Prerequisites: Completion of WS200 or WS210 and WS300

Course Objective: The underlying concept of service learning is to use a community or public service experience to enhance the meaning and impact of traditional course content for students. The pedagogical benefits of service learning are well-documented; service learning does make a difference in academic, civic and moral learning. In addition to enhancing learning for college students, the service component of the course is equally rewarding.

The goal of WS305SL is to provide students with the opportunity to apply their theoretical understanding of Women's Studies to practical and concrete situations in their communities which affect women's daily lives. Students will work in a variety of community settings–educational, political, and/or social service agencies–according to their interest. In addition to the on-site experience, students will meet regularly with the professor and their classmates to share their experiences, focus individual research to enhance understanding of their particular service-learning experience, and to engage in critical reflection about feminist analysis and theory.

Course Content: Each student will select a service-learning site based on her/his individual interest and schedule. Students will report to the site for the first time during the third week of the semester. Different sites will have differing needs and requirements; student's activities will be determined in consultation with the professor and the site liaison.

Attendance, Participation and Tardiness: There are two parts to the service-learning course: the service component and the learning component. For the service component, regular attendance at your assigned site and active participation are mandatory. The site liaison is going to depend on you and may have planned activities in which you play a critical role. If you cannot meet your commitment due to a serious and compelling reason, be sure to call the site and inform them of your absence in advance. Only two absences will be allowed during the semester.

The second part is the learning component. In order to make sure you learn as much as possible from your community work, this course requires a reflective component. Each week, each student must make a journal entry about what went on at her/his service-learning site. Journal entry requirements are detailed at the end of this syllabus.

Students are expected to invest time in the course equivalent to the time required for a regular semester course; this would include the time spent in class as well as the time required for reading and homework. This time expectations for this course include time spent at the service-learning site (3 hours a week), time spent in the classroom, and time spent working on your journals. In addition, you are expected to meet with the Professor for at least one half-hour session between each regularly scheduled class meeting.

Grading: Grades are based on the successful completion of all work in the assigned service learning site. Site liaisons will be sent an evaluation sheet toward the end of the semester and will "grade" the student on attendance, attitude and reliability, as well as skills. Journals and final oral reports will also be graded.

Grading will be on a plus/minus basis. Students are subject to the University Policy on Academic Honesty. Violation of this policy will be grounds for failure, dismissal, or other suitable punishment.

Service-learning site assignment 50%
Journals 40%
Final Oral Presentation 10%

Total 100%


Required Readings

Anderson, Margaret L. And Patricia Hill Collins, eds. Race, Class, and Gender–An Anthology. (Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1992).

In addition, students will be required to choose two books from the list of Suggested Readings, or in consultation with the professor, that pertain directly to the issues/concerns addressed within their service-learning site. These readings must be integrated into journal entries, as described at the end of the syllabus.

Class Schedule:

Week 1: February 2
Introduction and planning.
Visits by the service-learning site liaisons.
Sign up for service-learning site.

Week 2: February 9
What are our expectations? What are these based on?
Reading: Anderson & Collins, pp. 1-65
First journal entry due. Record what you expect to find, how you expect to feel, what you expect to learn from this experience that will enhance your Women's Studies education.

Weeks 3-5: February 16 – March 2
Work at service-learning sites – 2 hours per week
Weekly journal entries
Reading: Anderson & Collins, pp. 67-216 (race & racism, class & inequality, gender & sexism).

Week 6: March 9
Class meets for first "debriefing"
Based on experience, students identify two additional required readings
Journals due

Weeks 7-10: March 16 – April 5
Work at service-learning sites – 2 hours per week
Weekly journal entries
Reading: Anderson & Collins, pp. 217-327; 357-382 (work & economic transformation, families, ideology & belief systems)

Note: Spring Break is March 29 – April 2: Be sure to notify your site liaison that you will not be available that week.

Week 11: April 13
Class meets for second "debriefing"
Journals due

Weeks 12-15: April 20 – May 11
Work at service-learning sites – 2 hours per week
Weekly journal entries
Reading: Anderson & Collins, pp. 328-356; 470-562 (education, violence & social control, political activism)

Week 16: May 18
Final Class meeting
Oral Presentations
Journals Due

JOURNAL ENTRIES

To fulfill the journal requirements of this course, you must produce detailed records of you observations and experience following each fieldwork activity in your assigned site. Journal notes may be typed or handwritten, but they must be neat, legible, and grammatically correct. Since the entries have three parts, please clearly distinguish between each part, either by using different fonts, or different colored inks; be consistent throughout the journal.

All entries should be written in complete sentences; make paragraphs to divide topics. At the beginning of each entry, note the date, time, day of week and location of your service. Each entry will have three parts:

1. Facts: Tell me what you did this week at your service-learning site. Describe your visit in chronological order, from when you arrived to your departure. Report what you saw, heard and did. Also describe conversations, people's appearances, behaviors, etc.

2. Feelings: Tell me how you felt about your activities and interactions. Openly and honestly-and in the greatest detail–describe your thoughts, feelings, expectations, fears, hopes, anticipations … whatever is going through your mind about the visit and the sorts of individuals that you met. Try to capture as fully as possible what is going through your mind. Write this as soon as possible after each visit, while you are still experiencing the feelings.

3. Relation to course work: Tell me how your activities relate to the theories and ideas you have learned in your Women's Studies course work. How does this relate to the assigned readings for this semester? Has your experience been consistent with what you have learned in classes? Has it challenged ideas you had? Has it broadened your thinking? What do your now realize you don't know that you would like to know more about?

In addition following your final visit and the completion of your work at the site, you should make one final entry which would summarize what you have experienced over the course of the semester. This final entry will also be given to the class as an oral report on the last day of class. Be sure to compare what you actually experienced to the expectations in your first journal entry

Bibliography

Amott, Teresa L. Caught in the Crisis: Women and the U.S. Economy Today. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1993.

Amott, Teresa L. and Julie A. Matthaei. Race, Gender and Work: A Multicultural Economic History of Women in the United States. Boston: South End Press, 1991.

Anzaldua, Gloria, ed. Making Face, Making Soul: Creative and Critical Perspectives by Feminists of Color. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1990.

Baxter, S. and M. Lansing, Women and Politics, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1983.

Campbell, Anne. Girls in the Gang. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1989.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1990. Connects race & gender in the sociology of knowledge; uses a Black feminist perspective to discuss Black women and work, motherhood, and sexuality.

de Riencourt, A. Sex and Power in History. New York: Delta Books, 1974.

Harding, Sandra, ed. Feminism and Methodology. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987.

Herman, Judith Lewis. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence–From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books, 1992. Explores violence in a context that underscores the family structures that encourage violence against women.

Garlick, Barbara, Suzanne Dixon, and Pauline Allen, eds. Stereotypes of Women in Power: Historical Perspectives and Revisionist Views. New York: Greenwood Press, 1992.

Mitchell, Juliet and Ann Oakley, eds. The Rights and Wrongs of Women. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin, 1976.

O'Faolain, Julia and Lauro Martinex, eds. Not in God's Image: Women in History. London: Fontana, 1974.

Okin, Susan Moller. Justice, Gender and the Family. Basic Books, 1989.

Pleck, Elizabeth. Domestic Tyranny: The Making of American Social Policy against Family Violence from Colonial Times to the Present. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Polakow, Valerie. Lives on the Edge: Single Mothers and Their Children in the Other America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993. Analysis of poverty and the situation for women heading their own households.

Polster, Miriam F. Eve's Daughters: The Forbidden Heroism of Women. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1992.

Sanday, Peggy R. Female Power and Male Dominance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Sandmaier, M. The Invisible Alcoholic: Women and Alcohol Abuse in America. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1980.

Siltanen, Janet and Michelle Stanworth. Women and the Public Sphere: A Critique of Sociology and Politics. London: Hutchinson, 1984.

Spender, Dale. Women of1deas–And "at Men Have Done to Them. London: Ark, 1983.

Stacey, Margaret and Marion Price, eds. Women, Power and Politics. London: Tavistock, 1981.

Thompson, Becky W. A Hunger So Wide and So Deep: American Women Speak Out on Eating Problems. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.

Thorne, Barrie. Gender Play. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1993. How gender is constructed in schools, based on observations of boys and girls.

Wolfe, Naomi. The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used against Women. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1991.