English Journal - The School and the Community, May 2001

Describes how the author’s eighth-grade language arts inquiry-based instruction blossomed into student-based community learning, with students defining and seeking their own relevant goals, bringing the community to school with an art exhibit of tolerance, volunteering at a nearby elementary school, creating community gardens to fulfill a neighborhood need, and creating a new desert habitat community park bringing school and neighborhood together.

Describes family writing workshops as a way to share with the families how writing is used in high school classroom, as they brainstorm memories, do 20 minutes of free writing on a memory from their list, share their writing, and write closing letters. Discusses benefits and the impact of these workshops and offers guidelines.

Investigates whether parent participation could improve student achievement in one of the author’s ninth-grade sheltered English classes. Describes how parents wrote essays with their children, participated in a goal-setting conference, and took part in a literary correspondence discussing “Romeo and Juliet.” Discusses the benefits for the teacher, parents, and students of such parent participation in ninth-grade English.

Describes lessons and units that allow the author’s high school English students to make important connections with members of their community, publish their efforts, and thus bridge the gap between young adults and their communities. Describes a “literary cookbook” (published and distributed in their community) in which each student wrote one informative piece and one creative piece.

Describes the author’s experiences teaching composition to inmates at a women’s minimum security prison. Describes how these students wrote with alacrity and passion, using writing as a tool to solve problems and enlighten. Discusses how mandated curriculum and assignment requirements were met, revisions made and issues of dialect discussed, while students used writing as a tool for exploration and empowerment.

Describes a unit for high school English students that makes the Colonial period in American literature come alive by studying eighteenth-century gravestone images and epitaphs. Describes how this study becomes a journey into their community, into local history, and ultimately into themselves.

Describes a range of community-based writing projects that the author used with her middle and high school students of all levels. Discusses how these projects (ranging from simple interviews, to short biographies to profiles published and distributed in the community) not only became part of students’ home town, but also helped students distill valuable knowledge from their subjects.

Pat Schnack’s community reading’ writing project began as a way for the community to appreciate the personalities and quirks of middle-schoolers, as well as to offer her 150 students the individual attention she alone could not provide. The project grew to encompass those goals and more.

Describes two projects undertaken with the author’s high school English classes in which students chose writing they wished to share with their own community, and then published it, in one case selling their class anthology to selected businesses around town. Describes the increase in enthusiasm for writing and care and professionalism caused by writing for a real audience.

Discusses the many benefits of service learning, and offers examples from the author’s high school students. Notes literacy and language arts service learning projects; the importance of integrating service learning into a regular program of instruction; programs and resource materials that support service learning at the K-12 level; and students’ positive responses.