2020: Student Success and the Public Good
Presentation Title
Puppies, Bikes, Pantries, and More: Service Learning in the Classroom
Keywords
service learning; community engagement
Description
This presentation explores the ways that one instructor engaged her writing students by introducing community service-learning components into writing courses. Forming partnerships with local nonprofits helped students become more active members of their communities. Additionally, this partnership raised the stakes for students’ "real world" writing assignments, which included creating marketing documents for these organizations. Partnering with nonprofits that focus on social justice missions, such as the Flint Hills Wellness Coalition and Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice invites dynamic conversations about local environments, communities, and injustices into the Professional Writing classroom. Since many students spend four years living on or near campus and spend much of their college years in this “campus bubble,” it can be difficult for out-of-town students to find a way to break into conversations about local issues, such as creating an equitable community through policy changes, facilitating healthy local environments, access to healthy food, and other social issues. However, by partnering with local nonprofits that work to educate and organize for the causes of local peace and justice, students not only learn more about their local communities, but also become more active and engaged members of these communities.
Streaming Media
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Puppies, Bikes, Pantries, and More: Service Learning in the Classroom
This presentation explores the ways that one instructor engaged her writing students by introducing community service-learning components into writing courses. Forming partnerships with local nonprofits helped students become more active members of their communities. Additionally, this partnership raised the stakes for students’ "real world" writing assignments, which included creating marketing documents for these organizations. Partnering with nonprofits that focus on social justice missions, such as the Flint Hills Wellness Coalition and Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice invites dynamic conversations about local environments, communities, and injustices into the Professional Writing classroom. Since many students spend four years living on or near campus and spend much of their college years in this “campus bubble,” it can be difficult for out-of-town students to find a way to break into conversations about local issues, such as creating an equitable community through policy changes, facilitating healthy local environments, access to healthy food, and other social issues. However, by partnering with local nonprofits that work to educate and organize for the causes of local peace and justice, students not only learn more about their local communities, but also become more active and engaged members of these communities.
https://newprairiepress.org/cecd/engagement/2020/14
