. We have learned, however, that the situation of Maya children not doing well in the schools, or fully embracing their cultural histories and identities, cannot be overcome by our Maya partnership project alone, for much more will be needed than we can supply. Maya children in Canton confront obstacles that are both local and global, including the continuing effects of history going back to the European conquest of the Americas, the complexities of having immigrant (especially if undocumented) parents, and the unpreparedness of the schools and society of Georgia. The children struggle to find their space and place. They experience conflicting worlds at home with parents who are Maya, and a world outside that is greatly different but not entirely friendly. Low self-esteem—amplified by poverty, nonmainstream language fluency, and the treatment they receive from other children—contribute to a weak sense of being Maya but without a simultaneous increase in feeling part of the United States. Maya parents faced similar problems and obstacles because of language, immigration status, transportation, shame over their lack of education, confusion as to teachers’ points of view, or helplessness in complying with the needs of school, such as buying computers or helping children with homework. Indeed, Maya parents continue to be mentally and physically affected by the historic conditions in Guatemala, where traditional stereotypes consider Maya-indigenous culture inferior and backward, and Hispanic culture to be more advanced and modern.

PROGRAM ASSESSMENT University students and faculty learned much from the Maya Project, but I remain skeptical about the level of “service” we provided to the Maya community. Cress and Donahue (2011) explore various examples of service-learning projects that create political, social, and ethical dilemmas for the people involved. Partnership between the MHCP and the Pastoral Maya has been heavy with dilemmas. For example, students and faculty in the MHCP sometimes discussed the leaders’ desire to promote Maya identity among their children, and some students thought it best to encourage assimilation into the United States. One student who was the child of Haitian immigrants told me that she had experienced the pressures of growing up an immigrant in the United States. She felt that the

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children of the Maya should assimilate into the culture of the nonimmigrant children. She thought Maya culture and language would hold them back. The most difficult dilemma some students faced was their concern about working with the undocumented, who had become almost universally referred to as “illegal aliens.” However, as Cress and Donahue (2011) explain, service-learning dilemmas can help students learn about “competing values and unattractive choices” that at times demand compromise (p. 20), and thus “come to grips with democracy and its complexities” (p. xvi). In fact, as a tool of learning for university faculty and students, the Maya education project succeeded in teaching Kennesaw State students about immigration, migration, law, education, and the Maya people. The experience also taught that we have to accept the value of “learning” without achieving the intended goals of “service.” The MHCP continues working with Maya inside Georgia and in other states under the philosophy and methodology of Partnership Servicelearning. For example students and faculty worked together with Maya communities in Canton, Georgia; Greenville, South Carolina; Alamosa, Colorado; Los Angeles, California; and Portland, Oregon, to create the Maya Health Toolkit for Medical Providers, which was funded by contract from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. The first edition was completed in 2010, and the second edition will be completed in 2013 (see http://www.brycs.org/maya-toolkit/index.cfm). The MHCP helped set up a teacher education program in Belize that includes a weekend of teaching children in a Maya village, and in addition helped the College of Business build up an entrepreneurial program in Guatemala. During the last few years, we have compiled a national data base of Maya interpreters to help women and children who do not speak Spanish. For a while, we worked with a video project that was designed and directed by Maya parents, which centered on Maya children speaking in their native Maya languages. This project is on hold as the main group of parents lost jobs and moved away. In Fall Semester of 2012, the MHCP program became the foundation for an engaged university class that practiced service-learning with the Maya, and brought Maya guests into the classroom to interact with students. Ultimately, we might find the methods to achieve the “service” as well as the “learning,” but if we fail, the children of Maya immigrants will remain in danger of becoming a new disadvantaged group of young people in the coming generation. However, we need not exit this chapter with an entirely negative ending, for across the United States there are dozens of communities where some children are successfully navigating their Maya heritage and their U.S. citizenship (Batz, 2010; Lopez & LeBaron, 2012; Ludwig et al., 2012). For the Maya in Canton, the obstacles have been too large, and the

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Maya allies too few. Perhaps when the general public learns to accept the new Maya immigrants—natives to their continent long before the creation of the United States of America—they will learn the greatness of the Maya people, as we have learned at Kennesaw State University.

NOTES 1.

2. 3.

4.

There are several general textbooks on the Maya; see, for example, Coe (2011). For an interesting look at the modern Maya and the topic of the year 2012, see, for example, Sitler (2010). This statement was made at the 2004 Pastoral Maya Conference, and was read as part of a longer letter. A few classic studies on the Maya in the United States present limited material on children and parents. See, for example, Burns (1993) and Hagan (1994); for some recent works see Batz (2010), Ludwig (2012), and LeBaron (2012). Thank you, Allison.

REFERENCES Batz, G. (2010). Expressions of Maya identity and culture in Los Angeles: Coloniality of power, resistance, and cultural memory (Unpublished master of arts thesis). The University of Texas at Austin. Bohon, S. H., Macpherson, H., & Atiles, J. (2005). Educational barriers for new Latinos in Georgia. Journal of Latinos and Education, 4(1), 43-58. Brayboy, B. M. J., & Deyhle, D. (2000). Insider-outsider: Researchers in American Indian communities. Theory into Practice, 39(3), 163-169. Burns, A. (1994). Maya in exile: Guatemalans in Florida. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. Coe, M. D. (2011). The Maya (8th ed.). New York, NY: Thames & Hudson. The Consulate General of Guatemala in Atlanta and the Maya Heritage Community Project at Kennesaw State University. (2010). Survey of 1,447 immigrants. Atlanta & Kennesaw, GA: Authors. Cress, C. M., & Donahue, D. M. (Eds.). (2011). Democratic dilemmas of teaching service-learning: Curricular strategies for success. Sterling, VA: Stylus. Hagan, J. M. (1994). Deciding to be legal: A Maya community in Houston. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press. LeBaron, A. (Ed.) (2006). Maya Pastoral: National conferences and essays on the Maya immigrants, 2004-2005. Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw State University Press. LeBaron, A. (2012). When Latinos are not Latinos: The case of the Guatemalan Maya in the United States, the Southeast, and Georgia. Latino Studies, 10(1-2), 179-195. Li, G. (2006). Biliteracy and trilingual practices in the home context: Case studies of Chinese-Canadian children. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 6, 355-381.

210 A. LEBARON Lopez, D., & LeBaron, A. (2012). Pastoral Maya and the Maya Heritage Community Project: Building Maya civil society in the United States. Practicing Anthropology, 34(1), 13-16. Lucas, N. (2009). The influence of integrative and interdisciplinary learning on civic engagement. In B. Jacoby & Associates (Eds.), Civic engagement in higher education (pp. 105-106). San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass. Ludwig, S. A., Lucas, F., Nicolas, L., Archuleta, F., Sandoval, A., & Carbutt, R. (2012). Supporting respect: Community partnership in Alamosa, Colorado. Practicing Anthropology, 34(1), 32-36. Marks, A. K., Szalacha, L. A., Lamarre, M., Boyd, M. J., & Coll, C. G. (2007). Emerging ethnic identity and interethnic group social preferences in middle childhood: Findings from the Children of Immigrants Development in Context (CIDC) study. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 31, 501-513. Menjívar, C. (2002). Living in two worlds? Guatemalan-origin children in the United States and emerging transnationalism. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 28, 531-552. Odem, M., & González, B. (2006). Health and welfare of Maya immigrant families: Perspectives of Maya parents and county agencies. In A. LeBaron (Ed.), Maya Pastoral 2004-2005: National conferences and essays on the Maya immigrants (pp. 187-195). Kennesaw, GA: Kennesaw State University Press. Portes, P., & Smagorinsky, P. (2010). Static structures, changing demographics: Educating for shifting populations in stable schools. English Education, 42, 236-248. Sitler, R. (2010). The living Maya: Ancient wisdom in the era of 2012. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. UNICEF. (2012). At a glance: Guatemala. New York: Author. Retrieved April 10, 2012, from http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/guatemala_1938.html Warikoo, N., & Carter, P. (2009). Cultural explanations for racial and ethnic stratification in academic achievement: A call for a new and improved theory. Review of Educational Research, 79, 366-394.

CHAPTER 12

SERVICE-LEARNING IN ENGLISH COMP Connecting Academic Studies With Real Life M. MIKOLCHAK

Maria Mikolchak

Service-learning has come a long way since the time when, until the mid1980s, it was practically unknown as a pedagogical practice beyond a closed circle of practitioners. Yet in many higher education institutions it still remains the domain of a few faculty interested in integrating servicelearning in their disciplines. About 5 years ago, St. Cloud State University (SCSU), my home institution, started realizing that the benefits of incorporating service-learning into course offerings outweighed the minimal expense of establishing a position of a service-learning coordinator who could provide help to faculty interested in engaging in service-learning projects. When I first started teaching service-learning courses about 10 years ago, there was no university help, support, or guidance of any kind for service-learning initiatives, and I had to play it by ear. At the time I was experimenting with teaching English 191 Composition and actively searching for a way to relate the abstractions of my discipline to the realities of the world. Composition is a required course in all majors at SCSU, with students remarkably uninterested in taking it. The attitudes fluctuate

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between, “I don’t want to be here” and “Let me do the graded assignments and go home.” When, on perusing some online articles on teaching approaches, I stumbled into service-learning, I thought it was well worth a try. Over a summer I created a course that truly convinced me of the revolutionary potential of service-learning for transforming the often stale educational practice of teaching English 191 Composition. As time went by, based on my newly acquired experience with service-learning implementation, I started experimenting with a variety of courses and different servicelearning projects. Through networking and learning more about the bigger community of Central Minnesota, I succeeded in developing a sense of appropriateness of specific projects for the course goals, and almost a sixth sense for what will work in a particular classroom and how students can learn from the service. This chapter will record my experiences with various courses I taught as service-learning projects and the lessons I learned from them as an instructor.

FRESHMEN COMPOSITION AND SERVICE-LEARNING My pilot course where I tried service-learning as pedagogy was English Composition, a semester long three-credit course. According to the standard course description for SCSU freshmen composition course: The purpose of English 191 is to introduce you to college-level writing, reading, and thinking. By the time you finish this course you should be able to read critically various texts that make up American culture and literature and write about them. Also, the course will help you to make informed judgments based on research as well as interpretation of your personal experience.

This last part, “your personal experience,” gave me the most trouble. No matter what topics I picked for the course, not all of the students could relate to them, which made interpretation of the personal experience an empty promise. For a couple of years, one of the topical categories addressed in the course was gender and violence, and these issues were traditionally addressed through readings of selected texts followed by in-class discussions. To help students relate to the concerns involved, service-learning seemed to be the perfect pedagogy. Trying to define service-learning for myself and going through various books and articles, I realized that much of the literature on service-learning records a prolonged debate on what service-learning actually is. Kendall (1990) wrote that there were 147 definitions of service-learning in literature (cited in Eyler & Giles, 1999),

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which for me was a clear sign that, rather than immersing myself in the theoretical debate, all I needed as a practitioner was a working definition. I ended up with the definition offered by Bringle and Hatcher (1995): Service-learning is a course-based, credit bearing educational experience in which students (a) participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and (b) reflects on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. (p. 112)

Modifying the course structure to incorporate service-learning in a smooth and logical way was probably the most challenging step. My work resulted in the following plan: Building on the theory of argument and introducing the Toulmin model of argument early in the semester, I would then proceed to apply the theory to specific images from everyday life. I would also introduce the topic of violence last, after the students felt more comfortable with the basic elements of deconstruction and learned how to interrogate ideas and images that they had previously accepted uncritically. Throughout the course, I aimed at attaining two major goals: teaching students to read arguments critically (analysis) and teaching students how to write about them (production). All that work was designed to culminate in the final project that would encompass more than just a reflection, representing instead a synthesis of a reflection on the service-learning project and a substantial research effort on the topic of violence. So that these mostly first-year students could cope well with the research component, I arranged for library research sessions with experienced librarians who were also familiar with the specific topic we were covering and understood specific feminist issues in general. Turning to practical considerations for teaching a service-learning course, I faced a number of problems. In particular, I struggled with how to distribute the time between in-class and out-of-class work, how many extra hours to allocate for service-learning, how to reconcile different schedules, and, finally, oftentimes, how to manage the logistics of transportation, access, and various permissions. Working on the preparation for the course, I found the following principles suggested by Campus Outreach Opportunity League (Mintz & Hesser, 1996) especially useful. Service-learning, they say, should involve: • community voice (service-learning should aim at meeting the needs of the community); • orientation and training (students should be provided with information on their service, the organization for which they do the service, and the issue);

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• meaningful action (the service should be necessary and valuable to the community itself); • reflection (this crucial component of the service-learning experience should happen immediately after the experience to discuss it in order to place the experience into a broader context); [and] • evaluation (students should evaluate their learning experience and agencies should evaluate the effectiveness of the students’ service). (pp. 30-31) My very first service-learning teaching endeavor was the most challenging one, not only because of my inexperience, but mostly because of the specifics of the project we were working on. Although Annemarie’s Shelter for Battered Women in St. Cloud seemed a perfect place to learn and help, it was also a place with very limited access for the public, with a strict security system and a number of other regulations that are necessitated by the very sensitive nature of the site. Since my project was a first time experiment on both sides, both the shelter director and I moved cautiously and decided to limit students to accessing the transitional house only instead of engaging in work at the main living facility. This setting—the transitional house—provides women with an inexpensive place where they can live temporarily after they leave the shelter. It thus enables them an intermediate home as they move toward independent housing. Keeping in mind that, rather than creating some artificial need, service-learning is focused on responding to the actual needs of the community, the shelter director and I figured out that what the shelter really needed was cleaning and painting of the transitional house. We decided that my students would help with those tasks. As much as the literature on service-learning points out (e.g., Mintz & Hesser, 1996), good organization is time-consuming and requires a lot of energy on the part of the instructor. Without effective administration, integrating service-learning into a course might become just another failed revolution in pedagogy. I am particularly grateful to Judy Gay, former longtime director of Annemarie’s Shelter, and to Eveily Freeman, former service-learning coordinator at SCSU, who assisted me with service arrangements and with adapting our service to the learning needs of students. We had had several meetings long before I even started working on the course syllabus, in which we discussed the needs of the shelter, the needs of the course, and the best ways to integrate service into the discipline. We also planned several presentations for the students before actually exposing them to the service that included Eveily Freeman’s presentation on service-learning early in the semester and two presentations by Annemarie’s social workers midway. This orientation gave students ample time to think about our expectations for them and their

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expectations of us, and to address possible problems they might see with service-learning. Minor and major organizational problems included time management, transportation, work supervision, providing lunch, and other such details. Several students had conflicts with other courses, since service was arranged for two specific days at a set time. As an instructor, I helped to solve the problem with other instructors, in most cases arranging for individual assignments to cover for the missed class. Fortunately, I received full understanding and cooperation on the part of my colleagues at SCSU. Although service-learning at that time was not institutionalized as a program at our university, individual endeavors were certainly supported by other faculty and not opposed by administration. The students were to spend a total of ten hours (two 5-hour days, plus one hour for lunch break) working on the transitional house. Annemarie’s provided tools and lunch. Also, on the second day of work, students were invited on a tour of the shelter where Judy Gay, the Director, talked to them about the history of the shelter and showed the facility. In addition, before the actual service days, we had two presenters from Annemarie’s who talked about the shelter and the problem of domestic violence and, in particular, violence against children. The presentation included a video and course articles that the class had to analyze. Participation in the service-learning project remarkably increased students’ interest in the topic discussed in class and their understanding of the issue. It made the whole learning process meaningful and allowed students to relate to it in many ways. While choosing a concrete topic for research papers, students now had a very good idea of what they wanted to research, unlike a typical class where most students totally depend on the instructor to provide the topic or prompt. Research papers also demonstrated personal involvement and allowed students to use their servicelearning experience to understand, process, and analyze the data they researched. The goal of the final in class presentation, which was on students’ research projects, was to create a space where students could share with other class members how they chose their topic and conducted their research. This assignment required more reflection and critical thinking. Thus, for example, one student wanted to research the history of the shelters in Minnesota, but was surprised to find out that the information was almost nonexistent. He then concluded that although domestic violence was one of the major problems in the country, there was an amazing lack of governmental interest in domestic violence, as evidenced by inadequate governmental funding. Additionally, service-learning provided ways for students to connect all parts of the course into a meaningful whole: analyzing texts, viewing all

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texts as arguments, producing a critique of real-world problems, and conducting research on the topic, which service-learning allowed them to have more sensitivity toward and understanding of. This synthesis was vividly demonstrated in students’ final projects, but also in the course evaluations. The majority of students positively commented on the logic of the course and the connections among the various parts of the course that they were able to make throughout the entire semester. The importance of reflection in learning, generally, and in servicelearning, particularly, has been acknowledged broadly in the literature on service-learning. Hutchings and Wutzdorff (1988), for example, write that “the capacity for reflection is what transforms experience into learning” (p. 15). While I allotted time and space for students to reflect on their experiences and generate ideas, for many students the journal assignments served as an outlet for their feelings and thoughts, providing them with a safe and comfortable space to share, with a somewhat therapeutic effect. Another benefit of assigning reflections in writing was the sheer amount of writing that the class put into the journals in what was listed as a composition course. One of the students wrote in her journals that, in fact, journal writing was the only form of writing that she liked, and, not surprisingly, her journals were much longer than the suggested one-page length. In general, with most of the students the number of journals in their portfolio exceeded the requirement set by the syllabus. One student even made fun of herself by indicating that she had developed an addiction to journal writing. All students expressed positive attitudes about the service-learning project, although for different reasons and in very different ways. For one of the students, the first service day was “one of the funniest days of class ever.” The student explained that during the service work, people in class really got to know each other and to interact: Everyone was having an awesome time, and the work was easy, even though I don’t even mind work like that. It didn’t even seem like work because we did not have someone over our heads watching us and criticizing us. It was volunteer work, and I really enjoyed the feeling I got when I got done. You cannot buy that type of feeling anywhere. There is no price for it. It makes me really want to start volunteering so I can help make a little difference in someone’s life. I might apply at Annemarie’s.

This student also mentioned how happy he was that people at the shelter were appreciative of that work. Although this student’s reflections offer a positive evaluation of the experience, it is easy to see that it mostly revolves around the student and the way he and other people see him. This emphasis may seem discouraging, yet most researchers notice that egoism serves the ultimate goal of

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increasing one’s own welfare with rewards such as feeling a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, gaining skills, and affiliating with others. This disposition is critical to initial and continued involvement in service (Winniford, Carpenter, & Grider, 1995). The following journals of the same student, however, show the progress from what service-learning does to the student to how it helps other people: “I and my friend both wanted to help out and make a difference in St. Cloud where we will be living for the next 3 years. We don’t feel that violence is the answer in families, and we should try and change that for the better.” Thus, he indicates a movement from egoism to altruism (acting with the ultimate goal of helping others) as a result of a continued involvement with the project. Although most students found the service-learning experience helpful in achieving class goals, one student wrote that he did not know what this project had to do with the class. Nevertheless, he said he was happy to have worked at the shelter, since on his own he would have never done any volunteer work. For this student service-learning did not work out. Enjoying volunteer service has its merits, but within the academic context the purpose of service-learning is not to push students into volunteerism, but to help them acquire academic knowledge in the discipline through service. However, although for this particular student academically the class did not bring the expected results (largely owing to absences from class and insufficient time investment in studying), his positive experience at Annemarie’s and his desire to do more work for the shelter was at least one positive outcome of his total class experience. As an instructor, I was fascinated to see how students’ reflections developed from “the fun class” and “making friends” through thoughts on the poor living conditions of women and children in the shelter to trying to deal with the problem itself. Students started talking about domestic violence and abuse as a social evil, about budget cuts that affected the shelter, about responsibilities of politicians, and about the upcoming elections. As Eyler and Giles (1999) summarize, “service-learning aims to connect the personal and intellectual, to help students acquire knowledge that is useful in understanding the world, build critical thinking capacities, and perhaps lead to fundamental questions about learning and about society and to a commitment to improve both” (p. 14). McEwen (1996) names the following as anticipated learning and development outcomes for the students: greater complexity in thinking, ethical commitments regarding themselves, and what they know and believe; greater awareness of themselves as, and of their own, racial, ethnic, and cultural heritage; greater sense of their place in the United States; increased inclusiveness and empathy; greater clarity about themselves and their life purposes; and development and maturity of their values. Those were the goals that I pursued while engaging in service-learning pedagogy.

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There is evidence that students can better analyze a social problem when they combine academic knowledge gained in class with personal experience through service (Eyler & Giles, 1999). That is exactly what happened in my composition class. One of the most positive outcomes was students’ newly acquired ability to cope with problems for which there were no obvious solutions. Thus, from easy suggestions at the beginning of class that abused women should “simply leave the abuser,” students developed a much more mature and informed understanding of the complexity of the issue and of the lack of a radical solution to the problem. The culminating part of the class was to be a major research paper. The service-learning class differed from my typical composition classes in many ways. First and foremost, students did not have any problems with choosing a topic. They were really interested in many aspects of the issues raised in class and seemed eager to do research to answer their own questions. They were given a lot of freedom in choosing the topic of their liking, and connecting it to the service-learning experience was not a requirement. Interestingly, all of the students in class ended up researching a topic that was connected to their service. Final projects were, generally, of a better than average quality, which I think to a great degree reflects the genuine interest students had in their research. Another quality common to all of the projects was their more personal character, not only in the sense of referring to the service experience and reflection on it, but also in the sense of talking about their own families and communities in which they have grown up. Also, the papers contained a richer mix of sources, including interviews, recalled experiences of service, lectures, and videos. Thus, service-learning helped eradicate the common scourge of English composition classes: the lack of engagement with the material. Final evaluations for the class demonstrated the overall success of the service-learning experience. There was a lot of evidence of the growing social consciousness on the part of the students and willingness to actively offer help to the community in which they live. Although I do not want to overestimate students’ willingness to do more for the shelter and to volunteer on a regular basis (not everybody will eventually do it), evaluations conveyed a feeling of awakening sensitivity to societal needs. From the thirteen students registered for the class, all but one expressed a desire to do volunteer work for the community in which they live. Seven people said they want to contact Annemarie’s shelter and offer their services in the coming school year. Two male students who asked the most questions about people who work at Annemarie’s during our tour and learned that Annemarie’s was looking for male volunteers (to give children a positive example of male involvement), expressed desire to work with the children.

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In general, students, for most of whom this course was their first college experience, gave a very high evaluation (5 on a scale from 1 to 5) of learning through service and said they would be willing to take more classes with service involved. Some of the success of the course can be attributed to the lack of pressure. Although participating in the service part was a necessary prerequisite for passing the class, no percentage of the grade was assigned to the work at the shelter. I worked with my students at the shelter and, based on their reactions, I saw that I made the right decision in doing so. My role was not to observe or criticize the students, but to participate in the useful work we were doing for our community. I was happy to be accepted as a member of the group and as an equal. Students were not graded for how well they worked; they were graded for demonstrating what they had learned both from service and from other class assignments; that is, they were graded for the work specific to the discipline.

HONORS GENDER FOCUS LITERATURE COURSE: INTEGRATION OF SERVICE-LEARNING Based on my experience with teaching freshmen composition as servicelearning over a couple of years, I felt I was ready to incorporate that pedagogy into another course offered at SCSU, Honors Gender Focus Literature Course, with the specific topic of “Motherhood: Images and Realities.” This course is described in the course catalogue as “an introduction to reading, thinking, and writing about literature, with special focus on gender-related subject matter.” Since I expected that most students would not be mothers themselves, I decided to expose them to that experience through partnering up with daycare centers and youth organizations that could provide opportunities of mothering and mother work. The goal was to find ways for students to observe parent-and-child interactions, participate personally, and reflect both on their own experiences and their observations of other people. Ideally, this work would bring theory and practice together in order to reinforce the theoretical knowledge acquired in the course through multiple readings on the topic. Again, the project had to be structured in such a way that it would meet identified community needs rather than seek to create ways for students to get into the areas of work where they might not even be welcome. From my previous experience with work at the Shelter for Battered Women, I knew that many places with reduced childcare costs would be in need of such volunteers. The Shelter itself was not among them. Although up to fifteen children usually live at the Shelter at any given time, they are spe-

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cial needs children, and work with them would require mandatory psychological training. Through networking in the community, I finally found a day care center in St. Cloud that served low-income parents called Kangaroo’s Pocket. Cherie Aguilera, the director of the center, was willing to work with me on the project, and together we created a schedule suitable for both the day care and the students to maintain. Since the course included the components of reading, writing, and discussion, I redesigned it in such a way as to include reflection on service-learning in the form of class reflections and discussions, and in the form of personal journal reflections. The activities at the day care center were aimed at connecting service-learning to course content, providing additional material for the topics discussed, and practicing writing skills. Oftentimes problems students are struggling with in English composition courses are directly related to the paucity of their experiences and the lack of substance in their discussions. The eternal question about the length of the paper and the attempts to produce the required number of pages through increasing the font size and the margins can be easily resolved if students realize they have a lot to say on a topic. I firmly believe that part of the undeniable benefits of learning through service is creating the much needed “have a lot to say” situation. In my honors literature course, service-learning provided students with a vast number of experiences through engagements that ranged from exposure to child abuse and neglect to witnessing specific psychological issues the families they observed went though at various stages of their lives (new babies, separations, divorces, and other seismic changes). The immediate result was that students almost had too much to say and started facing the task of a more advanced writer: how to condense multiple pages written into the required number of pages. The final outcome of the course was the integration of content and methodologies from various disciplines (e.g., sociology, philosophy, religion, rhetorical studies, history, and women’s studies) incorporated into the real life experiences of what it means to do mothering work in today’s society. Reading materials used in the course that addressed groups and issues such as African American mothers, Native American mothers, and mothers in nontraditional roles such as lesbian parents and teenage parents, all came alive though service-learning activities. Portfolios created as the final project at the end of the semester attested to the success of integrating service-learning into that particular honors writing and reading course. Compared to Beginners’ Composition, the Honors course produced even better results of integrating service-learning into the curriculum. This group of honors students all appeared disciplined, motivated, diligent, and academically sophisticated

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and engaged. Offered a challenging task, they were not discouraged and were always creative in approaching the tasks. Thus, where servicelearning might be a struggle for many students, it can actually be a welcome challenge and experience for many others.

ADVANCED COMPOSITION COURSE AND SERVICE-LEARNING Having experimented with service-learning in institutionally labeled lower level undergraduate courses, in Composition and Honors Literature, and having successfully implemented two different projects, I was ready to broaden the practice to upper division courses in composition. English 331, our university’s Advanced Academic Writing course, is defined as mastering “multiple definitions, purposes, audiences, genres and ethics in academic writing; relationship to workplace and civic writing, [h]istorical and theoretical assumptions, writing practice in various written and electronic genres.” While I was searching for a community partner to connect the course to service, this time the community partner actually sought me out. I was approached by the coordinator of the Retired and Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) in St. Cloud, who expressed an interest in collaborative work with SCSU students. Specifically, the coordinator was looking for students who would interview the RSVP volunteers and write stories on them that could be published in our local papers, such as The Newsleaders, Sauk Rapids Herald, St. Cloud Times, and other outlets. Each student in class was given the name of a volunteer who was willing to be interviewed for a “volunteer profile.” The student contacted the volunteer to schedule a time to meet in public in order for the student to conduct the interview. The RSVP coordinator compiled a list of suggested questions that students could use and discussed them with me, and then I shared them with students, asking for their input. Together, we ended up with a basic list of questions, including factual questions about volunteers’ age, occupation, family, and hobbies, as well as open-ended questions about what in life they find and do not find important, why they volunteer, and why they find volunteering rewarding. After the interview, the students were to write a short profile of the volunteer and the history of their volunteerism. As the students’ English professor, I would help students to edit their stories (to ensure that they are of a publishable quality) and then to forward the stories to RSVP. Our community partner would then decide which stories seemed most impressive and reflective of the RSVP mission and vision of facilitating volunteerism among the elderly community in St. Cloud and Central Minnesota area and send them to various media.

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Parallel to these activities and as part of the class instruction, students were to have three workshop sessions on Web development, taught by an Information Media faculty member. In these sessions, students would learn the basics of information literacy and methods of online publishing. The major part of the hands-on sessions was learning to create a webpage. Students could use the materials they collected, including the interview, the story they wrote, and pictures of the interviewee to create a website. At the end of the course, the class would create a course website in order for RSVP to gain a better sense of the work students accomplished in the course. The goal of the information media section was to help students develop an understanding of the opportunities of the technological environment in real life and to allow them to enhance their understanding of the role of technology in school and community contexts. Thus, students were learning ways to engage with media-related activities that could benefit a service-learning community partner. The initial project involved 20 students enrolled in English 331, the instructor in English (me), the instructor in Web development, the project coordinator from RSVP, the SCSU service-learning coordinator, and the people interviewed. This course had a less rigorous structure as to when and how students conducted the service. They were given general ideas as to time commitment as well as the deadline for finishing parts of the project, including the initial contact with the interviewed person, the interview itself, the writing of stories, and the development of the website.The actual implementation of the tasks, however, was left to the students. Some students arranged for several meetings with RSVP volunteers to get to know them better; others mostly talked on the telephone or communicated through e-mail; some felt they needed an additional interview to fill in the gaps in their stories. The settings were also very different: Several people met at the University library, while others went out together for a cup of coffee. The outcome of the project was very impressive. Students developed their interviewing and communication as well as writing skills; they also increased their information literacy. In addition to the need for the stories to be technically well written so that they could be published, the project presented a good opportunity to discuss how to write a story about someone in such a way that it could bring the person to life. Moreover, the opportunity to learn Web development introduced students to the contemporary methods of publishing and advertising. This project also was of great benefit to RSVP and their volunteers by facilitating public recognition for the volunteers and by providing publicity to RSVP. Most importantly, the project involved students in the hands-on application of academic knowledge gained in their course work, thus increas-

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ing their overall academic preparation, allowing them to practice their newly acquired skills, connecting their studies to community life, and raising their awareness of civic action and responsibility through the active engagement with the project. Becoming information literate is a gain that can benefit all students in their further academic development. The project helped to build the connection between SCSU and St. Cloud community and positively affected the life and development of the region. The project was also innovative for SCSU in the way it connected teaching two disciplines, English and information media, and servicelearning. While English classes at St. Cloud State University are sometimes (actually rarely) taught as service-learning classes, there have been no classes connecting two disciplines and service-learning in a single project with community outreach of that scope and importance. This service-learning project addressed a need to enhance our students' sense of civic responsibility by creating an educational experience in which students participate in organized service activities that meet identified community needs. The students reflected on the service activity, gaining further understanding of the course content and a broader appreciation of the discipline. This need has been documented through various course evaluations where students commented on disconnects between their academic activities and real life. Becoming engaged in civic activities was of paramount importance for the project. Further, learning how to publicize and advertise the gained knowledge and experience becomes, in the era of the Internet, important and necessary in any occupation that the students might engage in in the future. Service-learning helped establish the principle of helping students achieve their learning and career goals and the principle of educating people committed to building and maintaining vital civic and economic institutions that contribute to thriving communities.

CONCLUSION English composition has often been criticized for working in unreal rhetorical situations (Heilker, 1997), whereas service-learning creates a very real situation with a very real audience and very real needs at any level of writing. It also gives students ideas they want to research and write about, an asset in any freshmen class where the majority of students declare from the very beginning that they hate to read and to write, but also in an advanced class where students still need new ideas and guidance. Most importantly, service-learning can be sustained by developing the models described in this chapter through continuing work with community partners interested in service, establishing connections with local universities,

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and initiating contacts with other public organizations that might develop an interest as service-learning becomes a more widespread practice. While English seems to be a perfect fit for many projects, the models suggested might be easily adjusted to fit many other disciplines. The development of a successful model for teaching information literacy can be applied across disciplines. Fully understanding that service-learning is a beneficial pedagogy, I also realize that it is not successful automatically. It requires a lot of time and effort to make it work. But my experience with service-learning projects in various classes convinced me that the outcome is worth the effort.

REFERENCES Bringle, R., & Hatcher, J. A. (1995). A service-learning curriculum for faculty. Michigan Journal of Community Service-Learning, 2, 112-122. Eyler, J., & Giles, D. E., Jr. (1999). Where’s the learning in service-learning? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Heilker, P. (1997). Rhetoric made real: Civic discourse and writing beyond the curriculum. In L. Adler-Kassner, R. Crooks, & A. Watters (Eds.), Writing the community: Concepts and models for service-learning in composition (pp. 71-78). Washington, DC & Urbana, IL: American Association for Higher Education & National Council of Teachers of English. Hutchings, P., & Wutzdorff, A. (1988). Experiential learning across the curriculum: Assumptions and principles. In P. Hutchings & A. Wutzdorff (Eds.), Knowing and doing: Learning through experience. New directions for teaching and learning, No. 35 (pp. 5-19). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. McEwen, M. K. (1996). Enhancing student learning and development through service-leaning. In B. Jacoby & Associates (Eds.), Service-learning in higher education (pp. 53-91). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Mintz, S., & Hesser, G. (1996). Principles of good practice in service-learning. In B. Jacoby & Associates (Eds.), Service-learning in higher education (pp. 26-52). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Winniford, J. C., Carpenter, D. S., & Grider, C. (1995). An analysis of the traits and motivations of college students involved in service. Journal of College Student Development, 36, 27-38.

CHAPTER 13

ENLACE A Service-Learning Model for Latina/o Students F. MARQUEZ

Federico Marquez

As the largest and fastest-growing minority in the United States— represented by over fifty million people—Hispanics will continue to be an integral force in the country (Sepúlveda, 2010). The Hispanic population grew by over 61% in the l970s and continued to expand by 55% in the l980s and 58% in the l990s (Smith & Nogle, 2004). Hispanic residents are not evenly distributed through the United States and are concentrated in California, Texas, New York, Florida, and Illinois (Smith & Nogle, 2004). Hispanics in New Mexico, California, Texas, Arizona, and Nevada account for the largest proportion of population in each respective state (Smith & Nogle, 2004). The highest Hispanic growth rates have occurred in the southern United States and include such states as Georgia, North Carolina, and Alabama (Smith & Nogle, 2004; see Matthews, LeBaron, this volume). Population predictions indicate that by 2050, Hispanics in the United States will reach approximately 102 million, representing almost 24.5% of the total U.S. population (Rivera-Mills, 2010). Additionally, 50% of Hispanics drop out of high school and of those completing high school, 50% are not ready to compete at the college level (Sepúlveda,

Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning pp. 225–239 Copyright © 2014 by Information Age Publishing All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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2010). These statistics pose a variety of concerns. Due to historical, institutional, economic, and attitudinal perspectives, a large number of Hispanics continue to experience educational challenges. However, committed professionals are working to confront these dilemmas by implementing service-learning and/or community engagement initiatives and programs dedicated to enhancing Hispanic/Latina/o success. Butler University, through its Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, developed a “Service-Learning in Spanish” course to provide academic assistance to public school English as a second language students (Carney, 2004). The initiative assisted Hispanic/Latina/o students and at the same time guided the service-learning class participants in becoming aware of the need for community involvement, alter their perception of immigrants, develop problem solving skills, and most importantly, develop respect for others as human beings (Carney, 2004). Plann (2002) indicates that “instruction should not occur in isolation from the surrounding community; ideally, it should draw on and contribute to that community” (p. xx). Therefore, she implies that servicelearning includes academic and community based learning and not mere volunteerism. Through Plann’s service-learning course at UCLA (Latina/os and Literacy), students gained communication competence, understanding of pedagogical theories, perspectives on family literacy, insight into the importance of relationships in a different culture, a sense of social responsibility, personal growth, and a concern for social justice. Service-learning programs concentrating on Hispanic/Latina/o students continue to evolve and provide pathways for greater involvement and success. The National Center for Learning at the Education Commission of the United States in 2008 held a Thinkers Meeting to explore “the positive relationship between service-learning and Hispanic students’ education, success and aspirations” (Lennon, 2009, p. 1). The exploration consisted of conducting case studies at nine schools with large Hispanic populations to determine some best practices for engaging Hispanic students in service-learning. A number of recommendations for best practices resulted from conducting the case studies. The recommendations include: 1. Providing a culturally relevant service-learning curriculum that allows for understanding of Hispanic culture and acquiring the skills to make positive changes. 2. Tracking the impact of service-learning on student success as well as developing intervention strategies to support the Hispanic service-learning participants.

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3. Engaging community partners and families. Partnerships succeed when the service-learning entity, through designated liaisons, establishes and creates relationships with community agencies/ organizations and engages parents in meaningful activities. 4. Aligning service-learning curriculum with local, state, and national standards. The alignment provides for content, credibility, consistency, and program modification. 5. Forming partnerships with higher education institutions. A number of the best practices identified by the National Center for Learning are presently integral components of the Southern New Mexico ENLACE (Engaging Latina/o Communities for Education), which will be discussed in detail after a brief overview of Latina/o perspectives on service-learning.

THE LATINA/O STUDENT AND SERVICE-LEARNING Today, service-learning activities are practiced in many academic disciplines and can be found in all types of educational institutions. For Latina/o students, service-learning activities carry strong ties to community engagement and community service. Service-learning may be described as students combining academic study with some form of direct, practical involvement, usually with a community close to the university (Mohan, 1995). Students undertake work and extended field experiences, or conduct investigations in community settings that they incorporate into their education. However, despite the rise of servicelearning in higher education, there exists a large gap in the levels of civic engagement, civic knowledge, cultural and community identity, as well as disparities in academic achievement levels of Latina/o students. Although the number and variety of community-based efforts continue to increase, so do civic engagement activities that place students in learning activities that may actually reinforce prejudice and power differentials between those conferring and those receiving the service (King, 2003). For instance, many service-learning activities place students in agencies that serve marginalized Latina/o communities. This placement may actually create the experience as charity between the volunteer student and the recipient (Cuban & Anderson, 2007) as opposed to taking the perspective of, and approaching marginalized groups and harnessing resources for, social change with colleges and universities as major change agents (Burin, 2006). To clarify, what often passes as “service” is really charitable giving. Service and volunteering require work with oppressed communities, avoiding the “savior” syndrome, and challenging the

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hierarchies that remain in place when, for example, wealthy students are sent into Latina/o neighborhoods to do service-learning, but never discuss how their relative wealth is connected with the relative poverty of the people inhabiting those neighborhoods. Educators will continue to come into contact with Latina/o students in higher education whose cultural, ethnic, linguistic, racial, and social class backgrounds differ from their own. In order to provide more meaningful knowledge and skills for teaching in today’s cultural context, instructors and professors must be able to understand important issues such as race, ethnicity, and culture, and to recognize how these important concepts may be integrated into critical service-learning as strategies to shape the learning experiences for many Latina/o students in higher education. As institutions of higher education continue efforts to institutionalize service-learning, they are failing to construct pedagogical service-learning activities that have relevance and meaning to Latina/o students’ social and cultural identities. For Latina/o students participating in critical service activities and civic engagement, learning becomes a means by which they can challenge oppressive forces within their social contexts.

ENGAGING LATINA/O COMMUNITIES FOR EDUCATION ENLACE is a multiyear initiative to strengthen the educational pipeline and increase opportunities for Latinas/os to enter and complete college. ENLACE was launched in 1997, well before Census data confirmed that Latina/os are the nation’s largest ethnic group. In New Mexico, a statewide collaboration of gente provide opportunities for the voices to be heard of underrepresented children and families, people who have historically not had a say in policy initiatives that directly affect them and their communities. Therefore, they, and others from the community, are at the forefront of this initiative. The collaborative is based on a process that empowers communities to find their voice in the pursuit of social justice and educational access and success. ENLACE’s overall goal is to transform New Mexico’s educational systems in order to dramatically increase the academic and socioeconomic success of its greatest resource: young people (ENLACE, 2012). In Southern New Mexico ENLACE is housed at New Mexico State University in the College of Education. The work of the Southern New Mexico ENLACE (ENLACE Southern) is to empower participants through integrated programs that constitute an institutional pathway. These programs consist of the ENLACE ¡Si Se Puede! Curriculum for first generation middle school students, the Academic Curriculum for Excellence (A.C.E.) for first generation high school students, parent involvement,

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and first generation ENLACE students enrolled in NMSU classes through culturally responsive methods of education in supportive student learning communities. Each of these programs incorporates critical teaching pedagogies, multicultural education, democratic processes to learning, civic engagement, and service-learning for Latina/o student participants of the program. The ENLACE program at NMSU currently serves 250 students from 7 high schools and 4 school districts. In addition, three hundred students are supported at the university.

A.C.E. The A.C.E. curricula offer students learning opportunities to critically engage with the world they live in, to question, and to develop solutions to problems and issues that affect their schools and communities. Examples of such learning opportunities include oral history projects, school/ community action research projects, and service-learning projects. These opportunities assist students in becoming more knowledgeable of their personal, cultural, and community histories as well as issues and challenges impacting their community. Students in the A.C.E. courses receive leadership training and are provided opportunities to address issues and problems through research and community action/service-learning projects. Through such learning experiences, students not only become directly engaged in community leadership, but at the same time develop critically reflective knowledge bases, research, reading and writing skills, and literacies that prepare them to become leaders in their community and throughout their college careers and beyond. These learning opportunities not only benefit the students, but the findings that A.C.E. students produce from their research also become scientific contributions to schools and communities, given that their projects contain grounded recommendations that can be used by school leaders and educational policy makers toward better meeting school and community needs and problems.

Critical Service-Learning Opportunities Critical service-learning activities performed by the ENLACE high school participants consist of community service, research, leadership, and internships. For example, students from some schools hold clothing and shoe drives as community service-learning while others volunteer in soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and shelters for battered women. Other students volunteer in clean up campaigns in community neighborhoods.

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Because most service-learning sites are located in the neighborhoods where students attend school, they are able to ask why these conditions exist in their own communities. Furthermore, these critical service-learning activities support students understanding the causes of injustice and encourage students to see themselves as agents of social change (Mitchell, 2007). Moreover, these activities prepare students for more rigorous action research service-learning activities required of the curriculum. Service-Learning Action Research The action research project is closely involved with service-learning. Students actually get a deeper understanding of the problem they are investigating by becoming immersed in it. Moreover, this service-learning activity provides an opportunity for the students and their teachers to make connections between school subjects and the real world. The action research project consists of four parts: (1) identifying and asking questions about the problem; (2) gathering information about the problem; (3) developing a plan of action to address or solve the problem; and (4) reflecting on what they have learned. Students learn that through investigation and action they will become informed, responsible, and involved members of their school and their community. Students not only research data and disperse it, but they become involved agents of change. The teacher makes it clear that each student has the ability to make a difference by taking positive actions for change. Students may not be ready for, or have access to, the greater community, but can serve their own school by performing action research within their school context. For instance, in one school students investigated factors contributing to student push out and presented their findings to students in other classes, other teachers, counselors, and principals. They were also invited to share their findings in a national webinar hosted by the U.S. Department of Education. Students from other schools investigated themes or issues in their respective schools. These themes included teen pregnancy, crime, drug use, suicide, and other issues affecting them as Latina/o students. In all instances, ENLACE teachers and ENLACE staff instill in each student the belief that he or she has the leadership ability to make a difference by taking positive actions for change. Service-Learning Leadership There are several structured service-learning activities that provide opportunities for students to experience and practice leadership. One of these is ENLACE Day in Santa Fe. Each year during the New Mexico legis-

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lative session, the legislature designates ENLACE Day in Santa Fe. Students in the high school ENLACE classes prepare their action research presentations and share their findings with their legislative representative at ENLACE Day in Santa Fe. In addition to sharing issues impeding their achievement, they also share success stories and advocate for continued support of the ENLACE program. Prior to ENLACE Day in Santa Fe, ENLACE high school participants participate in the ENLACE New Mexico Legislative Internship Program designed to give students an extraordinary experience at the New Mexico State Capital. This week-long internship is a service-learning opportunity to learn and experience state government in a way that classrooms cannot provide. The students not only learn about government at a state level, but also learn how to make an impact in the decision making process. Students are assigned legislation in their area of interest and work to inform and influence their state leaders. During their week-long internship experience, they have the opportunity to meet and shadow government officials in the executive, judicial, and legislative branches. Prior to their legislative intern experience, students receive a comprehensive tour of the state capitol facilities, undergo an extensive orientation regarding their upcoming responsibilities, review proper etiquette, and learn how to approach and address officials. During the internship, the legislative sponsors and their staff welcome students to the state capitol. Students assist in the day-to-day office operations of their legislative sponsor(s) and engage in work for various committees (e.g., Appropriations, Education, Tax and Revenue, etc.). They attend various committee hearings and serve as pages for the State House of Representatives. Their service-learning intern experience is enhanced through scheduled meetings with the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives, President Pro-Tempore of the State Senate, Secretary of Education, various legislators, and lobbyists. Students are able to share their education experiences as well as their issues and concerns. The Difference I AM leadership conference is another structured service-learning activity where ENLACE student participants experience and learn leadership. Guided by the ENLACE staff, students plan, coordinate, and hold an annual state wide leadership conference. This activity provides the opportunity to share with other students from other regions of the state the process for conducting their critical service-learning projects. They share their findings, recommendations for further research, action plans, and recommendations for political reforms. The NMSU ENLACE high school curriculum is designed to fill the gaps that exist in the current public school curriculum for Latina/o students. In today’s school, Latina/o students’ needs are institutionally ignored by traditional school curricula that have historically not acknowl-

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edged the very specific issues that affect the success of Latina/o students in the public school system and their ability to graduate prepared to succeed in higher education. The ENLACE curriculum respects and builds upon students’ cultural and linguistic capital to develop new academic competencies that enhance students’ knowledge by providing an environment where students learn university level skills and abilities while simultaneously participating in critical service-learning activities, being civically engaged in developing a deeper sense of identity, and learning how to contribute to their communities. The academic and servicelearning opportunities in which students participate increase the academic preparation and competencies of Latina/o students. These opportunities create bridges that assist students toward graduation from high school and transition to higher education. EXITO! The Exito! class titled Culture, Learning and Academic Achievement in a Diverse Society was designed by a group of scholars considered experts in the delivery of critical pedagogies, multiculturalism, and social justice. The class was developed for those students transitioning from the ENLACE schools and other incoming students to the university. The class emphasizes the development of culturally responsive learning strategies and skills to enhance academic achievement. Moreover, it prepares individuals to be grounded thinkers, problem solvers, technology proficient educators, and effective practitioners. The mission of the course is to increase a student’s capacity to respond to problems, issues, and struggles of the communities to which they belong. The course is community-based and practices social justice, democratic and critical multicultural constructivist pedagogies to build upon students’ funds of knowledge, voices, lived experiences, multiple intelligences, strengths, and sociocultural, linguistic, and historical capital. The course seeks to prepare multicultural-multilinguistic students to engage with diversity, to identify and respond to social injustices, and to advocate for and struggle along with vulnerable peoples in society. Although students who enroll in the Exito! class are mostly Hispanic and first generation, there is a high level of diversity within the class. To illustrate, some students live in urban communities, others in rural communities, some in different regions in the state of New Mexico, and others in different parts of the country. Some students are not first generation and have a different socioeconomic status. Some are undocumented immigrants. Since most service-learning and community service requires students from diverse backgrounds to participate in groups, educators

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must find ways for students to feel comfortable with one another. Students should also develop a sense that through civic engagement and further advocacy, they can have a shared vision and a collective approach to solving social problems.

Ropes Activity All students enrolled in the Exito! class are required to participate in the Ropes Challenge class. In addition to students getting to know one another on a personal level, this course provides an exciting and fun way for student work groups to develop effective teamwork, build relationships, and sharpen problem solving skills that are useful when performing their service-learning projects. Upon completion of the course, students reflect on their experiences. They specifically describe effective communication, leadership/support roles, dealing with change, valuing personal differences, and using group problem solving skills. Because the Exito! class uses group dialogue and reflection on class reading assignments, the challenge course prepares students to collectively research and reflect on these assignments and other programmed activities. To encourage the development of students’ understandings of social justice as well as the commitment necessary to take action on that understanding, the Exito! curriculum structures its class assignments around a critical service-learning pedagogy. Additionally, as a class, students identify themes that they would want to further research. Themes have included social justice, Latina/o retention and graduation, whiteness and white privilege, affirmative action, campus climate, macro/micro aggressions, immigration, cultural diversity, race ethnicity, and language, gender and equity in education, critical race theory, prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. Prior to conducting their research, the class has two visits in the library where they are provided training for conducting research using electronic data bases and other sources. They are also trained to write and avoid the pitfalls of plagiarism. At the completion of their projects, students share their findings using a reflective approach. The dialogue created by the reflective discussions serves to further develop relationships, create safe spaces to ask questions, compare common experiences, have difficult conversations, share frustrations, test boundaries, and celebrate positive moments. More importantly, the service-learning design ensures that students’ service experiences are linked directly to classroom learning. This linkage not only differentiates service-learning from volunteerism, but also enables students to apply classroom learning in out-of-class settings and vice-versa (Brownell & Swaner, 2009). The readings and structured

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reflection opportunities provided help students make connections between theory and practice as they engage and perform critical servicelearning.

College as a Service-Learning Community Service-learning is often associated with, and linked to, agencies situated in the community and outside the university. Less often, colleges and universities are viewed as an important part of the process of engagement in the diverse learning communities of a college. Exito! attempts to fill the gap by providing structured critical service-learning activities leading to students’ sense of belonging in their college and an understanding of how these service activities facilitate their adjustment to college. Using the Hurtado and Carter (1997) concept of cognitive mapping—that is, of connecting with and getting to know people in programs who may assist their adjustment and support their success—students engage in a number of structured activities that may give them a sense of being Latina/o in a university climate. At the beginning of the semester, students are provided with a comprehensive list describing student support services at the university. Although they are free to select any program from the list, the following services are recommended: writing center, math center, tutoring center, Chicano program, Native American program, Black program, and sexual, gender, and diversity resource center. Students are instructed to set appointments with the directors/coordinators of these programs. Using a scoring rubric, students describe in written form the physical, social, and racial climate they have experienced as they navigate the university. Through discussion and reflection students share their perspectives regarding the diverse communities of the university. For example, how do they view themselves as Latinas/os when they encounter educational environments that do not understand their culture in comparison to environments that do? Do these views contribute to the students’ perceiving themselves as marginal to the mainstream of campus life and understanding the factors that contribute to this marginality? On the other hand, what contributes to a sense of inclusion and belonging?

Service-Learning and Leadership The academic curriculum is widely accepted as the organizing framework for academic institutions. The Exito! class structures academic curricula that incorporate student participation in student organizations as

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educationally purposeful out of class service-learning objectives and activities. For instance, many organizations participate in community service activities as part of their objectives. ENLACE Southern takes advantage of these activities as an educational service-learning activity, thus enhancing the academic objectives with pragmatic experience. Incorporating their community service activities into the curriculum further validates their cultural and academic identity. Most Latina/o student organizations are established to promote social participation, political awareness, and diversity on campus. Furthermore, participation in Latina/o campus organizations provides a vehicle for Latinas/os to have exposure as campus and community leaders. Moreover, Latino/a campus-based organizations provide an avenue for conducting political education and advocacy about issues of concern to Latino/a students and also to improve conditions for Latinas/os on campus. There are 14 chartered Latina/o student organizations at New Mexico State University, and students have their choice of membership in any of them. However, students are encouraged to be active members of the Latina/os for Exito! student organization. LATINA/OS FOR EXITO! Latina/os for Exito! is a university student leadership organization created by students enrolled in the Exito! class of 2005. The organization’s charter is guided by the ENLACE guiding principles of social justice. Membership is comprised of students who graduated from the ENLACE high schools and student participants in the university Exito! program. Other college students who aspire to be active leaders in the university and in their community are also active members of Latina/os for Exito! For those students who participated in the Exito! class, the student organization is a campus based entity that enables students to apply the critical skills learned in class to real situations on campus. The Latina/os for Exito! organization provides an avenue for students to address issues of concern to Latina/o students and improve conditions on campus and in their community. In one instance, members of the organization participated in campus forums regarding the role of the university as a land grant and Hispanic serving institution. At these forums, students shared academic and service-learning experiences that had contributed to their success. In addition, they challenged the university administration, faculty, and staff to implement culturally responsive practices to help increase Hispanic student retention and graduation. Also, the students urged administra-

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tion to recruit and promote Hispanic faculty in order to proportionally reflect the university and community Hispanic population. In another instance, members of Latina/os for Exito! were instrumental in creating the New Mexico School Counselor Task Force. As college students, they realized, first hand, that college preparedness was an essential factor in their future educational success, and their hope was to create better counseling experiences and opportunities for the Latina/o students. Their review of the literature revealed a high student-to-counselor ratio in the schools. On average, a high school student met with a counselor just over one time during the four years of high school. Seeking and obtaining support from their State Senator, members submitted a bill to the State Legislature that resulted in the creation and funding of the task force for further study of the issue. Supported and guided by the ENLACE staff, members of Latina/os for Exito! held a series of statewide forums resulting in the identification of the following issues and recommendations: a lack of diversity in school staff; a lack of multicultural education, bilingual education, and diversity training; and a lack of recruiting “minority” students for the counseling professions. They recommended that universities take the following steps: 1. use counseling approaches that consists of an inclusive criterion that involves administrators, teachers, students, and parents in the process, 2. develop peer-mentoring (upper classmen guiding freshmen and sophomores), 3. expand college-mentoring programs to aid in certain aspects of counseling, and 4. change the campus climate so that parents feel they are welcomed and their culture is valued. Specific to service-learning, they recommended that universities: 1. create standards and benchmarks for how service-learning is offered so that service-learning is not just a tool for volunteering, but is a tool for learning and how to get students into active roles into their community and through education, 2. allow service-learning opportunities that can inform the community and integrate both community learning and students with career interests and other opportunities that students have in the communities, 3. provide college preparation classes in high school that are handson and linked to service-learning, and

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4. enable service-learning in elementary or middle school, which would provide students with the idea that they can persist through high school.

Critical Service-Learning Benefits for ENLACE Students Southern ENLACE’s use of critical service-learning approaches have had a significant impact on the success of Latina/o students. One year retention rates indicate 97% returning from fall to fall (State ENLACE Report, 2011) compared to 75% of all Latina/o students of the university (NMSU Institutional Research, Planning and Outcomes Assessment, HED Degree and Student files, 2010). As the literature has indicated, service-learning offers needed assistance to programs and agencies and enables students to acquire valuable skills. Steffes (2004) offers a list of benefits that mirror what students have expressed in written reflection and dialogue. For example, some students expressed a sense of leadership, efficacy, heightened self-esteem, and commitment to social responsibility, while others expressed developing analytical and problem solving skills. Still other students found that critical service-learning instilled a greater sense of cultural awareness and inclusion. For ENLACE participants the data have revealed higher attendance, significant GPA gains, transition to higher education, higher retention, and higher graduation rates. Because the ENLACE program has its foundation in social justice and is community based, students are transformed. In other words, they understand their responsibility and commitment to using the knowledge and skills in the classroom and to applying them to uncover and to address issues in their communities. Furthermore, their educational experience allows them to investigate conditions of injustice and to take the initiative necessary to work for meaningful social change.

Institutional Commitment Although service-learning is being practiced in colleges and universities throughout the country, it has yet to move from the margins to the mainstream (Furco, 2002). Service-learning is not embedded in the institutional culture and remains an unsustainable and marginalized activity. To tear down this wall, a collaborative effort needs to form among community stakeholders that view service-learning as a valuable learning pedagogy for students and a valuable service to the community. Servicelearning programs and community agencies need to operate as partners.

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Through these partnerships, students will experience hands-on learning while community organizations receive support in carrying out their mission. Lastly, service-learning needs to be tied to an institution’s mission. The pressure is now on colleges and universities to be socially responsive institutions (Hartley, Saltmarsh, & Clayton, 2010), and engagement through service-learning provides a vehicle for promoting community involvement.

CONCLUSION The success of the ENLACE program at New Mexico State University indicates how Latina/o students can achieve in each step of the educational pathway. Employing critical teaching pedagogies combined with critical service-learning approaches has enabled students to have a deeper understanding of the injustices prevalent in their communities. Through this understanding, students are able to more effectively and civically engage on their campus and in their communities. By participating in the programs that ENLACE initiated, Latina/o students are engaging as advocates for education and for social transformation as they strive for equality and justice in their communities and campuses.

REFERENCES Brownell, J. E., & Swaner, L. E. (2009). High-impact practices: Applying the learning outcomes literature to the development of successful campus programs. Peer Review, 11(2), 26-30. Carney, T. M. (2004). Reaching beyond borders through service-learning. Journal of Latina/os and Education, 3(4), 267-271. Cuban, S., & Anderson, J. B. (2007). Where’s the justice in service-learning? Institutionalizing service-learning from a social justice perspective at a Jesuit university. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(2), 144-155. doi:10.1080/ 10665680701246609 ENLACE. (2010). Philosophy and mission statement. Las Cruces, NM: Author. Retrieved May 26, 2012, from http://enlacenm.unm.edu/ Furco, A. (2002). Institutionalizing service-learning in higher education. Journal of Public Affairs, 6, 39-67. Hartley, M., Saltmarsh, J., & Clayton, P. (2010). Is the civic engagement movement changing higher education? British Journal of Educational Studies, 58, 391-406. doi:10.1080/00071005.2010.527660 Hurtado, S., & Carter, D. F. (1997). Effects of college transition and perceptions of campus racial climate on Latina/o college students’ sense of belonging. Sociology of Education, 70, 324-345.

ENLACE 239 King, T. J. (2004). Service-learning as a site for critical pedagogy: A case of collaboration, caring, and defamiliarization across borders. Journal of Experiential Education, 26(1), 121-137. Lennon T., (2009). Service–learning and Hispanic students: What works in the field. Denver: Education Commission of the States. Retrieved June 22, 2012, from http://www.ecs.org/clearinghouse/81/01/8101.pdf Mitchell, T. D. (2007). Critical service-learning as social justice education: A case study of the Citizen Scholars Program. Equity & Excellence in Education, 40(2), 101-112. doi:10.1080/10665680701228797 Mohan, J. (1995). Thinking local: Service-learning, education for citizenship and geography. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 19(2), 129-142. NMSU: Institutional Research, Planning and Outcomes Assessment. (2009). Las Cruces, NM: Author. Retrieved June 1, 2012, from irpoa.nmsu.edu/ Plann, S. J. (2002). Latina/os and literacy: An upper-division Spanish course with service-learning. Hispania, 85(2), 330-338. Rivera-Mills, S. (2010). Latina/os or Hispanics? Changing demographics, implications and continued diversity. Southwest Journal of Linguistics, 28(2), 1-20. Sepúlveda, J. (2010). Striving for excellence in Hispanic education. National Civic Review, 99(2), 15-20. doi:10.1002/ncr20013 Smith, S. K., & Nogle, J. M. (2004). An evaluation of Hispanic population estimates. Social Science Quarterly, 85(3), 731-745. Steffes, J. S. (2004). Creative powerful learning environments beyond the classroom. Change, 36(3), 46-50.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS Dale Allender’s work ranges from educational media, classroom instruction, and teacher-education. Dale is the executive director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Lick-Wilmerding High School and the director of the National Council of Teachers of English-West located at the University of California Berkeley’s Graduate School of Education; and the former executive director of the Bay Area Teachers Center also based at Lick-Wilmerding High School and San Francisco State University. He teaches coursework in urban education, content area literacy, new literacies of digital youth, and language study for educators. Dale’s television series on teaching multicultural literature Expanding the Canon received both the National Association of Multicultural Education Media Award and the U.S. International Film and Television Education Award. Lorelei Blackburn is a PhD student in rhetoric and writing with a concentration in community literacy at Michigan State University where she teaches professional and first-year writing classes. A graduate of DePaul University’s MA in writing program, she previously worked in their writing center, and, after earning her degree, taught returning adults in the School for New Learning, first-year writing classes for the Writing, Rhetoric and Discourse Department, and worked as the Suburban Campus Writing Center coordinator to establish writing centers at DePaul’s three suburban campuses. Her work has appeared in Writing Program Administrators. She is currently working on research that explores community literacy and peace-building in areas of conflict. Melanie N. Burdick is an assistant professor of English at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas where she directs the composition program and teaches courses in English education and composition. She received her PhD in English education with a minor in composition and rhetoric from the University of Kansas. Before teaching at Washburn, she taught at the University of Missouri—Kansas City and served as the site director of the 241

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Greater Kansas City Writing Project. She is also a former high school and middle school English teacher. Her writing has been published in journals such as English Education, International Journal of Education and the Arts and Teaching English in the Two-Year College. Her research interests include the teaching of writing at the secondary and post-secondary levels, the preparation English teachers and teacher agency in a culture of standardized curriculum, and the interaction and overlap among “academic” and “creative” genres of writing. Tamara Butler is a PhD candidate in multicultural and equity studies in education with concentration in critical multiculturalism and social justice education in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She received her MA from the Department of African American and African Studies at OSU, where she completed a thesis on the ways in which the South Carolina Gullah-Geechee community is undergoing changes associated with land redevelopment, reoccupation, and the erasure of African and African American culture. Currently, she is completing her dissertation, focusing on youth identity, activism, and place with high school students, teachers, and community organizers. Ellen Cushman, Cherokee Nation citizen and State of Sequoyah Commissioner, is an associate professor of writing, rhetoric, and American cultures at Michigan State University. Her work in community literacies has been published in Reflections on Community Based Writing Instruction, the Community Literacy Journal, College Composition and Communication, and in the The Public Work of Rhetoric, edited by John Ackerman and David Coogan (University of South Carolina Press, 2010) as well as Activism and Rhetoric edited by Seth Kahn and JongHwa Lee (2010). Her research on the Cherokee syllabary, stemming from 5 years of ethnohistorical research with the Cherokee Nation, has been published as The Cherokee Syllabary: Writing the People’s Perseverance (2011, University of Oklahoma Press) and in Ethnohistory (Fall 2010) and Wicazo Sa Review (Fall 2011). Eli Goldblatt taught science, math, and English for 6 years in an urban alternative high school in Philadelphia, traveled in Mexico and Central America in 1980, and received a MEd and certification in biology from Temple University in 1982. He finished an MA in literature (1984) and a PhD in composition studies (1990) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is currently the director of first-year writing and an associate professor of English at Temple University. He also directs New City Writing, the neighborhood outreach arm of the writing program. NCW supports students working with Open Borders Project, a technology and language learning center in Latino North Philadelphia, and Tree House Books, a

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literacy/literature center near the Temple campus, and the four K-8 Temple Partnership Schools. Goldblatt works as a composition/literacy researcher and as a creative writer. In composition, his focus in Round My Way: Authority and Double Consciousness in Three Urban High School Writers (1995) was on authority in writing, but in recent years he has published on literacy autobiography and community-based learning. His essay, “Alinsky’s Reveille: A Community-Organizing Model for Neighborhood-Based Literacy Projects” won the 2005 Ohmann Award in College English. He expands the theme in Because We Live Here: Sponsoring Literacy Beyond the College Curriculum (2007). His poems have appeared over the last thirty years in many small literary journals, most recently in magazines such as Cincinnati Review, Hambone, Paper Air, Another Chicago Magazine, Madison Review, Louisiana Literature, and Hubbub. His books of poems include Journeyman's Song (1990), Sessions 1-62 (1991), Speech Acts (1999), and Without a Trace (2001). Heidi Hallman is an assistant professor of English education in the Department of Curriculum and Teaching at the University of Kansas. She received her PhD in curriculum and instruction (literacy studies) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her research interests include the preparation of prospective English teachers for teaching in diverse classrooms and the literacy learning of “at risk” adolescents. Her work has been published in journals such as English Education, Equity & Excellence in Education, English Journal, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, and Teacher Education Quarterly. In 2010, she was awarded a research initiative grant from the Conference on English Education for her research on prospective English teachers’ work with homeless youth. For her work as the faculty director of the English Education program at the University of Kansas, Heidi received the 2011 University of Kansas School of Education Faculty Award for Teaching. Valerie Kinloch is a professor of literacy studies in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She is the author of several journal articles and various books on poet June Jordan and on issues in literacy, race, place, and community engagement. Valerie was awarded a Spencer Foundation Small Research Grant as well as a Grantin-Aid from the National Council of Teachers of English to support her work on the literacy and activist practices of African American and Latin@ high school students in gentrifying urban contexts. Her book, Harlem Our Minds: Place, Race, and the Literacies of Urban Youth, was awarded the 2012 Outstanding Book of the Year from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Her most recent book is Crossing Boundaries—Teaching and Learning With Urban Youth. Among other

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awards, she is the recipient of the 2010 AERA Scholars of Color Early Career Award and she was a participant in a Fulbright-Hays Group Fellowship to Sierra Leone, West Africa. She is currently directing a servicelearning and community engagement grant that brings into partnership Ohio State University, the Columbus Education Association, Columbus City Schools, and the National Education Association. David E. Kirkland is a transdisciplinary scholar of English and urban education, who explores the intersections among urban youth culture, language and literacy, urban teacher preparation, and digital media. He analyzes culture, language, and texts, and has expertise in critical literary, ethnographic, and sociolinguistic research methods. He has received many awards for his work, including the 2008 American Educational Research Association Division G Outstanding Dissertation Award and was a 2009-10 Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and is a former fellow of National Council of Teachers of English’s Cultivating New Voices. David has published widely. His recent articles include: “‘Black Skin, White Masks’: Normalizing Whiteness and the Trouble With the Achievement Gap,” “English(es) in Urban Contexts: Politics, Pluralism, and Possibilities,” and “We Real Cool: Examining Black Males and Literacy.” Currently, he is completing a book project, A Search Past Silence, to be published by Teachers College Press. David believes that, in their language and literacies, youth take on new meanings beginning with a voice and verb, where words when spoken or written have the power to transform the world inside-out. Alan LeBaron directs the Kennesaw State University Maya Heritage Community Project, a nationally recognized Returning Peace Corps Fellows Program that works with Maya refugees. He works closely with Maya leaders throughout the United States and has administered grants for seven national Maya culture, religious, and human rights conferences. Currently, he works under a grant to create a medical guidebook on Maya health and a network of medical interpreters in the Maya languages. He is past president of the Southeast World History Association, and the Georgia Association of Historians, and received the KSU Distinguished Professional Service Award in 2005. His most recent publication was Maya Pastoral: National Conferences and Essays on the Maya Immigrants (2006), while currently he is coediting a book of essays on Maya refugees and immigrants in the United States. He received a PhD from the University of Florida in Latin American History in 1988. Darcy Luetzow has been the executive director of Tree House Books since 2006. Tree House Books is a small nonprofit organization on a mission:

About the Authors 245

grow and sustain a community of readers, writers, and thinkers in North Central Philadelphia. The work of Tree House involves “back-door” engagement approaches to literacy, literary culture, and creative expression. Darcy studied English and theater (BA from the College of William & Mary, 1999) and became involved in the community development work of Tree House Books while completing her MA in creative writing/poetry at Temple University (2006). Her multidisciplinary arts background informs Tree House’s approach to learning through community-based creative experiments. Darcy was awarded a 2010 Humanitarian Award from Mankind Against Poverty (Philadelphia-based CDC) for her stand for the hugeness of North Philly’s children. Federico Marquez has more than 25 years’ experience in higher education. His dissertation examined culturally responsive practices impacting Latina/o student success at New Mexico State University. The study focused on critical pedagogies, teaching, mentoring, ethnic monitoring, and participation in Latina/o student organizations as strategies supporting Latina/o student success. He is the former director of the Student Leadership and Community Educational Development Program at El Paso Community College where he developed college and community partnerships for the educational, social, and economic benefit of both. He is also the former coordinator of Chicano Programs at New Mexico State University where he was responsible for recruitment and retention of first generation Latina/o students. He is currently the director of the Engaging Latino Communities for Education at New Mexico State University. He oversees the development and implementation of an institutional pathway model consisting of parent engagement, high school college preparedness, and transition to the university. Federico served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam era and was honorably discharged. Paul H. Matthews is the assistant director of the University of Georgia Office of Service-Learning. From 2003-2010, he was founding codirector of UGA’s Center for Latino Achievement & Success in Education in the College of Education, where he provided professional development for K12 educators and developed and taught service-learning tutoring coursework. In 2006 he was named a UGA Service-Learning Fellow and was the Office of Service-Learning’s Senior Scholar for Faculty Development for three years. He holds a PhD in language education and also previously served as a faculty member in the Department of Romance Languages and in the Department of Language and Literacy Education. Maria Mikolchak is a professor of foreign languages in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature and in the Department of English,

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and currently the interim chair of the Department of Foreign Languages at St. Cloud State University. She holds a PhD in comparative literature and a graduate certificate in women’s studies from the University of South Carolina. Her interests include world languages, multicultural literatures, and pedagogy. Michael Moore is a professor of reading at Georgia Southern University. He has a bachelor’s degree in English education from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. He has a masters degree in English and a masters degree in reading from the University of Pittsburgh. His doctorate is in language communications from the University of Pittsburgh. Before joining the Georgia Southern University faculty in 1984, he taught for 12 years in the Pittsburgh, PA area. Ten of those years were in the Blackhawk School District in Beaver Falls, PA. His research interests include literacy, critical literacy, writing, reader response, content reading, literature circles and creativity. Michael is active in the National Council of Teachers of English where he recently served as the director of the Literature Commission, the International Reading Association, and the American Educational Research Association, and he is a director in the Georgia Council of Teachers of English. Emily Nemeth is a PhD candidate in the adolescent, postsecondary, and community literacies area of study in the Department of Teaching and Learning at The Ohio State University. She received her MA degree in higher education with a focus on service-learning from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and she is interested in exploring intersections posed by literacy, culture, and service-learning initiatives in schools and communities. Pam Reed is a veteran public school English language arts middle school teacher with more than 15 years of teaching in urban public high schools. She is invested in student achievement, engagement, and student voice. She facilitates many different student-centered service-learning projects, including projects on sports concussions, genocide, and reading buddies. She is committed to partnering with her students and local community groups to investigate meaningful ways to involve various people in the educational success of students. Peter Smagorinsky holds the rank of Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education in the College of Education at The University of Georgia. He taught high school English in the Chicago area from 1976-1990 while earning his MAT and PhD from the University of Chicago. He was coeditor of Research in the Teaching of

About the Authors 247

English from 1996-2003, has served as trustee and chair of the Research Foundation of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), is past president of the National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy, is past cochair of NCTE’s Assembly for Research, is past chair of NCTE's Standing Committee on Research, and was the founding chair of the NCTE Research Forum. He is the winner of the 1999 Raymond B. Cattell Early Career Award for Programmatic Research presented by the American Educational Research Association to recognize the scholar who has conducted the most distinguished program of cumulative educational research in any field of educational inquiry within the first decade following receipt of his or her doctoral degree. He has won Article of the Year recognition for English Journal (English Journal Writing Award, 1989; Edwin M. Hopkins English Journal Award, 2000) and English Education (Janet Emig Award, 2003), and the Steve Cahir Award for Research in Writing, presented by the Writing SIG of AERA (1991). Other recent awards include The University of Georgia College of Education Russell Yeany Research Award (2008), National Research Conference Edward B. Fry Book Award (2009), the 2008 Association of Teacher Educators Distinguished Research Award, and the 2013 National Council of Teachers of English David H. Russell Research Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English. Tori Washington is a veteran public school English language arts teacher with over 15 years of teaching in urban public high schools. Interested in student engagement and achievement, she facilitates a student-centered service-learning project titled, “The Good Seeds Community Garden.” This partnership, with high school students and community partners from a local church, engages participants in collaborative planning and community gardening. Participating students, along with Tori Washington, have been featured in the Northland Local Newspaper and on Channel 4’s Good Day Columbus program. They have also presented at the school district’s annual All Principals meeting and have attended the Rotary Club program where they won the award for Most Exemplary High School Project. Additionally, they have traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, to Denver, Colorado, and to Atlanta, Georgia, to speak to educators about their service-learning work.