Staying Engaged while Staying Home?: Service-Learning, Writing, and COVID-19

Authors

Christopher Iverson, Farmingdale State CollegeFollow

Author Type

Faculty

Abstract

As an approach to writing instruction that has traditionally required students to engage in in-person community projects, service-learning has also traditionally involved risks. For example, students engaging in service-learning without proper support often do not approach community partners with the appropriate respect, and when university stakeholders fail to make clear what their side can offer in a partnership, they can leave community partners in the lurch when the semester ends and students finish their community-engaged coursework. These risks can be mitigated through education and reflection for instructors and students alike. The COVID-19 pandemic and ensuing social distancing orders, however, left instructors scrambling to learn how to teach their “traditional” courses remotely and created a dangerous situation for students and potential community partners. But the benefits of community-engaged writing pedagogies such as service-learning—nourishing activist dispositions, exposing students to systemic injustice as opposed to short-term or local issues, encouraging goal-oriented collaboration, etc.—still prove important, especially after COVID-19 exacerbated existing social inequities. This article examines existing research into the long-term benefits of service-learning, including two case studies of students who engaged in service-learning partnerships that required little to no direct contact and a description of a community-engaged writing course in which student-to-community contact proved unnecessary. While it is difficult to create new data on the effects of service-learning on writing students in an online space, the existing research can help make the case for continuing to pursue community-engaged writing instruction while we consider the precautions necessary to make that pursuit safe and worthwhile.