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English Service-Learning Project Ideas

• Illiteracy
• Recycled Poetry Reflection Activity
• "The Street Lawyer"
• Other Activities

Illiteracy

High school students who have strong reading, writing and communication skills can volunteer at a local library or literacy center that offers community tutoring. If your class is even more ambitious and already has some service-learning experience, students can work with your school’s English teachers to start a literacy center in the high school that is open to the community. Gifted and talented students who have strong skills in reading and writing can learn how to tutor adults who lack such skills, and a representative from a local literacy center can help train your students in tutoring methods. While middle school students may not be able to tutor adults in reading or writing, they can research, compile and provide resources about the community’s literacy centers and programs. Circulating this information throughout local community venues, from grocery stores and pharmacies, to libraries and other public spaces, can raise awareness and offer tutoring help to those who need it.

Students should begin such a project with research on the state of illiteracy. Challenge them to find statistics about the levels of illiteracy in their town/city, state and nation. Have them think about why and how some people, despite schooling, haven’t learned how to read. Make sure that your students understand the multitude of reasons for illiteracy and that people who do not know how to read are not “dumb” or unintelligent. People who were not born in an English-speaking country, who grew up in poverty, or who had difficulties keeping up with their reading classes at a young age all have legitimate reasons for their inabilities. At this time, students should also begin to make the connection between illiteracy and poverty, and learn that illiterate people are usually not illiterate due to any fault of their own.

If there is a particular ESL (English as a Second Language) population in your region, your students can expand their research and focus some of their efforts on that population. They should examine the added difficulties that adults who have little or no experience with English encounter when moving to the United States. They can then research and come up with ways that the class can address some of these difficulties and needs. Students should also consider how younger children deal with the bilingualism that may characterize their lives. How does this affect learning to read for those children? Make sure that you are sensitive to any ESL students present in your class, so as not to isolate or target them in your class' discussion and projects.

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Recycled Poetry Reflection Activity
(From Teachervision.com)
www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-5461.html

Teachervision.com has some very creative ideas for teachers who are interested in new and innovative lesson plan ideas and activities. One lesson in particular stands out as an excellent reflection activity for service-learning. The lesson, "Recycled Poetry," involves students writing reflection poems using words and phrases cut out of old newspapers and magazines. Here is how this lesson plan can be adapted for service-learning:

Materials Needed:

*Old newspapers and magazines
*Poetic anthologies and books of poetry from the school library
*Scissors
*Rubber cement or paste
*Poster board

Procedures:

1. Lead your students in a discussion about poetry. Some ideas for this discussion include the variety of poetic styles that can be found in English literature, the political and social implications of poetry, poems that have historical significance, and the power of language and the spoken word.

2. Split the students into small groups that are each responsible for creating a different style of reflective poem. For example, some students might want to write haikus while other students would like to tackle the sonnet. In addition to determining what style of poem each group will create, the students should pick a theme or issue relating to their service experiences that will serve as the inspiration for the poem. For example, if students are working with a local food bank or soup kitchen, poems about hunger and poverty might be created. Or, if the students are tackling environmental issues in the community, poems about pollution, conservation or wildlife could be the thematically represented.

3. Once the small groups of students have selected the style and theme of their poem, words and phrases can be cut out of old newspapers and magazines that are in tune with the theme of their poetry.

4. Once a significant number of words and phrases have been collected, students can post their words in the form of poems on the poster board. Prior to pasting the words to the poster board the students should collaboratively create poetic lines and phrases and agree on the selected words, the order of the words and the structure of the poem.

5. Each group can select a student to read the poem out loud to the class during a class "poetry reading." Students can critique and comment on other poems presented by the class and discuss the relationship between the service-learning experiences and the poems created by the class. Poster board poems could also be displayed on the class bulletin board or in a place where the whole school can read the poems.

This project was adapted from the "Recycled Poetry" lesson plan at teachervision.com. To view the original lesson plan, visit www.teachervision.com/lesson-plans/lesson-5461.html.

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"The Street Lawyer"

For many readers, John Grisham's bestseller, "The Street Lawyer," is an exciting can't-put-down book. It can also be a great tool for creating awareness about homeless veterans. If you teach an English class in high school, and you need to put some "zip" into your curriculum, why not consider incorporating this popular novel into your lesson plans and letting your students design a service project that will benefit the homeless veterans in your area?

"The Street Lawyer" is a mystery about a young lawyer in an affluent Washington D.C. law firm and his encounter with a homeless man. This encounter ends up changing his life and his view of humanity. Attorney Michael Brock trades in his fancy office and fast-paced life to fight for the rights of homeless veterans. Teachers giving students the opportunity to read this book could develop great discussion material about values and humanity, not to mention the legal profession and the many political and social issues surrounding the homeless and mentally ill. There are so many possibilities stemming from the pages of this book! Through service, students will no doubt learn that they can help meet real-life needs of the homeless population in their area. And teachers can relate the service projects to the themes and discussions generated from reading this book!

Students can also explore several career paths found in this book: lawyers, paralegals, legal secretaries, law enforcement, social workers, and more! If students examine the issue of homeless veterans, trips to a local V.A. Hospital, homeless shelter, or soup kitchen could all extend the learning and reading experience into the community through service. By presenting students with the opportunity to explore various career choices found in this book, you will be incorporating both School-to-Work and Service-Learning into your English curriculum!

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Here are some other ideas for linking an
English curriculum with service-learning activities:

Creative writing
High School or Middle School creative writing students can visit elementary or preschool classrooms and help students with reading and writing activities.

Book drive
High School and Middle School students can hold a book drive for the local library, researching the stacks to find out what books the children's collection needs in order to be current and up-to-date with children's literature, and also doing in-depth research of children's literature.

Poetry
Elementary School students can learn about poetry and write poems for senior citizens. The poems can be a part of a greeting card for holidays such as Thanksgiving, Birthdays, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc., and the service-learning project can be extended to include the Art curriculum by having students create hand-crafted greeting cards for the seniors.

Picture book
Elementary students can read a picture book about endangered animals (such as "Ducks Disappearing" by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor) and then get involved in service activities that link them with a wildlife organization, such as the Sierra Club, the National Aviary or the local zoo. And books about domestic animals can take students to a local animal shelter for service!

Research paper
High School or Middle School students can do a research paper on a service-oriented topic, such as homelessness, hunger, AIDS, or even child abuse. After their library/Internet research is complete, a service project at a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, a hospice, or a children's hospital would link the academic research with the service activities to create a service-learning project.

Grant Opportunities provide additional project ideas >>

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