Service learning can help students develop a sense of civic responsibility and commitment, often while addressing pressing community needs. One goal of literary studies is to understand the ethical dimensions of the world, and thus service learning, by broadening the environments students consider, is well suited to the literature classroom. Whether through a public literacy project that demonstrates the relevance of literary study or community-based research that brings literary theory to life, student collaboration with community partners brings social awareness to the study of literary texts and helps students and teachers engage literature in new ways.In their introduction, the volume editors trace the history of service learning in the United States, including the debate about literature's role, and outline the best practices of the pedagogy. The essays that follow cover American, English, and world literature; creative nonfiction and memoir; literature-based writing; and cross-disciplinary studies. Contributors describe a wide variety of service-learning projects, including a course on the Harlem Renaissance in which students lead a community writing workshop, an English capstone seminar in which seniors design programs for public libraries, and a creative nonfiction course in which first-year students work with elderly community members to craft life narratives. The volume closes with a list of resources for practitioners and researchers in the field.

Service learning can help students develop a sense of civic responsibility and commitment, often while addressing pressing community needs. One goal of literary studies is to understand the ethical dimensions of the world, and thus service learning, by broadening the environments students consider, is well suited to the literature classroom. Whether through a public literacy project that demonstrates the relevance of literary study or community-based research that brings literary theory to life, student collaboration with community partners brings social awareness to the study of literary texts and helps students and teachers engage literature in new ways. In their introduction, the volume editors trace the history of service learning in the United States, including the debate about literature's role, and outline the best practices of the pedagogy. The essays that follow cover American, English, and world literature; creative nonfiction and memoir; literature-based writing; and cross-disciplinary studies. Contributors describe a wide variety of service-learning projects, including a course on the Harlem Renaissance in which students lead a community writing workshop, an English capstone seminar in which seniors design programs for public libraries, and a creative nonfiction course in which first-year students work with elderly community members to craft life narratives. The volume closes with a list of resources for practitioners and researchers in the field.

This innovative, timely text introduces the theory, research, and classroom application of critical approaches to the teaching of minoritized heritage learners, foregrounding sociopolitical concerns in language education. Beaudrie and Loza open with a global analysis, and expert contributors connect a focus on speakers of Spanish as a heritage language in the United States to broad issues in heritage language education in other contexts – offering an overview of key concepts and theoretical issues, practical pedagogical guidance, and field-advancing suggestions for research projects. This is an invaluable resource for advanced students and scholars of applied linguistics and education, as well as language program administrators.

Reading literature has often been described as transporting, but it has less often been considered as having an impact on real communities. Yet, reading literature can transform one's reading of the world and vice versa. In Community-Based Learning and the Work of Literature, the authors make the case for cultivating already-existing relationships between literature and public engagement. Written for faculty and staff in literature and humanities programs, this book provides innovative ways to incorporate community-based learning (CBL)—the attempt to link the work of university classrooms with communities at large—into literary studies. This book examines how community engagement re-imagines academic work in the humanities, proposing new approaches to scholarship and pedagogy in literary studies. The chapter contributors—all scholars of English, foreign language literature, and cultural studies—respond to three questions: How can literary theory inform CBL? How does community service transform our assumptions about literature and the literary aspects of everyday life? In what ways do readings in cultural studies extend to the question of civitas, or the creation of a vibrant community life? Answering these questions, the contributors move literary studies beyond the lecture halls and toward the formation of learning communities that revise our conceptions of the human condition, construct an expanded and active sociological imagination, encourage compassion, and address issues of social justice. By linking literature and life through service-learning, the authors show how literary scholars can harness the power of their discipline to transform as well as inform.

Curriculum Design and Praxis in Language Teaching presents a variety of methodologies and theoretical perspectives for current and future postsecondary instructors in the areas of linguistics, second-language acquisition, and world literatures. Offering valuable insights for instructors, the materials presented in this book integrate perspectives and resources from various target languages, world regions, and cultures into areas related to teaching and learning within the field of language. From critical assessments of the current academic curriculum to the fine-tuning of lesson planning, the essays in this collection address the innovative design and implementation of traditional, blended, and online language courses. Including inter-artistic approaches, case studies, and practical guides, this book provides theoretical and hands-on suggestions regarding how to mindfully reinforce students’ socio-cultural engagement and linguistic development both inside and outside of their language-learning classrooms. The innovative ideas for language pedagogy presented in this book – including implementing technology, enhancing engaged spaces of learning, and adapting to the ever-changing field of pedagogy – represent agile ways of blending old and new approaches to carry forward into twenty-first-century postsecondary classrooms.

Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the discourse of human rights has expanded to include not just civil and political rights but economic, social, cultural, and, most recently, collective rights. Given their broad scope, human rights issues are useful touchstones in the humanities classroom and benefit from an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural pedagogy in which objects of study are situated in historical, legal, philosophical, literary, and rhetorical contexts. Teaching Human Rights in Literary and Cultural Studies is a sourcebook of inventive approaches and best practices for teachers looking to make human rights the focus of their undergraduate and graduate courses. Contributors first explore what it means to be human and conceptual issues such as law and the state. Next, they approach human rights and related social-justice issues from the perspectives of particular geographic regions and historical eras, through the lens of genre, and in relation to specific rights violations--for example, storytelling and testimonio in Latin America or poetry created in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide. Essays then describe efforts to cultivate students' capacity for ethical reading practices and to deepen their understanding of the stakes and artistic dimensions of human rights representations, drawing on active learning and experimental class contexts. The final section, on resources, directs readers to further readings in history, criticism, theory, and literary and visual studies and provides a chronology of human rights legal documents.

The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language brings together contributions from leading linguists, educators and Latino Studies scholars involved in teaching and working with Spanish heritage language speakers. This state-of-the-art overview covers a range of topics within five broad areas: Spanish in U.S. public life, Spanish heritage language use and systems, educational contexts, Latino studies perspectives and Spanish outside the U.S. The Routledge Handbook of Spanish as a Heritage Language addresses for the first time the linguistic, educational and social aspects of heritage Spanish speakers in one volume making it an indispensable reference for anyone working with Spanish as a heritage language.