Thursday's Service-Learning Symposium

Dear ENG W240 Class,

Tomorrow marks the last of our Community Partner roundtables, and Thursday marks the end of the first unit of our syllabus, in which we have been raising various concepts, issues, questions, and problems that underscore community-based research and writing. This week would be an opportune time to review our FW pages from week one, especially in preparation for the first blog assignment and the Positioning Essay.

On Thursday, we will be conducting a kind of symposium on service-learning, and I'd like to give you some details in advance of that class day. There are three readings scheduled, but I ask everyone to read two. (You are welcome and encouraged to read all three, but it will only be necessary for you to read two in order to participate.) To break the routine a bit, I'd like us to conduct a discursive role play, wherein each of us plays the role of one author responding to another author. By responding, I simply mean that you could speak on behalf of both authors, but that you would be speaking from the vantage point of one author, and thus filtering other ideas through his/her lens. Be prepared to really inhabit that author's subject position, beliefs, ideologies, and claims, even if they are different from your own.

I will have a set of questions to provoke our discussion until it takes flight on its own, but here is how I'd like to arrange the groups:

Heilker, responding to Bridwell-Bowles:
Samantha Adams, Jessi Daugherty, Garrett Montgomery, Alyssa Rudner

Heilker, responding to Franklin:
Michael Wey, Cameray Boyden, Eden Faye, Morgan Metallic

Franklin, responding to Bridwell-Bowles:
Jack Pupillo, Sara Troutman, Alyssa Alley, Maria Ficker

Franklin, responding to Heilker:
Jacob Janicki, Catherine Nichols, Talia Shifron, Chelsey Brunner

Bridwell-Bowles, responding to Heilker:
Kristine Meade, Claire Robinson, Broderick Thompson, Andrew Cook

Bridwell-Bowles, responding to Franklin:
Mollie O'Reilly, Corey Rosenblum, Ashley Thomas, Prof. Graban (if you won't find this too annoying)

This is more or less a random assignment of groups, so if you have strong leanings toward a different set of readings than the one I have suggested above, please let me know.

See you in class tomorrow,

Professor Graban