Following training, the students meet for one and a half hours a week with their buddies and spend another half- hour per week preparing for these sessions. The instructor meets with the students and their buddies on a weekly basis to facilitate lesson preparation and to model teacher-student interaction. Students also compile a portfolio of work completed with their buddies which is used to evaluate their service-learning participation. To connect the practicum with the writing course, the students discuss readings about literacy, child development, and pedagogy. Through teaching writing, students become better writers, and by sharing successes and frustrations, they become teachers together.
Students thus experience first-hand the theories and dilemmas contemplated in the classroom.
As involved community activists, they also find themselves in a position to test those theories and, potentially, actually to do something about those dilemmas. A group of 20 to 30 undergraduates and the instructor spend six hours learning how to conduct writing tutorials and run writing groups. Then a writing center is set up, in a single Chicago Public High School, in the classes of teachers who have requested assistance. We'd like to hear from you. Please offer feedback and suggestions.