Service-Learning and an Undergraduate’s Agency and Vulnerability in an After-School Writing Club With Fifth Graders (Poster 20)

• In Event: Thursday Poster Session 4:20 pm
  In Poster Session: Languages, Literacies, and Representations Poster Session

Abstract

White privilege drives the university curriculum at the cost of Black students. To intentionally disrupt normative deficit practices embedded in K-16 writing instruction, we created a critical service-learning course and an after-school writing club with fifth graders. The college students acted as writers and writing mentors to foster humanizing interactions. This case study was driven by the research question, “How did an undergraduate writing mentor in a critical service-learning literacy course negotiate the positions made available by instructors in an asset-based after-school writing club?” Drawing on positioning theory, we found Roseanna taking up being reflective, agentive, and vulnerable. Implications include that college students have the potential to explore new ways of being and this process is essential to cultivating equality.

Authors

• Laurie MacGillivray, University of Memphis

• Sarah Burson Langley, University of Memphis