Writing toward Community Engagement in Honors

On a late Sunday afternoon in 1934, a park superintendent entered the cage of two black bears that he tended at the park's zoo. His intent was to retrieve a purse dropped by a zoo visitor. The superintendent knew the bears well, having acquired them as cubs and raised them, and he didn't expect any trouble. But trouble was imminent. "ENTERED CAGE TO GET PURSE, ENRAGED MALE CHARGED HIM," the Mankato Free Press headline would read the next day (1). The story would go on to describe an unforeseen bear mauling, a series of futile rescue attempts, and an untimely death. Nearly five hundred people would turn out for the superintendent's service that week, congregating at the local Methodist church to mourn a loss felt by both his family and the larger community. Such was the news story that my Honors English 101 course was handed as we launched into a community-oriented class research project. We had teamed up with the Mankato Free Press (circulation 22,000) to develop a story for their glossy magazine, sold at grocery stores in the area and distributed with the newspaper once a month The personable, energetic editor of the magazine who had agreed to the university/community collaboration had suggested that the class cover the story, a historical piece commemorating the event's eightieth anniversary. The collaboration spanned the length of the semester and involved students in various facets of producing a feature article for a local magazine. Students oversaw the project, conducted primary and secondary research, wrote, edited, took photographs, and completed other supporting tasks. They interacted with the magazine editor in the classroom and by email. They also participated in two full-class critiques of the article-in-process. Our collective experience underscores the benefit of honors writing projects done in collaboration with community partners. At the same time, our collaboration makes clear that specific components are necessary in order for such projects to be a success: namely, student ownership and involvement, teacher orchestration, and community-member leadership. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Honors projects that engage the community vary widely In 2013 and 2014, Honors in Practice profiled a number of such projects, including an honors seminar on the Civil Rights movement with a virtual public audience of two hundred; a team-taught environmental psychology course that partnered with a watershed organization to study local environmental problems and educate others; a disaster relief initiative that provided financial assistance to tornado victims; and an experiential capstone option with a community service learning focus (Nix et al.; Dunbar et al.; Yoder; Gustafson and Cureton). Diverse as they may be, projects like these are often informed by common ideals At root is the idea that honors students should make significant contributions not just in academic settings but also in personal, professional, and civic environments Additionally, community-based honors projects have been designed to: * "[enable the university] to contribute to a broader civic conversation" (Nix et al. 39) * "[position] honors as an incubator for experimentation and innovation" (Nix et al. 40) * "increase participation in historically underrepresented majors" (Gustafson and Cureton 56) * "[situate] students working alongside community members with the purpose of solving a community issue or creating social change" (Dunbar et al. 129) * "promote a culture of honorable civic engagement on our campuses" (Holman et al.211). Our ENG 101H community-oriented project was facilitated by the vitality of the honors program and shaped by the course's learning goals. The honors program encourages excellence and ambition in teaching; curricular projects taken up by honors faculty are often creative and meaningful. This atmosphere encourages teachers to think of the honors classroom as an "incubator for experimentation and innovation. …