Welcome to our course blog -- a dedicated space for the creation, exchange, and discussion of ideas during ENG W240 in the Spring 2011 semester. Feel free to browse the links at left to learn more about our goals, our projects, and our Community Partners. For Spring 2011, our Partners include the Boys and Girls Club of Bloomington, Girls Inc., Mother Hubbard's Cupboard, the Shalom Community Center, and Stone Belt.
I look forward to meeting you in January.
-Professor Graban
Dec 6, 2010
Service Learning Guidelines and Materials
This semester, you will be selecting one of five Community Partners to observe and to serve. Each of them is asking for approximately 20-22 hours of commitment between now and the end of April (typically, between 1-3 hours each week). Much of what you learn during your individual inquiry projects will stem from the time you spend at your community agency, so it is time well spent. Because this class involves both project-based and direct service learning, these hours will also include any required orientation or training, as well as at least one observation period.
Our Community Partners are giving of their own time and resources to enhance your learning experience because they believe in what you are doing. Some (though not all) of them depend on volunteers to make their agency work. Depending on where you serve, for a semester you are "joining" their community of volunteers, while also being a visitor who is interested in doing research into that community. In other cases, you are coming alongside a more permanent staff in order to learn from what you observe and to give back through your observation, your empathy, and your projects. These can be tricky dual roles to play at times, but as long as you remember to be courteous, ethical, and professional in all things, you will be fine. In order to pass ENG W240, you must satisfactorily complete all service hours in accordance with Community Partner expectations—including orientation, attitude, decorum, and engagement—and you must meet your weekly schedule or notify your supervisor as soon as possible whenever you are unable to do so.
Here are some relevant links and materials to aid your service-learning experience:
- Bloomington Transit Schedules
- Campus Transit Schedule
- Consent Form (Customizable for Interviews and Observations)
- IU Office of Service Learning
- Informed Consent Form (for Student Participation)
- Participation Agreement and Release (for Student Participation)
- Service-Learning Time Sheet
Course Policies
attendance
Classes like this are most successful when we build intellectual community. Undertaking a field research project involves several stages, which we will negotiate together as a class. For that reason, attendance is required. Although I would prefer that you not miss any class, I do acknowledge that your life is like a complex puzzle, of which ENG W240 is only one piece. Thus, you are permitted three absences for illnesses, emergencies, and family or university business. Each additional absence will lower your final participation grade by one-third of a letter grade and may cause you to miss out on a vital discussion or workshop. If military duty, religious holidays, or extended hospitalization will call you away for a much longer period of time, you may be advised to drop the course. If you do miss class, it is your responsibility to diligently find out what you missed and to turn in what is due.
late work
All assignments are posted well in advance so that you can plan ahead to get them done. If you already know that you will have a conflict with mid-term exams, or if a severe illness or emergency prevents you from completing an assignment on time, you must contact me in advance of the due date to discuss your options. Otherwise, I will not accept late work. If hard copies are due in class, please print them in advance so that “technological difficulties” do not affect your ability to hand them in on time.
intellectual participation and citizenship
Class sessions will be spent discussing and debating our readings, and analyzing or revising writing in various forms. You will often work in groups, compose collective responses, and be expected to talk in class. To be fully prepared, bring everything to class every day. All reading assignments must be completed by the date for which they are assigned and brought to class in some form on the day we are scheduled to discuss them. While you are in class I hold you to professional forms of conduct, including arriving on time, being prepared, and staying engaged. Consider what you can offer to keep our discussions relevant. Cell phones must be turned completely off while class is in session.
keeping up with the reading
This semester, we will read in various genres – including memoir, autoethnography, popular history, and critical essay. On our heaviest reading days, we are completing about 30 pages of reading per class. However, we do not read for every class, and in some weeks, we do not read at all because you are focusing on some aspect of your research project. It may help you to keep up if you think of our readings as two general types – theory and craft – with some overlap between them. For the first three weeks, our readings will mainly provide theoretical lenses onto the issues that face the community agencies we serve. During weeks four through six, we will focus on craft, especially on less common research methodologies that use people, spaces, and web communities as sources of information. In weeks seven through nine, you will think academically about your civic inquiries. And in weeks eleven through fifteen, theory and craft will converge as you shape your final projects.
evaluation
Much of the semester will be devoted to writing your ethnographic portfolio and working on your collaborative public document project. Here is how the points are distributed:
- Ethnographic Portfolio (4 components) 650 points
- Public Document Project w/Presentation 150 points
- Blog Assignments 100 points
- Intellectual Participation/Citizenship 100 points
I treat grading as a conversation where I comment on your work. My comments are typically questions intended to make you think about purpose and audience; suggestions for improving some aspect of the writing (e.g., focus, development, organization, language, visual clarity, or “voice”); and reactions to particular passages or prose. You should always feel free to meet with me if an assignment is unclear, if you get stuck, or if my first response on an assignment is unhelpful. You should also feel free to meet with me at any time if you are unsure of where you stand in the course.
revision
You may decide to revise one of the project components early in the semester – the Positioning Essay, the Verbal/Visual Portrait, or the Critical Bibliographic Essay – especially if a revision would improve your project’s focus. If you choose to revise one of these essays, I will ask you to meet with me to discuss your ideas for revision within one week of my returning it to you. You must then submit the revised project within one week of this meeting. Revisions should be substantial and of good quality in order to improve the grade.
ACADEMIC honesty
At IUB, we take academic honesty very seriously, and violations of it – in any form – come with vital consequences. Cheating and all forms of misrepresentation, including plagiarism, can result in automatic failure of the course. Plagiarism literally means “the act of kidnapping” and occurs when you represent someone else’s work as your own work in the following ways:
- having someone write your paper for you or turning in someone else’s work
- purchasing someone else’s work and using it as your own
- simply copying and pasting published information into your paper
- deliberately using sources without attributing them.
Doing so “accidentally” is as problematic as doing so deliberately. As you get into more advanced writing, it becomes important that you read, take notes on, and incorporate sources productively and fairly. We will spend some class time discussing good source use, but you should always ask me if you are unsure about how to use a source fairly. See the Code of Student Conduct for more information.
writing tutorial services
This class isn’t the only place at IU where you can develop as a writer. In addition to meeting with me in conferences, I highly recommend that you visit WTS (located in BH 206). The WTS consultants can offer you one-on-one feedback and a number of excellent do-it-yourself resources. Talking and thinking with others is extremely helpful at any stage of your writing, whether you are planning the project or editing the final draft. I still get feedback on much of what I do.
support services
Disability Services and the Adaptive Technologies divisions of the Office of Student Affairs can arrange for assistance, auxiliary aids, or related services if you think a temporary or permanent disability might prevent you from being a full participant in the class. Contact them via web or call 855-7578 with any individual concerns. Students with special needs must be registered with Disability Services before classroom accommodations can be provided.
Course Description and Goals
How does visual perception impact writing, and what difference do personal ethics make in research? What does after-school tutoring have to do with local politics? Is there a one-size-fits-all definition of “subsistence”? What defines “power” and “disability” in language, society, and text? How can community organizations advance real systemic change? What are some fundamental arts of researching and writing for civic engagement? And what are the roles of social, gender, and rhetorical theory in answering any of the above? This semester, these and other questions will inform our work. ENG W240 invites you to use ethnography as your investigative lens by conducting interviews, doing observation, searching archives, and constructing visual representations of one local community agency where you choose to serve. It relies on the principle that how you take in information from the world around you does affect how you write. It also involves unpacking assumptions, challenging stereotypes, and learning new and varied methodologies for finding information in unlikely places. Finally, it considers service-learning in all its dimensions – practical, personal, and intellectual.
Think of this course as an opportunity to develop your written communication skills by exploring the different writing situations that face you as students at a major university and citizens in a larger community. Think of it as an opportunity to make – and not just report – new knowledge. And think of it as an opportunity to learn how reading and writing across several genres can help a community to question, formulate, and challenge its notions of what it means to “lead” and be “civically engaged.” As part of that process, this course will encourage you to:
- consider both visual and alphanumeric dimensions of “text”;
- shape your writing for multiple needs and contexts;
- access, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources;
- move beyond summarizing facts to synthesizing complex ideas;
- understand argument as a way of explaining multiple perspectives;
- understand structure, language and style as ethical choices in your writing.
Assignments and Projects
Please allow yourself ample time to draft and revise your writing, rather than waiting until the night before an assignment is due. All writings for public distribution must be of professional quality. This means intelligent, thoughtful prose free of any patterns of error. While this principle holds for any work that you submit in this class, it holds even more for work that is circulated to your Community Partner, or for work that you do on their behalf. Plan to spend extra time revising that work.
portfolio (individual)
Positioning Essay (3-4 pages)
In this essay, you discover a critical relationship about community involvement by triangulating two theoretical readings with your assumptions, experiences, and understanding so far. You may also bring some of the “service-learning” perspectives offered by Franklin, Heilker, and Bridwell-Bowles into conversation with the issues that your community agencies face.
Verbal and Visual Portrait (4-5 pages plus visual component)
For this project, you will interview and observe a key person (or “insider”) at your community agency, then compose a two-part portrait that creates a dominant impression of this person while addressing a critical issue from their point of view. Look for what isn’t there, listen to the silences, and weigh other perspectives. Consider how non-verbal cues and physical spaces can help you frame your argument.
Critical Bibliographic Essay (5-6 pages)
By now, you are invested in some issue, problem, or query – no matter how nuanced or small. After an introduction that contextualizes your research, in this essay you will discuss and synthesize five to seven (5-7) reputable academic or field sources that can help you to shape your issue differently. Think of this as an involved conversation with various experts, where you find points of convergence and divergence between their theories and consider what new theories they help you to build.
The “Big” Ethnography (7-9 pages)
This big ethnography gives you the opportunity to synthesize your research in a provocative way. This is not a typical final paper—it is a research-based argument that provides a focused view of your community agency, in which you make a unique observation about how they embody “leadership” or “civic engagement” by drawing on various sources of information you have gathered all semester long. Put more simply, this is your opportunity to write a nuanced response to your issue.
public document project and presentation (collaborative)
In addition to creating your own research portfolio, you will work with a group of your classmates on producing a public document or series of documents to enable your agency further its work. Your agency will help you to determine the need, audience, genre form, content, and structure of this document. In the last week of class, your group will present the project in an informal showcase with poster.
weblog (individual)
This semester, you will keep an individual weblog for posting approximately two sets of fieldnotes reflections and a few other short assignments. The fieldnotes reflections may be some of the most valuable information you gather all semester. The short blogging assignments will vary in scope, format, and method, and I’ll be interested in seeing you take risks, develop skills, and learn new things. Near the end of the semester, you will convert this blog into the portfolio that will feature your other work.
BA #5 - Critical Bibliographic Essay Preparation
This assignment should be posted to your own blog by 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, 3/10/11.
Purpose and Context
The fifth Blogging Assignment asks you to justify and discuss how 2 of your research sources help you to flesh out your issue. The emphasis is on how well you can discuss your sources analytically to demonstrate what they contribute to your research. This is primarily an opportunity for you to make sense of some of your research sources so far, especially by reading them perspectivally and multivocally. This is secondarily an opportunity for me to give you early feedback before you submit the Critical Bibliographic Essay, so I encourage you to do as well as you possibly can.
Please select at least 1 of your sources from our coursepack.
The Assignment
After introducing your issue, bring 2 sources into conversation to help you discover something new about it. As we have done earlier in the semester, you may use one source as a lens for interpreting the other source in order to understand how both relate in a significant way. But this time, you will develop this relationship by providing more detail about how the author of each source supports his or her own claims, and how the sources work together to develop knowledge on your issue. In relating them, you should look beyond the simple and toward the complex, i.e., beyond just determining on what they agree or disagree, and beyond making a simple statement of how they approach a topic differently. For example, you might consider how their claims illuminate one another on your issue, how they offer new ways of thinking about each other on your issue, how certain concepts contribute to each other and to your issue, etc. As always, please treat and discuss these sources as authored texts, referring explicitly to the authors and their claims.
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Depth of Response – your response to this assignment demonstrates an in-depth reading of 2 sources and how they contribute to your issue, and demonstrates your ability to work with particular passages or concepts, rather than to do a superficial reading
- Focus and Coherence – your response is thesis-driven (even if that thesis statement is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized to develop that thesis
- Evidence and Justification – your response provides and appropriately cites specific passages from both texts to illustrate the claims you want to make
- Clarity and Style – your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines – your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage
BA #6 - Late Fieldnotes Reflection
This assignment should be posted to your own blog by 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, 4/7/11.
Purpose and Context
Just as you did for Blog Assignment #4, this final Blog Assignment asks you to take stock of your observations by writing a reflective summary of your fieldnotes as you near the end of your service-learning experience.
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Depth - your reflective summary demonstrates an in-depth discussion of the ways you have been challenged, surprised, intrigued, or disturbed by your observations; or of the issue that has emerged based on your observations; or of an idea or focal point that will be central to your "big" ethnography as a result of your observations
- Focus and Coherence - your response is thesis-driven (even if that thesis is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized
- Evidence and Justification - your response provides sufficient details and puts them into conversation with relevant passages from Fieldworking or from our other course readings
- Clarity and Style - your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines - your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage
BA #7 - Open Post
Purpose and Context
So far this semester, you have developed and practiced different methodologies for community research and writing on this blog. You have put two or more sources into conversation with each other in order to self-position or construct a definition of "civic engagement," you have composed a verbal portrait of an artifact or manipulated images and justified those manipulations, you have written a focused reflection on your fieldnotes, and you have read and discussed two research sources perspectivally and multivocally. For this final extra-credit Blogging Assignment, I invite you to write an "open" post, which is to say, you may decide what your ethnographic portfolio needs in order to seem "complete" to your readers.
The Assignment
Decide on any of the methodologies listed above (and represented in Blogging Assignments 1-6) and compose an additional post for your portfolio.
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the "plus" system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. Depending upon the methodology you choose, I will follow the evaluation criteria from earlier posts:
- "analysis or synthesis" - BA #1
- "verbal snapshot" - BA #2
- "verbal portrait of an artifact" or "image manipulations" - BA #3
- "fieldnotes reflection" - BA #4/6
- "critical synthesis of sources" - BA #5
BA #4 - Early Fieldnotes Reflection
This assignment should be posted to your own blog by 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, 3/8/11.
Purpose and Context
Like everything else you have been writing this semester, your "big" ethnography will be issue-based and academic, which is to say it will put your observations into conversation with other research data and published texts. It will be much more than a reflective or descriptive accounting of your service-learning experience.
You may remember from our discussion of the double-entry format (FW 84-92, 98-102) that one hour of good observation can yield about 10 pages of notes; however, without some systematic way of analyzing those notes, their value to your research project may not always be obvious.
That said, for your notes to usefully inform your research, you will need an opportunity to make meaning of what you observe by categorizing details into groups, noting patterns, generalizing about what you see, reflecting on what surprises, intrigues, or disturbs you, or responding in some other way (see FW 92, 97, 105-107).
This fourth Blog Assignment asks you to take stock of your observations by writing a reflective summary of your fieldnotes thus far.
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Depth - your reflective summary demonstrates an in-depth discussion of the ways you are challenged, surprised, intrigued, or disturbed by your observations; or of an issue that is beginning to emerge based on your observations; or of an idea or focal point that is becoming more clear as a result of your observations
- Focus and Coherence - your response is thesis-driven (even if that thesis is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized
- Evidence and Justification - your response provides sufficient details and puts them into conversation with relevant passages from Fieldworking or from our other course readings
- Clarity and Style - your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines - your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage
BA #3 - Portrait Preparation
This assignment should be posted to your own blog by 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, 2/17/11.
Purpose and Context
Fieldworking tells us that images and artifacts can represent a culture by pointing to a particular dissonance or tension, and they can be interpreted on many levels of significance. For example, in “Anthropologist on Mars,” the badges displayed on Temple Grandin’s cowhide represent how two diverging interests—humane treatment of animals and advancements in the beef industry—actually led to a patented invention. And in “A Surgeon’s War on Breast Cancer,” Dr. Love’s jewelry makes a statement of advocacy that explains why she treats patients the way she does. This third Blog Assignment asks you to work with an image or select a cultural artifact that could comprise the "visual" part of your Verbal/Visual Portrait.
Option One - Portrait of an Artifact
Write a clearly organized description of an artifact that carries special significance from the culture you are studying (cf. FW 143-155, 200-205). You are not only describing what it looks like, you are also writing about the rituals and customs associated with it. More simply, you are writing about how it represents your fieldsite or culture. This representation is a complex relationship, not a simple one, and it will provide the thesis statement that helps you to focus the portrait. Before you start writing, you will want to learn everything you can about the object, including physical traits, name, ownership, function, history, and background. Write about its most obvious and subtle features. It is important that you come to some understanding of the artifact's cultural significance. Be sure to provide a digital photograph of this artifact and add the photograph to your post (use the "add image" icon in the posting toolbar).
Option Two - Manipulation of an Image
Select an image that is relevant to the issue guiding your Portrait. This can be a digital photograph of your informant or fieldsite, or it can be an image procured from a completely different source. (Please use our image databases for free public-domain files, rather than searching Google Images for copyrighted files.) Once you have the image, launch Adobe Photoshop or a comparable picture editor (such as Macromedia Fireworks or Microsoft Paint) and "open" your image. These applications are installed on any STC lab computer on campus, as well as most computers in the dormitory labs. You can also access applications at no cost from IUWare. Be sure to save the image under another name so that you have an untouched version. Manipulate the image 5 different ways by using the filters, layering options, or artistic effects in the image-editing program that you work with. You may adjust the size, adjust the mode (from color to black and white, or grayscale to duotone), crop it, rotate it, emboss it, fade it, grain it, create a layer of color behind it, or any number of other possibilities. Experiment widely, but ultimately select the 5 manipulations that convey a similar mood or impression as your verbal portrait.
Then, write a clearly organized justification of all 5 manipulations, considering how each one conveys the issue or dominant impression in your Verbal Portrait. It is important that you come to some understanding of the image's cultural significance. Let this understanding be the thesis that helps you to focus your discussion. Be sure to include the manipulated images in your post (use the "add image" icon in the posting toolbar).
Then, write a clearly organized justification of all 5 manipulations, considering how each one conveys the issue or dominant impression in your Verbal Portrait. It is important that you come to some understanding of the image's cultural significance. Let this understanding be the thesis that helps you to focus your discussion. Be sure to include the manipulated images in your post (use the "add image" icon in the posting toolbar).
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Relevance - your image or artifact is relevant, and the image manipulations are rhetorically sound
- Depth - your discussion demonstrates an in-depth description of the image or artifact but does so in order to demonstrate its significance to your fieldsite or culture
- Focus and Coherence - your response is thesis-driven (even if that thesis is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized
- Evidence and Justification - your response provides sufficient details and puts them into conversation with relevant passages from Fieldworking
- Clarity and Style - your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines - your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage
BA #2 - Observation Preparation
This post is optional. To receive the extra credit, it should be posted to your own blog by 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday 2/8/11.
Purpose and Context
This optional Blog Assignment is an opportunity for you to try on what theorist Ann Berthoff has called "consciousness of consciousness" (11, as qtd. in Sunstein and Chiseri-Strater 90). Most of you have not yet had a chance to begin observing at your community agency, so you do not have the benefit of a set of fieldnotes on which to reflect. However, you can begin training yourself in analysis by using spaces, images, or artifacts.
For this post, select either a space that is somewhat familiar to you, an image (try our image databases), or an artifact that you own or that is in some way important to your community agency. Write a reflexive description of this space, image, or artifact. In other words, challenge yourself to -- like Scudder -- "look at your fish" in as many ways as possible, until you realize your own selective perception and the factors that cause you to notice some things over others.
Think of your description as a critical verbal snapshot (something like Box 13, 16, or 18 in FW, but with more awareness of how your description reflects key concepts in the textbook). Feel free to bring Fieldworking into explicit conversation with your verbal snapshot.
For this post, select either a space that is somewhat familiar to you, an image (try our image databases), or an artifact that you own or that is in some way important to your community agency. Write a reflexive description of this space, image, or artifact. In other words, challenge yourself to -- like Scudder -- "look at your fish" in as many ways as possible, until you realize your own selective perception and the factors that cause you to notice some things over others.
Think of your description as a critical verbal snapshot (something like Box 13, 16, or 18 in FW, but with more awareness of how your description reflects key concepts in the textbook). Feel free to bring Fieldworking into explicit conversation with your verbal snapshot.
Evaluation Criteria
I will evaluate this extra-credit post according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Depth of Response – your response to this assignment demonstrates an in-depth verbal snapshot, and demonstrates your ability to work with particular passages or concepts from Fieldworking
- Focus and Coherence – your response is claim-driven (even if that claim is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized
- Evidence and Justification – your response provides sufficient details from the space, image, or artifact and relevant passages from Fieldworking
- Clarity and Style – your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines – your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage
BA #1 - Positioning Preparation
This assignment should be posted to your own blog by
Purpose and Context
The first Blog Assignment asks you to either analyze or synthesize particular texts from the first few weeks of class. This is primarily an opportunity for you to demonstrate what you have learned from closely reading these texts, to apply what you have learned to your understanding of civic engagement, and to “try on” some of the methodologies for reading and writing that will guide you through the major assignments in the course. This is secondarily an opportunity for me to give you early feedback on a low-stakes assignment before you embark on longer works, so I encourage you to do as well as you possibly can.
The Assignment: Option One - Analysis
Analyze how either Joan Brumberg’s “Body Projects” or Denny Taylor’s Toxic Literacies reflects, challenges, or complicates one key concept from Fieldworking (pp. 1-14, 42-55, glossary). Rather than regurgitate what the textbook says about that concept, your analysis should demonstrate a genuine and sophisticated understanding of the concept by drawing on, citing from, and meaningfully relating to the text that you choose.
The Assignment: Option Two - Synthesis
Bring one of the following authors (Quinn, Prendergast, Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies, Killingsworth and Palmer) into conversation with one of our service-learning authors (Heilker, Bridwell-Bowles, Franklin) in order to explain how you understand civic engagement at this point in the semester. By “bring into conversation,” I mean you might compare how two different authors discuss the same concept, or you might discuss how one author illuminates the ideas of another author, or you might demonstrate how something one author says represents a problem for the other author. The important thing is that you implicitly answer the question of “What do I think civic engagement is?” and that you draw on, cite from, and meaningfully relate two authors in the process.
The Assignment: Option One - Analysis
Analyze how either Joan Brumberg’s “Body Projects” or Denny Taylor’s Toxic Literacies reflects, challenges, or complicates one key concept from Fieldworking (pp. 1-14, 42-55, glossary). Rather than regurgitate what the textbook says about that concept, your analysis should demonstrate a genuine and sophisticated understanding of the concept by drawing on, citing from, and meaningfully relating to the text that you choose.
The Assignment: Option Two - Synthesis
Bring one of the following authors (Quinn, Prendergast, Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies, Killingsworth and Palmer) into conversation with one of our service-learning authors (Heilker, Bridwell-Bowles, Franklin) in order to explain how you understand civic engagement at this point in the semester. By “bring into conversation,” I mean you might compare how two different authors discuss the same concept, or you might discuss how one author illuminates the ideas of another author, or you might demonstrate how something one author says represents a problem for the other author. The important thing is that you implicitly answer the question of “What do I think civic engagement is?” and that you draw on, cite from, and meaningfully relate two authors in the process.
Evaluation Criteria
This assignment will be evaluated according to the “plus” system discussed on page 4 of our syllabus. The assignment is fairly flexible and I will accept a broad range of responses. Please be original, but please keep in mind the following criteria:
- Depth of Response – your response to this assignment demonstrates an in-depth reading of two texts, and demonstrates your ability to work with particular passages or concepts, rather than to do a superficial reading
- Focus and Coherence – your response is thesis-driven (even if that thesis statement is implicit) and your supporting claims are well organized to develop that thesis
- Evidence and Justification – your response provides and appropriately cites specific passages from both texts to illustrate the claims you want to make
- Clarity and Style – your paragraphs are well focused, your sentences are grammatically sound, and your writing has a sense of polish, as if you have thought carefully about what you want to say and how you need to say it
- Blogging Guidelines – your assignment follows these and uses them to your advantage