This is a sample syllabus from the previous semester, where we studied different countries in South and Central America and in the Caribbean. Our curriculum for this course is student-driven: they research newsworthy events, present them to the class and link them to reading assignments that introduce larger issues and themes.

Our assignments ask students to think critically about their reading, the films they view, the guest speakers who present, and our class discussions. The following is a sample response paper assignment.

Response Paper #2

In 350 words, respond to Central Station and our discussion of the film.

In your paper, continue the discussion we began in class about the movie. Bring up a point we either failed to address or did not thoroughly explore because we were pressed for time, reinforce or disagree with points we raised in our talk. Support your observations with specific instances from the film. Please do not offer a summary of our discussion—we all know what we talked about. Use your paper to add substantively to our discussion.

We also ask that they make meaningful links between their Service Learning experience and the course work. The following is a sample final paper assignment.

Final Paper

For your final paper of the term, please compose a 2-3 page essay that thinks back over your Service Learning experience. Briefly describe your service--where you served, what you did, for whom you worked. Then spend the bulk of the paper performing linking your service to something you studied or thought about at some point in your year-and-a-half in the Program.

For example, you can describe the segment of American culture that your organization serves, and how that population is integrated into or segregated from mainstream American cultural, or how the site works to integrate that population that it serves into the mainstream. You might speak of how your site works toward embodying or realizing a particular ideal that spans the Americas (this is different from universal notions, so be very careful to distinguish these from ideals that are shared; discuss shared notions, and avoid universal ones). You might also describe how your service site responds to political exegencies that are particular to the Americas. You can choose to address one or more of these ideas, or develop a discussion based on your own concepts of how the site links to your coursework.

Base your discussion in a specific moment in one of your classes, on a piece of reading, a movie, or on a guest speaker. This is a reflective assignment, so don't bring in outside research. The majority of your paper grade will be based on how well you make the link between your service site and the coursework.

In addition to essays like those described above, we asked the students to deliver oral presentations and to complete small in-class assignments designed to assess their mastery of course content.

The syllabus is designed to accomodate 25 hours of Service Learning. We meet fewer times during the semester to allow student ample opportunity to see course content in action in the field. Students must log their hours and submit this log along with the essay described above.

During the Spring semester, students independently complete a 100-hour internship that follows up on the objectives of the Service Learning work they undertake in the Fall. They will submit proof completion and an essay describing their service and its connection with what they have learned in the course of the previous three semesters in the program. A few of the organizations that support our work are listed in the Service section of the site.