"I Stopped Writing for Myself"

Abstract

This IRB-approved case study explores how students gained transferrable writing knowledge when they participated in a service-learning first-year composition course. Using qualitative interview and grounded theory methods, I studied three sections of a service-learning FYC class at a Washington, DC, liberal arts college through classroom observations, an instructor interview, and three rounds of interviews with eight student participants. This study's main research question was: What do students learn about writing when they participate in a service-learning composition course? The student perspectives I present demonstrate that, for these students, the blend of service and writing they experienced helped them develop ways of being personally invested in their scholarship. This personal investment, in turn, led to writing knowledge development in terms of drafting, revising, and tailoring their writing for specific audiences, as well as a renewed understanding of the role of personal experience in academic writing and research. Further, much of what these students gained in terms of writing knowledge transferred to their academic writing the following semester. Ultimately, through this case study I show that, for the students I interviewed, service-learning played an essential role in their first-year composition class and led to deeper learning than they would have experienced had they not done service-learning. The introductory chapter of this dissertation outlines the exigency for this research, describes a pilot study, and lays out the parameters of service-learning and transferrable writing knowledge as these terms are used in this study. In the second chapter, I describe my research site and methods in detail and give a general overview of students' experiences in this first-year composition service-learning class. In chapter three, I lay out the germinal finding of this study: that students' service-learning experiences led to deep investment in their learning and in their writing. In chapters four and five, I describe my findings that show what transferrable writing knowledge students gained and what students learned about using personal and scholarly perspectives in their writing. And in chapter six, I explore implications of these findings for practitioners and suggest future research directions for service-learning in composition.