Unit information: Literature and Community Engagement in Practice 2 in 2020/21

Unit name	Literature and Community Engagement in Practice 2
Unit code	ENGL20105
Credit points	20
Level of study	I/5
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Mrs. Thomas-Hughes
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of English
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

‘Literature and Community Engagement in Practice 2’ is the fourth and final in a series of four cumulative units which are designed to support students in the development, execution and critical evaluation of community-engaged projects as part of their undergraduate studies on the English Literature and Community Engagement BA.

Community Engagement is a practice-led discipline. Teaching in community engagement combines: practical, skills-focused, discussion-based workshops; ‘expert masterclasses’ led by community engagement or reading group experts; and seminars which examine the ideas of community, engagement and the practice of reading in contemporary society.

At this point in their studies students are typically running a well-established community-engaged project.*

This unit enables students to evaluate and critically consider both their community-engaged projects and their work as community-engagement practitioners in relation to literature on community-engagement, service-learning and reading groups. The unit focuses on reflection as a method for evaluation and asks students to consider their community-engagement projects in relation to wider debates around literary communities in the UK.

The unit is designed to recognise that students are still heavily committed to the practice of running their projects. The unit aims to support student in bringing their projects to satisfactory conclusions.

`*For the small-minority of students who have not yet established a community-engagement project this unit will enable them to revise previous plans and execute a small-scale project. For these students the ‘observational visit and short report’ typically offered as part of ‘Literature and Community Engagement in Practice 1’ will be made available to students to use as part of their reflexive essays.

Aims

• to support students to critically evaluate their CE projects and contextualise their practice within wider academic discourse on reading, society and ‘community’.
• to enable students to utilise and analyse their reflexive accounts (and other documentation) of their CE projects as evaluation data.
• to guide students’ exploration of the impact and consequence of their project with a view to the sustainability of projects beyond student involvement or, bringing projects to successful conclusion. For example, students might transfer the project to a student in another year or find ways to ensure that it is able to continue independent of their support.
• to engage students in wider conversations about the role of literature in communities and community-groups in the UK.

Intended Learning Outcomes

On successful completion of this unit, students will be able to:

1) Demonstrate the ability to use reflexive diaries as a source of data in the and critique and analysis of thier community engagement practise.

2) Critically examine their experience in setting up and running a community engagement project (of whatever kind) in the light of a relevant wider social, political or literary critical question

3) Demonstrate thier knowledge and understanding of community engagement and/or readers/reading as concepts and apply these to thier own community-engaged practice.

4) Demonstrate thier ability to critically and reflexively examine thier community-engaged project in relation to other relevant theoretical frameworks and/or appropriate bodies of literature and/or practice-based evidence-bases

Teaching Information

Through the year:

5 x 3-hour seminar

1 x 4.5-hour day school

1 x 4.5 hour conference

1 x 1-hour one-to-one meeting with tutor

Assessment Information

1 x 5-10 minute oral presentation and Q&A on community-engaged project. (ILOs: 1-4)

1 x reflective essay (4000 words) (ILOs: 1-4) 100%

Reading and References

Amin, Ash. "Local community on trial." Economy and society34.4 (2005): 612-633.

Bennett, Andrew. Readers and reading. Routledge, 2014.

Danielson, Susan, and Ann Marie Fallon. Community-based Learning and the Work of Literature. Anker Pub. Co., 2007.

Hartley, Jenny. Reading groups. Oxford University Press, USA, 2001.

Millican, Juliet, and Tom Bourner. "Student-community engagement and the changing role and context of higher education." Education+ Training 53.2/3 (2011): 89-99.

Swann, Joan. "How reading groups talk about books: A study of literary reception." Creativity in language and literature. The state of the art (2011): 217-230.

Plus, a range of texts, resources and toolkits from the voluntary and statutory sectors.