Engaging Literacies: Border-Crossing as a Means of Civic Engagement in Our Own Backyard

• In Event: 60.084 - Roundtable Session 20
  In Roundtable Session: 60.084-14 - Toward an Engaged Institution: Civic Engagement and the Public Good

Abstract

This paper presents a “border-crossing” civic engagement project engaging three community partners: liberal arts college students, College Assistance Migrant Program students, and Latino elementary students. The project uses storytelling to focus on: 1) building community across age, class, ethnic, and linguistic barriers and 2) publish a book sharing the children’s experiences as Latinos in an urban Midwest community. The notion of “border-crossing” is typically applied to engagement projects in study abroad programs or crossing university boundaries into surrounding communities, the concept has yet to be applied to civic engagement projects in both local settings and amongst university student bodies. I propose expanding the notion of border-crossing to include civic engagement projects bringing together student bodies around campus and the surrounding community.

Author

• Estrella Torrez, Michigan State University