Tarez Samra Graban, Department of English
Triangulation and rhetorical contexts: Using visual ethnography as an interpretive lens for research
W240 Community Service Writing
Course revision
Support provided by Office of Service-Learning
Instructional Goals
- Understanding research-based writing as a mediated discussion and synthesis of conflicting (sometimes paradoxical) views, and as a way of generating knowledge or raising questions beyond finding answers to questions of fact.
- Participating in information literacy as a series of interrelated stages, including defining information ends, searching appropriate sources, evaluating possible sources, organizing information, using information, and creating new information.
- Distinguishing between information that is best communicated in visual format and information best communicated in alphanumeric text, and drawing connections between visual and alphanumeric elements in writing.
- Learning how invention, arrangement, and conventions of form, style, and documentation of sources contribute to a writer’s credibility and authority in public and academic contexts.
English W240 Community Service Writing typically provides undergraduates with direct- or project-based service-learning opportunities related to writing community-oriented projects. This version of the course combined both approaches, encouraging students to consider how community agencies effect systemic change by exploring various models of “leadership,” undertaking service hours, and completing an ethnographic project at one of five community agencies in Bloomington.
Undergraduates in majors as diverse as English, SPEA, pre-business, health sciences, and journalism engaged in various “arts” of research and writing for civic engagement by conducting field research at their chosen agency, triangulating various sources of information (visual and alphanumeric), and bringing primary and secondary sources into conversation with one another on a series of inquiry-based papers, all culminating in a final research-based essay which required them to answer a focused question about the agencies where they served. Students also constructed a simple Web portfolio for them to collect, reflect on, and project their ongoing work, including reflections on their fieldnotes and any digital “artifacts” that they gathered during their research. Finally, students collaborated with a group of their classmates on producing a public document, series of documents, or alternative text that would help their agency further its mission. Students and the agencies worked together to determine the need, audience, genre form, content, and structure of that document or text. Resulting projects included historical brochures, volunteer training guides, an informational website, and recruitment flyers.
As part of this project, students read in a variety of genres, pairing fiction with critical essays on such themes as body image, literacy, poverty, accessibility, and sustainability to build knowledge of the kinds of practical and intellectual problems that community agencies face. What distinguishes this course from other research- or writing-intensive or courses they may have taken is its emphasis on learning “triangulation,” not only as a principle guiding their assimilation of diverse information but also as a guiding principle for synthesizing the rhetorical situations in which they write. For example, as they construct their visual portraits and research portfolios, students demonstrate sensitivity to the many audiences that portfolio will have; thus, they find ways to frame the project so as to accommodate their own personal history or history of the communities that have influenced them, the personal and collective identities of the audiences they write for, and the ongoing discussions of the subjects they write about—often by experts, and often going back in time many years.
Abstracts from final projects
“Outsider Blues: Resilience Strategies for Anti-Social Children at the Boys & Girls Club.” By reading research studies on resilient behavior and observing youth-development strategies for bringing “outsider” children “inside,” I discuss how Boys and Girls Club programming actually helps at-risk youth develop resilience.
“Battle of the Bulge: The Girls Incorporated Vision of Adolescent Pregnancy Prevention.” I investigate three aspects of sex-education programs—funding, parental participation, and community involvement—to demonstrate how the PAP (Preventing Adolescent Pregnancy) program at Girls Inc. models itself after other “effective” models for pregnancy prevention, providing a unique solution to a controversial debate.
“Building the Leaders of Tomorrow.” Given Banneker's history as an African American school and an educational force in black education in Bloomington, how does Banneker reach out to other races and effectively what programming do they provide that help create an environment that promotes equality within the group? By serving as “life coaches,” Banneker staff model place to learn and grow beyond the boundaries of skin color.
“A Model of Transformational Leadership in the Face of Hunger.” I investigate how Mother Hubbard's Cupboard acts as a model for Steven Blume's “transformational leadership” according to its reciprocity and emergence. I look specifically at how MHC’s values, community relationship, collective efforts, and purposeful motives translate into a leadership very similar to Steven Blume’s “transformational leadership,”
“FREEING Patrons from Dependence on Food Assistance.” I analyzed MHC’s operations and used multiple academic resources to provide theory and framework to explain what I see as the MHC model. I devised a “FREEING” model (fostering reciprocal empowerment, equality, independence, nutrition and growth) to explain how MHC embodies these concepts more than the traditional food pantry system (TFPS) using Betty Franklin’s social action, Blume’s transcending leadership, Bennholdt-Thomsen and Mies’s subsistence perspective, and articles about different ways to flatten organizational hierarchies in nonprofit organizations.
