Flower and Bickford

We'll get started with your thoughts about the readings for the first week: Bruce Herzberg, Donna Bickford and Linda Flower. They help to get us on the same page for the version of service learning that we're aspiring to in this class. What did you like about the readings? What do they get right? What did you find missing or just plain wrong? How does their version align with the community work that you might have done?

I feel that the readings provided a much more in-depth analysis of how to make service in the community more effective. Flower and Bickford both mention that there needs to a separation between the division between "us" and "them". This is evident when the authors brought up the differences between writing "about" versus "for" versus "with". This idea ties in perfectly with this WRIT 340 class because the course is called writing in the community. The fact that we are writing "in" the community insinuates that we are at least in the community that we are writing for. If we were writing about the community, we put ourselves in a removed position; there becomes a disconnect.

I really enjoyed where Flower states that participants in community service need to look for the "story behind the story". This is extremely important because too often people take something for face value. Bickford complements Flower in saying that people should strive to understand why conditions are different between low income and affluent communities instead of how the have's can help the have-not's.

I find it frustrating in trying to figure out a way to overcome the self-identification between people in the community and college students. When Flower and Bickford discuss race and being a role-model for the inner city children, I realize that my impact on some of these kids in Los Angeles proper may not be as effective as if I were to help students in Chinatown or San Gabriel.