Coogan

Coogan, David. "Counterpublics in Public Housing: Reframing the Politics of Service Learning." College English 67 (2005): 461-482.


ASL, Coogan says, provides an opportunity to at once challenge perceptions of 'city' and 'other' when we frame ASL as "a jumping-off point for addressing community issues" (462). Reflection, yes, but action too--an examination of how the "private" (personal selves/individuals expressing themselves discursively) and "public" (civic spaces with all their material realities) ... "inform each other in the communities we wish to serve" (462). The discursive and material intersect in the realm of the "counterpublic"--where various agents construct oppositional posititons to convince "outsiders to think or behave differently about issues" (465).

Reframe politics of ASL such that we avoid 'personal growth' mode, which neglects materiality and social analysis and fosters "naive identification with the other" (476). Give students a space to engage in counter-public discourse, which is both rhetorical (tell stories, use language) and material (via argumentation about real issues and lived experiences). Use a "Christian love ethic that takes the invidiual (and individual development) as the primary unit of analysis" (480).

Green

Green, Ann. "Difficult Stories: Service-Learning, Race, Class, and Whiteness." College Composition and Communication 55 (2003): 276-301.

Green argues for the inclusion of more stories about race and class in our ASL stories (in both scholarship and in the classroom). Foreground identity markers in order to work toward social change. Dealing with race and class is a way to tell "difficult stories" and avoid side-stepping issues of power, which inevitably arise when doing ASL. Race and class help to fill in context in which service happens.

She also suggests that field notes are a better genre than a reflection journal, as notes emphasize analysis and observation, not just feelings.