More Discussion Questions

In Chapter 5, “Negotiating Subject Positions in a Service Learning Context”. Tamara Williams and Erin McKenna explore the complexities of developing service learning. The field of service learning offers students the opportunity to learn while giving back to the community of their choice. The experience is valuable for students but educators have a difficult time grading because each experience is valuable in its own way. While some experiences are deeper, all students have had some sort of connection to their project. (1) If you had a service learning course, what organization would you chose to give back to? why? (2) What would make one service learning experience more valuable than another in terms of grading?

VV

Discussion Question for 3/24

My question comes from Chapter 5 "Negotiating Subject Positions in A Service-Learning Context: Toward a Feminist Critique of Experiential Learning" by Tamara Williams and Erin McKenna.

They speak closely about the challenges that educators face when implementing a service-learning component to teaching and learning as well as the transformative power it has on students. One of the discussions the authors have in the book relates to two questions: 1.) Is their a time or how do we know that we are prepared for service-learning in our classrooms or seminars? and; 2.) "does one try to grade the quality of the service or the process of reflection?"(p. 139). These are just some questions that are important to consider and I hope we are able to discuss.

See you all in class!

Paz,
Nancy

Discussion Question Week 10

In Williams' and McKenna's piece on Negotiating Subject Positions in a Service-Learning Cintext: Toward a Feminist Critique of Experiential Lerning, the authors examine how students may experience silence as a mechanism of oppression both in the process as an issue in the classroom, and also as an issue in content while journaling independently.

As educators/teachers, how can we help those students that feel silenced emerge int he classroom to feel comfortable in participating in class discussion? What can we do as facilitators make all students feel connected to the discussion and comfortable in sharing their ideas in correlation to the service-learning component even if they were not able to participate?

Hopefully my question makes sense =) see you Wednesday!
-Maggie

Week 10 Discussion Question

In Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz's "Queer Theory and Feminist Pedagogy" (Chapter Seven), she describes the difficulties and complications of teaching sexuality through a queer theory approach. Among other issues, she struggles with the question of who can teach queer theory, and how to utilize it as fundamental element in her course when her students have varying levels of familiarity with topics of sexuality.

How could queer theory either positively or negatively affect students' willingness to engage with topics of sexuality? What are the risks of this, and when/how should queer theory be integrated into classroom conversations? Also, how can might queer theory's call for anti-identitarian perspectives be integrated into our pedagogical approaches to race, class, and gender? Why might this be beneficial?

Discussion Question...

In Hase's piece Student Resistance and Nationalism in the Classroom: Reflections on Globalizing the Curriculum, Hase examines how her nationality causes certain resistance from her students and tensions in her courses, particularly when she is critical of the United States. How might other identities in which people take pride, but we do not as readily examine or deconstruct (i.e., NOT gender, race, class, politics, etc), interact with or influence students' perceptions of your identity or interfere with your course materials and texts?

Discussion Question for Week 10 "Pedagogies of Identity and Differnce"

This discussion question focuses Michiko Hase's "Student Resistance and Nationalism in the Classroom: Reflections of Globalizing the Curriculum," and Tamara Williams' and Erin McKenna's "Negotiating Subject Positions in a Service-Learning Context: Toward a Feminist Critique of Experiential Learning" from Twenty-First Century Feminist Classrooms: Pedagogies of Identity and Difference.

How is integrating an awareness and analysis of nation(ality) and nationalism important to the development of a feminist pedagogy that emphasizes liberatory education, in other words, how does recognizing this form of domination make us "more free"? What types of implications does centering the role and responsibility of the US in global and political systems of domination have for feminist activism outside of academe? How can we integrate what we have learned about nation(ality) and nationalism into service-learning projects assigned in women's studies classrooms in a way that challenges assumptions and preconceptions about traditionally underserved, and marginalized groups?

see you wednesday!

Jessica

Possible Discussion Question (chapter 3)

In Chapter 3, "Student Resistance and Nationalism in the Classroom," the author describes her experience with teaching sensitive and controversial subjects in the classroom such as the use of violence against women by the US military. Interestingly, she notes that several students who took her class were expecting to learn about other cultures using violence against women and thus were uncomfortable at first with critiquing the U.S. The author also talks about her positionality in terms of a foreign person critiquing the U.S.

Q: Have you ever been in a situation where your patriotism has been questioned? If so, how did you respond? Do you find that now, being in a Women's Studies Program, you respond differently to such questions than before?