In this context, action is service-learning. Service-learning is defined differently by many people. For me, it is work within a community that addresses an expressed need, creates mutual benefit for all parties involved, incorporates reflective practice and active thought about connections between theoretical readings and actual practice and it creates a sense of civil responsibility in participants.

Service-learning was an integral part of my graduate education. As a pre-service teacher, I participated in service-learning activities that addressed an expressed need of the community. I was required to do reflective writing about the process so that I could observe myself and other teachers and students. Writing about the experience helped me to make explicit links from the action to the theory that I read for class. Participating in service-learning gave me the opportunity to recognize my civil responsibility and understand service-learning as necessary for the formation of strong democratic citizens. I intend to incorporate a service-learning component in my upper level courses because I think it is important for students to learn how what they learn in the classroom applies to everyday life.

In my fourth term of graduate school, during my secondary practicum, I had the oppurtunity to work at a local middle school. The students at Chandler Middle were at risk because they were not scoring well on their English SOL tests. The goal of the program was to teach art using English skills. We used The Power of Words as our big idea and based our lessons on one image made by artist Joseph Norman.

At first, my teaching partner and I focused on basic drawing skills. We noticed that many of the students lacked confidence in their drawing ability. One day I overheard some of the students talking about their interest in animation and comics. We decided that we would address their interests yet keep the focus on acquiring drawing skill while still discussing the power of words. The students worked to produce comics about the power of words.

Given more time, we would have worked on story structure and developed drawing skills further. We also would have addressed the editing process to help students become more flexible and open to the change that happens when people work collboratively on a piece of artwork. It was exciting to get to see how the students were able to make connections from week to week in the lessons that we taught.

We worked with the children for several weeks and had a final exhibition and assembly where the artist came and spoke to the children about his experience growing up in Chicago and being in a gang. When he showed a slide of the image we had been talking about all semester you could hear all the children murmering that they knew that picture. It was great to see the children excited to meet an artist!