Research exploring the efficacy of Service-Learning hasn't fully investigated potential implications for online modalities and transfer of learning. Therefore, during Fall 2016 and Spring 2017 semesters I taught two second-semester composition courses built around essays that required students to engage with communities outside the classroom.…

This article, based on a study in a sixth-grade middle school classroom in the rural southern United States, details a writing project that questions the nature of text and how text might positively affect students' perceptions as they become change agents for their communities.

In what ways do students understand and document literacies within out-of-school communities in their school-sponsored writings? How can community literacy sites and public perceptions of community disrepair stimulate students to create written responses on the politics of place? These questions are at the heart of this article's investigation…

In this essay, we explain the development, implementation, and preliminary findings of an innovative writing program that drew upon a peer collaborative model and a community literacy perspective. Developed as an after school program, this project represented a community-university partnership designed to provide an enjoyable forum for teaching…

Reports observations of two courses of Community Service Writing wherein the teacher incorporated community-based writing assignments in order to help students writing outside the university. Finds that the curriculum did not support students' transitions to nonacademic settings. Calls for a model of rhetorically focused composition instruction…

Service learning discourses have often addressed questions of representation through reciprocity, asking what various participants receive from service learning community experiences. In the process of researching an article about reciprocity, a writing teacher found that reciprocity was often defined as an exchange of learning for some form of…

Technical or professional writing classes may be enhanced through real-world writing assignments. Social-service agencies prove to be most agreeable and enthusiastic about working with students on various projects because they have limited--sometimes diminishing--financial support. In addition, most charities are accustomed to working with…

Describes how one English teacher developed an approach to teaching writing that pairs student writers with writers in the community outside the school. Outlines the features of this writing partners project, including the responsibilities of each partner. Argues that such programs foster writer skill and self-esteem. (HB)

Describes the design and implementation of a major collaborative assignment in which students investigate and produce written and oral solutions to a problem with a national perspective experienced by a community corporation, business, governmental, or not-for-profit organization. (KEH)

Asserts that a newsletter assignment is a good alternative to the long report. Describes a newsletter assignment that demonstrates how basic requirements for identifying problem and purpose, using primary and secondary sources, and designing graphics are similar to those for the typical long report assignment. (PRA)

Describes assignments which engage students and are suitable for end of year: (1) a video or booklet for incoming students describing what the grade they are about to enter is all about; (2) a book of poetry for a special person; (3) a research packet for next year's students; and (4) a letter from parents explaining their feelings for their…