Community Literacy Journal

Service-learning in the Composition Classroom

wp — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:26:39 +0000

Call for Papers: Service-learning in the Composition Classroom
Submissions are sought for a professional development book for both new and
experienced composition teachers that will focus on the role of
service-learning in the composition classroom. The book will be part of the
Fountainhead Press X Series for Professional Development. Essays are sought
that provide practical ideas for using service-learning pedagogy in the
classroom; however, the practical application should build on a pedagogical
discussion that frames the teaching/learning activities. In other words, do
not only tell how, but also why.

The specific audience includes
· New teaching assistants, adjuncts and instructors teaching
composition courses, including technical writing
· Service-learning/Community Literacy personnel
· Writing Program administrators interested in the creation of
professional development courses or programs
· Writing Center personnel
· Writing Across the Curriculum personnel

Possible topics include
· Pedagogical pros and cons of using service-learning in the
composition classroom
· Collaborative models for working with community partners
· Management of service-learning projects planning documents,
designating roles for community partners/teachers/students, designing legal
documents to protect student interests and ownership/use of final products,
forming/managing work teams, etc.
· Designing course schedules with flexibility, utilizing regular class
meetings versus engagement time with community partners
· Models for working with profit/not-for-profit organizations
· Assessment models/assessment implications/role of community partners
in assessment
· Strategies for gaining administrative/community support for projects
· Strategies for gearing service-learning approaches to programmatic
needs
· Implications of service-learning related to community literacy
· The role of technology in service-learning and the learning
opportunities presented
· Implications for the role of teacher in service-learning
· Strategies for dealing with ethical implications of service-learning
engagement/products/expectations/responsibilities
· Discussions of end products developed through service-learning
activities
· Discussions of student/teacher/programmatic/community partner
attitudes about the reasons for service-learning activities

You are strongly encouraged to provide samples of
· Student writing
· End products
· Forms
· Syllabi
· Assignment descriptions

Submissions written collaboratively with students/administrators/community
partners are especially encouraged. Submissions should be around 5,000
words and should follow MLA style. Please refer to
http://www.fountainheadpress.com/english/xseries.html
for series style
guide. Submit essays in digital form (Word/rtf) by October 1, 2008 to
susan.garza@tamucc.edu.

______________________________________
Susan Garza, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of English
Director, McNair Scholars Program
Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi
6300 Ocean Drive, FC 267
Corpus Christi, TX 78412-5813
susan.garza@tamucc.edu
361-825-2483
http://critical.tamucc.edu/wiki/SGarza/Home
_____________________________________

4.1 CFP: Sustainability & Community Literacy

wp — Wed, 14 May 2008 15:00:03 +0000

Call for Proposals for a Special Issue of the Community Literacy Journal
Special Issue Guest Editor
Anne Mareck, University of Kentucky, Lexington
sustainable-clj@mtu.edu

The peer reviewed Community Literacy Journal invites articles for its Fall 2009 special issue on Sustainability, the Environment, and Community Literacy. Special issue guest editor Anne Mareck of the University of Kentucky, Lexington welcomes manuscripts that explore the interconnections among community literacy, sustainable practices, and cognizance of biospheric situatedness.

Prominent thinkers such as David Orr, Arne Naess, Carolyn Merchant, and others have suggested that in order to create a truly sustainable society our fundamental conception of what it means to live on a planet must evolve. We must develop a “biospheric literacy,” an understanding of ourselves as members of a global biotic community who are entirely dependent upon stable ecosystems for our continued existence. And as Paul Hawken wrote in Blessed Unrest, myriad efforts toward the creation of environmentally sustainable, socially just communities are already underway.

Particularly welcomed for this issue are pieces co-authored in collaboration with community partners. Submissions of shorter and longer works (8-20 manuscript pages) including scholarly articles, essays, case studies, ethnographies, and reflective narratives are invited. Poems, drawings, photographs, and cartoons are invited as well. Topics might include:

• Reflections on the notion of a Biospheric Community Literacy
• Syntheses of Cultural, Functional, and Biospheric Community Literacies
• Locavore, Walkshed, and 350: The Emerging Lexicon of Biospheric Community Literacy
• Ecopedagogy and Biospheric Community Literacy
• Activist-Intellectuals: Service Learning, Community Service, and Sustainable Practices
• Ecocomposition, Sustainability, and Community Literacy
• Nature Writing, Sustainability, and Community Literacy
• Rhetoric, Sustainability, and Community Literacy
• Professional Communication, Document Design, and Biospheric Community Literacy
• Environmental Communication and Community Literacy
• Conservation Psychology and Community Literacy
• Ecological Education and Community Literacy
• Experiential Education, Sustainability, and Community Literacy
• Food Politics and Community Literacy
• Creating and Living in Sustainable Community
• Globalization, Localization, and Community Biospheric Literacy
• Community and Individual Agency in Creating a Sustainable Human Society
• Indigenous Perspectives on Biospheric Community Literacy
• Cooperative and Grassroots Community Sustainability Ventures
• Environmental/Social Justice and Community Biospheric Literacy
• Community Conservation Strategies
• Green Campus Community Organizing
• Organizational Transformation and Biospheric Community Literacy
• Dialogue in the Public Sphere: Democracy, Community, and Fast Change
• Community Literacy, Climate Change, and Adaptation-Mitigation
• Ethnographies and Case Studies of Sustainability Efforts
• Social Networking and Climate Change
• Species Interdependency and Biospheric Literacy
• Celebration: Art, Music, and Dance as Conveyors of Biospheric Community Literacy
• Hope: Building the Sustainable Just Communities of the Future

Suggested reading:
Peck, Wayne, Linda Flower, and Lorraine Higgins. “Community Literacy.” College Composition and Communication 46-2 (May 1995): 199-222.

By July 15, 2008 please send your 500 word MS-Word proposal as an electronic attachment to special issue guest editor Anne Mareck sustainable-CLJ@mtu.edu

New Community Literacy Title

wp — Sun, 06 Apr 2008 13:18:44 +0000

Elenore Long’s Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Local Publics is available from from Parlor Press. From the description: the book “traces common values in diverse accounts of ‘ordinary people going public.’ Long offers a five-point theoretical framework used to review major community-literacy projects that have emerged in recent years: 1) the guiding metaphor behind such projects; 2) the context that defines a “local” public, shaping what is an effective, even possible performance, 3) the tenor and affective register of the discourse; 4) the literate practices that shape the discourse; and, most signficantly, 5) the nature of rhetorical invention or the generative process by which people in these accounts respond to exigencies, such as getting around gatekeepers, affirming identities, and speaking out with others across difference.

Community Literacy and the Rhetoric of Local Publics also examines pedagogies that educators can use to help students to go public in the course of their rhetorical education at college. the concluding chapter adapts local-public literacies to college curricula and examines how these literate moves elicit different kinds of engagement from students and require different kinds of scaffolding from teachers and community educators. A glossary and annotated bibliography provide the basis for further inquiry and research.”

The Conscious Classroom

wp — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 02:40:04 +0000

From the February 25, 2008 issue of The Nation magazine: “Positioned among smoky factories and aging row houses on Chicago’s West Side, the immaculate Little Village Lawndale High School (LVLHS) serves as a constant reminder to community residents of what collective action can produce. Concerned that 70 percent of neighborhood students traveled to different parts of the city for high school, parents organized vigorously for the construction of a new facility in their backyard.

After initially approving the plans, city officials stalled construction, claiming that funds had to be diverted to other projects. In response, the community redoubled its efforts, culminating in a nineteen-day hunger strike at the site of the proposed building, referred to by supporters as Camp Cesar Chavez. “Construyan la escuela ahora!” was the protesters’ battle cry, and after six long years, the school was opened as promised in 2005.

Aside from the beautiful building, the struggle birthed a new educational environment for Little Village’s youth.” Read the rest of the article.

Issue 2.2: Spring 2008

wp — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 13:23:39 +0000

Articles:
Kimberly Lenters

Programming Family Literacy: Tensions and Directions
This paper explores the following questions related to family literacy programs: How is family literacy linked with family literacy programs? What are the theoretical frameworks supporting the various models educators and researchers are using in their pedagogical approaches to family literacy programs?

View 2.2 contents.