From+the+community+to+the+classroom+and+back+again

**From the community to the classroom and back again: The reciprocity that results when the community comes to the adult classroom** Steffanie Triller, Instructor, DePaul University [striller@depaul.edu]



**Keywords:** Community writing, Freire, composition

**Track:** Community partnerships and reciprocity

**Format:** Poster presentation 
 * Date & time: **Thursday 3:20-4:30
 * Location: **Salon 4 / Salon 9

**Summary:** This research study transcends boundaries between the adult composition classroom and the community. In the course that served as the site of the research study, the community was invited into the classroom. University-based students validated community writing in new ways as they constructed this writing in and out of the classroom. They brought their classroom writing to the community, and their community writing to the classroom. In this reciprocal model, the students created the data that would eventually be used as basis for inquiry into the practices of the community partner, the Community Writing Project.

This study is currently still taking place and will continue until June 2011. However, some notable stories have already emerged. The first is the story of a prompt. University students chose to invite their students to write in various ways, some more aligned with popular education pedagogies than others. Second are the stories of anxiety and reassurance that emerged as students traversed the boundaries between student and teacher. Third are the stories of students’ understandings of popular education gathered from classroom observation. Their discussions of Freirean theory itself lead to problematization of the university classroom, but less to problematization of the lack of writing and activism in oppressed communities.

While traditional service learning practice draws lines between the “student” and the “community member,” inviting the community-based program or project into the classroom is a possible and lucrative endeavor, and further blurs the lines between validation of community and academic writing. Inviting students into an empathetic experience of writing in (rather than for, about, or with) community before writing with the community increased their sensitivity to the project, and allowed them to create important stories for the Community Writing Project.

**References:** Adams, H. & Hurtig, J. (2002). Creative acts, critical insights: Adult writing workshops in two Chicago neighborhoods. In E. Auerbach (Ed.) //Community Partnerships// (pp. 147-158). Alexandria, VA: TESOL.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Berlin, J. (1988, September). Rhetoric and ideology in the writing class. //College English//, //50//, 477- 494.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Deans, T. (2000). //Writing partnerships: Service learning in composition//. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Feldman, A. M. (2008). //Making writing matter: Composition in the engaged university//. Albany, NY: SUNY.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Freire, P. (1970). //Pedagogy of the oppressed//. New York: Herder and Herder.Flower, L. (2002, November). Intercultural inquiry and the transformation of service. //College// //English//, //65//, 181-201.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Hurtig, J. (2005). Resisting assimilation: Mexican immigrant mothers writing together. In M. Farr (Ed.), //Latino Language and Literacy in Ethnolinguistic Chicago// (pp. 247-275). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Inc.Hurtig, J. & Adams, H. (2010). Democracy is in the details: Small writing groups prefiguring a new society. //New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education//, //128//, 15-25.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">Polin, D. K. & Keene, A. S. (2010). Bringing an ethnographic sensibility to service-learning assessment. //Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning//, //16//, 22-27.

**<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Please click here to access a PDF of this page: ** <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 140%;">[|Triller_From the Community to the Classroom and Back Again.pdf]


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