Service Learning and Literary Studies in English
- Editors: Laurie Grobman, Roberta Rosenberg
- Pages: x & 284 pp.
- Published: 2015
- ISBN: 9781603292023 (Paperback)
- ISBN: 9781603292016 (Hardcover)
Teaching Literature Book Award Winner
—Idaho State University
“[U]nreservedly recommended as a core addition to college and university library collections.”
—Reviewer’s Bookwatch
Service learning can help students develop a sense of civic responsibility, often while addressing pressing community needs. One goal of literary studies is to understand the ethical dimensions of the world, and thus service learning, by broadening the environments students consider, is well suited to the literature classroom. Whether through a public literacy project that demonstrates the relevance of literary study or community-based research that brings literary theory to life, student collaboration with community partners brings social awareness to the study of literary texts and helps students and teachers engage literature in new ways.
In their introduction, the volume editors trace the history of service learning in the United States, including the debate about literature’s role, and outline the best practices of the pedagogy. The essays that follow cover American, English, and world literature; creative nonfiction and memoir; literature-based writing; and cross-disciplinary studies. Contributors describe a wide variety of service-learning projects, including a course on the Harlem Renaissance in which students lead a community writing workshop, an English capstone seminar in which seniors design programs for public libraries, and a creative nonfiction course in which first-year students work with elderly community members to craft life narratives. The volume closes with a list of resources for practitioners and researchers in the field.
Idaho State University Teaching Literature Book Award Winner
Diana C. Archibald
Robin J. Barrow
Ann Marie Fallon
Elizabeth K. Goodhue
Matthew C. Hansen
Scott Hicks
Jennifer Leeman
Kristina Lucenko
Claudia Monpere McIsaac
Elizabeth Parfitt
Lisa Rabin
Kathleen Béres Rogers
Ivy Schweitzer
Carol Tyx
Emily VanDette
Mary Vermillion
Joan Wagner
Sarah D. Wald
Acknowledgments (ix)
Introduction: Literary Studies, Service Learning, and the Public Humanities (1)
Part I: Service Learning in American Literature
Everybody Reads: Public Literature Programs as Agents of Social Exchange and Connection (43)
The Literature Classroom, College Library, and Reading Publics: Building Collaborative Critical Reading Networks (54)
Completing the Circle: Teaching Literature as Community-Based Learning (67)
Reliving and Remaking the Harlem Renaissance (78)
Part II: Service Learning in English and World Literature
Satire, Sentimentalism, and Civic Engagement: From Eighteenth-Century Britain to the Twenty-First-Century Writing Course (93)
Shake It Up After-School: Service Learning, Shakespeare, and Performance as Interpretation (104)
Learning across “Different Zones”: Bridging the Gap between “Two Nations” through Community Engagement (116)
Critical Service Learning and Literary Study in Spanish (128)
Part III: Service Learning in Creative Nonfiction and Memoir
Generation(s) of Narratives: Life Writing and Digital Storytelling (141)
“The Boldness of Imagination”: Illness Narratives outside the Classroom (151)
Care, Compassion, and the Examined Life: Combining Creative Nonfiction and Community Engagement in a First-Year Seminar (162)
Part IV: Service Learning in Literature-Based Writing
Teaching Literature to Raise a Voice in the First-Year Writing Course (175)
"Beneath Thatched Shelters, We Paint Wide-Brimmed Straw Hats”: Creative Writing and Social Justice (188)
Part V: Service Learning in Cross-Disciplinary Studies
Literature Goes to Prison: A Reciprocal Service-Learning Project (203)
Building Empathy through Service Learning and Narratives of Sexual Violence (213)
Sustainable Harvests: Food Justice, Service Learning, and Environmental Justice Pedagogy (224)
Part VI: Selected Resources
Selected Resources for Research and Teaching in Service Learning and Literature (237)
Notes on Contributors (249)
Works Cited (255)
Index (279)
“This is a groundbreaking anthology of new research and practice in the engaged humanities. Readers will find a rich intellectual debate on strategies for growing the public humanities and for renewing the contribution of literary studies to higher education’s mission to strengthen democracy and imbue students with a thoughtful commitment to civic engagement.”
—Gregory Jay, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
