Student Spotlight: Tim Peters

by Ann Abbott

I met Tim Peters when we went on the same trip to China in the summer of 2006 with the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership. Tim was there to do a documentary with two other undergrads, and I was there to learn more about Chinese entrepreneurial education programs and participate in a symposium on social entrpreneurship.

Tim then did a Spanish & Illinois Summer Internship at the Small Business Development Center of the College of DuPage, and his documentary eventually won an award.

Now Tim is in Argentina on a Fullbright. I've been following his journey through his Facebook updates and pictures, and now he just e-mailed me to tell me this terrific news:

"Hey, just wanted to let you know that my Fulbright side project to write for a local magazine has started bearing fruit. They let me write the cover story on recent protests at the local Paraná Wal-Mart...I covered that and did a comparison with interesting WM criticisms in the U.S!"

(I think the article is easiest to read if you click on "Full Screen.")

Congratulations, Tim! It's great to see your work and to understand more fully what Wal-Mart represents in Latin America. I look forward to seeing more of your stories and photos.

Why Students' Community Service Learning Work is So Valuable

by Ann Abbott

Do your Spanish community service learning (CSL) students know how important their work in the community is? Do they know what the consequences can be for Spanish-speakers if the partner organization can't meet its mission?

As I've said before, some CSL students don't see the value of doing office work, especially if it is repetitive--which, of course, most office work is. It is up to us to show them its value to the organization, to their learning and to their future job search.

During the spring semesters, my CSL students who work at the Refugee Center always help a lot of clients fill out the paperwork for their taxes. The Refugee Center charges a nominal fee for this service, but I'm pretty sure that students don't know the full value of what the clients receive with this service. I didn't until Deb Hlavna, Co-Director, told me this story:

Some Chicago-based commercial tax preparation services advertise heavily among the immigrant communities. In the specific case that Deb recounted, she told about how some local Vietnamese refugees/immigrants have driven up to Chicago, used those services, and were only charged a percentage of the rebate that the tax preparer found for them.

What's the problem? The tax preparer files for rebates and refunds that they were never entitled to in the first place. So when the IRS contacts the refugee/immigrant, they tell them that they owe more money in taxes that they paid. And what about the money they paid to the preparer? Well, they already took their cut, and they're not responsible anyway.

She told about one specific scam she learned about when the client came to the Refugee Center for help. The commercial tax preparer had filed for the "Hope Tax Credit" (for post-secondary education costs) when the client's daughter was only eight years old! The client was out the money s/he paid the tax preparer and then had to pay even more money to the IRS.

So, students, I hope you can see that the work of our community partners and the work that you do with them is truly valuable even in ways that might not be apparent at first glance.

Public Service Announcements for Community Partners

by Ann Abbott

In a previous post, I talked about building community-university partnerships that respond to community-identified needs. Clear and frequent communication, as everyone knows, is the key to building and maintaining mutually beneficial partnerships.

With one of my community partners, I took this type of communication to another level--I joined the Board of the East Central Illinois Refugee Mutual Assistance Center. At our monthly Board meetings I gain new insights into the Refugee Center's resources and needs. That allows me to think about how to match those resources and needs to my community service-learning (CSL) students' needs and resources.

At our last Board meeting, one of the Co-Directors said that they would like to do a Public Service Announcement for the local community-access television stations.

A perfect project for an enterprising CSL student who wants to gain skills in research, writing and project organization! And in the end, the student will have a video of professionally-produced public service announcement (PSA) to show to potential employers as proof of their work.

Here are the necessary steps for the student:

1. Do an on-line search for public access television in Urban and Champaign to find out how to start the process for doing a PSA.


2. In consultation with the Co-Directors of ECIRMAC, write a script for the PSA.


3. Inform the ECIRMAC staff of times and duties for the actual PSA production. If the student has information to add, he/she can appear in the PSA as well.


4. Do all the post-production follow-up that is necessary.

I'm hoping a student will tackle this in the fall. And if one community partner has expressed a need to do a PSA, perhaps our other partners would like one, too.

Student Spotlight: Carolina Kloecker's Summer Internship and More

by Ann Abbott

Carolina (Carolyn) Kloecker embodies everything I think I Spanish student should be. She is passionate about the language, Hispanic cultures, travel and service. She has taken "Spanish in the Community" and plans to take "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" next year. Finally, she's a woman after my own heart: she's a blogger! You can read all about her adventures studying (and volunteering) in Ecuador at Carolina en Ecuador.

Carolina's last post describes her work as a Spanish & Illinois Summer Intern at ACCION Chicago. Here is what she had to say. (Click here to see the entire post.)

"So just 2 days after I got back, on Monday June 1st, I started my summer internship at ACCION Chicago. It's a micro-lending Non-profit organization, and we give out small business loans to clients in the Chicagoland area. About 25% of our clients are Spanish-speaking, so I've been able to use my Spanish a decent amount (I would say 2-3 times/week), especially recently. I do lots of things and keep very busy at my job, uploading documents, making phone calls, drafting letters, visiting client business locations, as well as promoting ACCION at many different events. One of my favorite events so far was one for Latina Style magazine, which was held at the Macy's on State Street. We had a booth there to give information to women who had their own business or were starting one, and either the vast majority of them or all of them were Spanish-speaking."

I'm so glad that you're learning and helping ACCION and its clients at the same time, Carolina. I'm looking forward to seeing you again during your senior year.

Book Review: ¡A la perfección!

by Ann Abbott

Gac-Artigas, Priscilla. ¡A la perfección! Para dominar la mecánica de la escritura. New Jersey: Ediciones Nuevo Espacio--Academic Press ENE: 2009.

I coordinate the Spanish composition course at the University of Illinois, so I am always interested in reviewing new textbooks.

As everyone knows, when we teach Spanish composition we are teaching (at least) two things simulaneously: writing and Spanish. It's not always easy to give each part of that equation its due weight. So I was intrigued by the book by Dra. Priscilla Gac-Artigas and its subtitle: "Para dominar la mecanica de la escritura."

I'm a firm believer that our students need to be careful, accurate writers. Not so much because their literary analyses need to live up to their profs' expectations (which is what the author refers to in the preface), but because in the real world there are real consequences when we make mistakes with our writing. Filling out forms, leaving messages for people, writing notes, writing copy for websites...all require that we communicate clearly and accurately. We don't want people to click away from our website. But most importantly, we don't want our client to have to pay a fine (or worse!) because we gave inaccurate information on an important form.

However, ¡A la perfección! doesn't match with my goals for my students. First of all, the title bothers me. Really? Perfection? I don't strive for perfection myself, in my own writing. (Or in any other facet of my life.) I strive for other things--to inform my readers, invite them to share in the writing process (with comments, guest posts, etc.), motivate my readers, reward students by showing their successes, even to work things out in my own mind through the writing process. I do not strive for perfection, and I don't want to put that burden on my students.

First, I want my Spanish composition students to care about what they are writing. Then, I want them to simply go through the process/cycle of writing/rewriting to warm up and get practice. Thirdly, I want them to see the big picture--how does a piece of writing hang together in order to have an impact in the reader and highlight your knowledge as the writer. Finally, and I mean, LAST, I want them to pay attention to grammar and vocabulary.

If students were confident, practiced writers in their first language, we could start with the "mechanics." But I find that they usually aren't.

I see a lot of value in what Gac-Artigas has written. The exercises focus on common Spanish-language mistakes our students make. For example, In the first chapter there are exercises asking students to change the gerund in English into a noun in Spanish using "el + infinitive." That is indeed a common mistake that I personally find extremely irritating and even confusing when I read students' writing. But it--and the other grammar exercises--are presented in a decontextualized fashion, that I personally don't find useful.

¡A la perfección! is not perfect for the kind of writing I want my students to do and for the kind of writers I want them to become.

Research: How to Build Community Partnerships (NYLC The Generator)

by Ann Abbott

As always, the National Youth Leadership Council's newsletter, "The Generator," has very useful information about service learning in it. The Spring 2009 issue focuses on partnerships, and in this post I'd like to focus on the "Research" section written by Bjorn Lyngstad.

Lyngstad's piece begins with a question: "How can partnerships best be developed to ensure the success of service-learning projects?"

Frankly, in Spanish community service learning (CSL) I think we have it pretty easy. Our students need to develop their Spanish language skills and/or knowledge of Latino cultures. Our partners usually need our students' Spanish language skills to communicate with their stakeholders. That seems pretty easy to square up.

The problem is that our students need to use Spanish to do something: answer phones, greet clients, tutor children/adults, help resolve issues (legal, financial, bureaucratic, etc.). So our students need knowledge of other fields/issues to use their language skills effectively and carry out our partners' missions. In most Spanish classes students use Spanish to talk about literature or the language itself (linguistics), but in the real world students need to use their Spanish to communicate about topics that are probably unfamiliar to them.

But let me pull a few quotes from the piece in "The Generator" and link them to Spanish CSL.

"Obviously, community organizations have resources and technical capacity that most schools lack. Also, local organizations provide expertise on local issues." As obvious as this seems, I have found that it is not always obvious to all students. Many of our community partners are operating on shoestring budgets, in cramped quarters, with outdated technology (and sometimes technological know-how) and with a smaller-than-necessary staff. Given these conditions, students don't always see their resources because they can't see beyond the organization's "needs." Likewise, the staff of our community partners are very friendly and down-to-earth. But because they don't wear their expert status on their sleeves, students don't always recognize them as the highly-trained, powerful professionals that they are. Just as we must help students see a community's assets as well as its needs, we need to go through that same exercise with the partner organizations.

"[S]chools and agencies represent two radically different cultures." I like to think that my Spanish CSL program tries to simply be at the service of my partner organization and not impose our "culture" on theirs. Still, certain things are inevitably different:

• Calendar. My students only work in the community for 14 weeks during each full semester. My community partners' work never ends.
• Program growth. Many students want to take the "Spanish in the Community" and "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" courses, and that is one indicator of a successful academic program. But can my partners grow with me? Can they accommodate more and more student CSL workers? Not all of them can.
• Millenials. Today's students--millenials, as some call them--display characteristics that are very different from many of the adults with whom they work in the community. This is certainly a cultural and inter-generational conflict, at times. While I think it is important for our community partners to understand not just what Spanish skills our students will (or won't) bring to their work in the organizations, it's equally important for us to explain the generational perspective and habits that they will probably exhibit as well.

"[W]hile organizations define success by the accomplishment of certain tasks, schools determine success as meeting particular academic standards." Yes, I agree wholeheartedly that this can present a challenge. I would also add that organizations need to accomplish certain tasks over and over again. Some students see this as "boring." They might say, "All I ever do is answer the phone and greet clients." Instead, as a way to practice their Spanish and get to know about Latino cultures, students should say, "Every day I get to answer the phone and greet clients." Learning a second language requires a lot of repetition. If we can help students recognize the role of repetition for success in language learning as well as accomplishing the mission of the organization for which they work, perhaps we can reduce the "bore factor."

"Schools and organizations do not necessarily need to share goals, but they need to communicate them clearly." Yes, yes, yes! Clear communication is the key to making sure that partnerships are mutually beneficial. I would only add, "...clearly, often and in different formats." Try giving your partner a brochure about your course/program. Send them to your website with it's programmatic information. Dash off an e-mail every once in a while to make sure things are on track. Pick up the phone and call. Get in your car and drive to their office. I find that university-related people communicate via websites and e-mails most often. I rarely pick up my phone to talk to anyone on campus. But that might not be the case with your community partners. Dropping by might be the only way to have a conversation. And bring something along with you to work on. These are busy people who have "office hours" all day long with people lined up to see them.

"The best partnerships go beyond individual projects.... Ideally, they are based on a "program" model with individual projects carried out within the program." This is the model that I have built at the University of Illinois:

• Students work with community partner two hours each week, and do the every-day work of the organization. They may assist a teacher in the classroom, tutor a student on whatever that day's homework is, answer whatever questions that day's clients present, translate a document that is next on the priority list, etc. They contribute to the day-to-day work.
• Students work on projects for honors credit or a course-based team project. Although I always ask partners what their project needs are, many times I can match students' abilities with my partners' needs. Some recent projects: researching/writing a short grant proposal; putting PayPal on a community partner's website; raising funds to buy Spanish-language books for a school's library.

All in all, I agree that "partnerships can be time-consuming to form, and they take knowledge, interpersonal skills and resources to sustain (Bailis and Melchior, 2004)." However, I have had the privilege to work with very easy-going, positive community partners. I'm sure there is room for improvement in our partnerships, but I know that they have been mutually beneficial so far.

Student Spotlight: Megan Knight's Spanish & Illinios Summer Internship

by Ann Abbott

Megan Knight was one of the student bloggers from my "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" course last semester. She always wrote compelling and smart posts about her work in the course, in the community and her time studying abroad in Chile.

This summer Megan has one of the Spanish & Illinois Summer Internships, and she is working at Childcare Resource Services, the same place she did her community service-learning for "Spanish in the Community." I asked her what kinds of things she was doing during her internship, and you can read her answer below. What I love about her answer is that she is busy. She's using and developing many different skills--translation, document creation, writing/editing copy, client interaction, teamwork, and many more. Great job, Megan! :)

Jeeze, what am I NOT doing at CCRS? There's always so much to do! Right now I'm in the process of creating/translating resource guides for the six counties that CCRS offers services for: Iroquois, Champaign, Macom, Vermilion, Douglas, and Piatt. This way when clients come in and are new to the area, we can give them these packets that have all sorts of information about child care, educational services in the area, food and clothing providers, etc.

I also accompany Milagros whenever we have Latino clients come in who only speak Spanish. Sometimes I'll have to interview them if they are looking for a list of child care providers to see what their needs are, or sometimes I'll have to go find their files and see what's going on if they haven't been approved for child care.

I'm also translating forms. You wouldn't believe how many different types of applications and questionnaires and packets there are that people have to fill out in order to get child care. Most of the forms are on the DHS website in Spanish and English but there still are quite a few that aren't, so I translate them whenever we come across a form that we don't have available in Spanish.

I also help out the other child care specialists when they have Latino clients who are lacking some sort of documentation in their file so they can't be approved for child care. When this happens, the specialists come to me and tell me what the client still needs to provide, and then I write them a request for additional information in Spanish and mail it off to them.

As I said, there's always a lot to do! Yesterday I went and delivered toys with a co-worker to some Latino providers' houses, which was a nice change from sitting in the office all day. I really liked being able to talk in Spanish with the providers in a more relaxed atmosphere (and seeing the cute little kids was fun too!!)

So, that's the majority of the things that I'm doing at CCRS. I really like working side by side with Milagros and seeing the impact that her bilingualism has in her job. It makes me want to be bilingual even more, and I know that this experience will bring me closer to my goal!!!

Thanks again for giving us the opportunity to work in the community like this. I know that I'm really making a difference!

Student Spotlight: Héctor Barajas

by Ann Abbott

I realize that there is still some debate about whether or not professors should be Facebook friends with students. There is even a Facebook Group called "Faculty Ethics on Facebook."

I enjoy being friends with my former students (and some current students--why not?) on Facebook. I get to see a more complete picture of who they are, what they do, what they like, and I like that. I don't pretend to use Facebook for any pedagogical reasons; I just like getting to know people. Even before Facebook, I knew that my students were "whole people" with whom I had the privilege to interact just a few hours a week.

And it is through Facebook that I have been able to stay in contact with Héctor Barajas. Héctor was in my "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" course during the spring of 2008, and he worked as a tutor for the ESL students at Central High School. I remember very well the team project he worked on and the great presentation they gave at the end of the semester.

So, I was happy to learn about Héctor's success after graduation. He works with Walgreens, and continues to use his Spanish. I also love that he displays a sense of service and personal engagement with the Latino community, something that most of my students in "Spanish in the Community" and "Spanish & Entrepreneurship" feel very strongly.

Here are Héctor's own words:

"I got transferred to a different Walgreens with a much, much larger Hispanic population, which I love. It's really gratifying to help these people that have the language as a barrier. I think the thing that I remember is that my parents had to go through the same stuff and they've told me numerous times how hard it was for them. And it's still hard for them because their English isn't that great at all. So in my mind, I see it as paying homage to the struggles that my parents had. Maybe I should look into some sort of social services for this Hispanic community? ...We'll have to see, lol."

It's great to see one more example of how our students continue to use Spanish after they graduate. I also think that it is a great example of how you can integrate Spanish and service into what you're already doing; you don't necessarily have to "make time" to volunteer two hours each week.
Good luck, Héctor, with all you do! You're a great role model for other students.

First Look at the Cover of "Comunidades: más allá del aula"

This is my first look at the cover for the textbook. It looks so simple, yet striking. Of course, that's just my opinion! :)

You can see details about the book here, and it will be available by August 15.

I know that there are a lot of people who develop innovative courses and great teaching materials. Here are some things that I have learned along the way that might be helpful to others who are writing a textbook or want to.

1. Inform yourself. Talk to other people who have written textbooks, if possible. See if you can do some work-for-hire for a publishing company, just so that you see the kind of work it takes--and if you're cut out for it.

2. Know your market. In order to get a contract you have to write a proposal. Even if your idea is great, if there aren't enough instructors who will buy it, then it won't get published. Remember, that doesn't mean that you don't have a great idea. It just means that not enough Spanish programs can adopt it in their course offerings.

3. Don't confuse the intro market with the intermediate/advanced market. Intro textbooks have a lot of resources poured into them because thousands and thousands of students will buy them. That's not the case for a book like Comunidades. That's not a problem, unless you are expecting something that you're not going to find.

4. Don't do it for the money. Whenever I tell someone that I have written a textbook, the very first thing they say is, "Oh, that's where the money is." First of all, I would like to tell them, "having a tenure-line position; advancing from Assistant to Associate and Full Professor; applying for jobs elsewhere and getting retention packages; that's where the money is." But then that wouldn't be very polite, would it? Secondly, this is related to #3--maybe, in the intro market, but probably not in the advanced market where fewer sections are offered.

5. Do it for the love of writing activities. I truly love writing activities and whole lesson plans. It is one of my creative outlets. When I was developing this course, in the first few years I wrote down all my lesson plans. That gave me the material to build upon to create a complete coursepack for TAs to use. I listened to the TAs and the students and tweaked the materials they complained about and created new lesson plans based on the needs they expressed. That may sound like a lot of work, but it's the work I love. And if you don't have that kind of love for creating activities AND revising them, you might reconsider your desire to publish a textbook.

Student Blogger: Update on Sarah Moauro

by Ann Abbott

All during the spring semester of 2009, I looked forward to reading Sarah (and Megan's) blog posts about their time doing community service learning (CSL). It was truly disappointing for me to stop receiving their reflections when the semester ended.

But Sarah didn't stop blogging! She took a wonderful trip to South America (Peru, Argentina and Uruguay) after school was out. She blogged about her experiences and took amazing photos along the way. I followed her blog while she was gone, and then when I saw her pictures it was truly like going along for the ride in a way.

Congratulations, Sarah, on your spirit of adventure and ability to communicate so well through your words and images.

First Lady Michelle Obama Announcing Terrific News for Service

University of Illinois Alum Takes Students on Service Trip to Honduras

by Ann Abbott

Not only do the undergrads who take "Spanish in the Community" and "Spanish for Entrepreneurship" go on to do great things that I like to highlight here; so do our department's former grad students.

Brenci Patiño is a perfect example. She is now at Texas Lutheran University and recently took students to Nicaragua. You can read about it here.

Brenci and I are friends on Facebook, so I was thrilled to follow her updates about the trip and then see the pictures and videos she posted. It gave me an glimpse into the local culture and the reach of their service project.

Congratulations, Brenci!

Classroom Activity: Write an Episode of Your Favorite TV Show with Spanish CSL in the Plot

by Ann Abbott

Once I started to use Twitter, I found a wealth of information about community service learning (CSL) from all over the country. Truthfully, sometimes all the great information can be overwhelming. But building relationships and finding real gems makes it worthwhile.

Here's one gem: a blog post about how CSL stories can become the basis of plots for Hollywood productions.

What a great idea!

And although we missed the deadline to submit stories, I think the concept would be a great basis for a fun in-class activity. (Remember, my examples are all based on Spanish CSL, but I'm sure you could think of examples in English and in any subject matter.)

Learning Objectives
1. Students recognize and recreate the human drama of Spanish CSL and the situations they encounter in the community.
2. Students use their communication and presentation skills to enact (or summarize) a Spanish CSL-based plot.
3. Students to consider the power of stories to create change.
4. Students analyze the influence of celebrities and how it might be leveraged for good.

Before Class

1. Ask students to watch the above video.
2. Ask students to read this press release.
3. Ask students to read the examples of stories at this post.
4. Ask students to go to this website and look up some stars that interest them at this website, including at least one Latina/o star, e.g., Shakira.

In Class
1. Ask students to mention examples of celebrities who promote service and/or charity. (Examples: Oprah's Angel Network, Angelina Jolie's work with UNICEF, Brad Pitt's work with green architecture and the rebuilding efforts in New Orleans. What about Latina/o celebrities?) What are the pros and cons of celebrity-endorsements?

2. Draw a concept map on the board with "service or community engagement" encircled in the middle. Ask students to mention movies, tv shows, music videos, songs, etc. that use that as a plot element or a characterization tool. (Examples: Pay It Forward, the nun in Dead Man Walking who fights for social justice.) What image of service do these entertainment vehicles project? Charity, maintaining the status quo, "look how lucky we are," social justice, engagement, radicalism, something else?

3. Divide students into teams. Give students a genre of television show, and ask each team to come up with a plot that incorporates service in some way. Each team presents their plot, either by enacting it or summarizing it. Students can vote for the best one. Then move on to a different genre and ask students to do the same thing. Genres:

• Children's shows. Example: A refugee family from the Congo arrives to Sesame Street. Bert and Ernie try to talk to the children, but they speak a different language. They decide to play games with the children in the park to show that you can welcome new community members and share with them even when you don't share a common language.
• Crime shows. Law & Order, CSI.
• Medical dramas. Grey's Anatomy, ER.
• Sitcoms.
• Reality tv.

Alternatively, you could assign each team a different genre and then vote on the best plot in any drama.

4. Conclusion: Ask students to connect the importance of story-telling to the communities where they work. What stories about Spanish CSL can they tell their friends and family to encourage them to engage in service? Can they write a story about their CSL work to include in the community partner's newsletter or website? Could their story encourage others to donate their time and/or money to the community partner? Finally, has their Spanish CSL work changed "the plot" of their own lives in any way? (Sometimes students decide to change majors, careers

What Do Spanish Community Service Learning and College Admissions Have in Common?

by Ann Abbott

My audience for this blog isn't high school students who are trying to get into college, but I still think this video on college admissions is relevant to those of us doing Spanish community service learning (CSL).

How? The things that the speaker says about getting into college--being vested in your activities, showing you authentic self in your admissions essay, what is the value of grades versus challenge--are all true about how students can highlight their Spanish CSL work when they look for a job or a graduate program.

I truly believe that a Spanish CSL experience is a great way to set yourself apart, but only if you really take advantage of the experience. Adding it as one more item on your resume doesn't help if you can't then speak passionately about what you learned, how you learned it, and how you can transfer that to the work you will need to do in the job or grad program you're applying for.

I'll continue to write more spceific posts about the value of Spanish CSL for job preparation, but I wanted to share this video because it states things that I think are very important for our students.

• When it comes to your extracurricular activities in college (although the video is talking about high school), quality and depth of engagement is more important than quantity.
• Your high GPA doesn't mean as much if you never took risks and stretched yourself in hard/unique courses, like a CSL course.
• Your job interviewer or the admissions committee won't know the depth of your learning and commitment to Spanish CSL if you don't articulate that with an authentic, passionate voice in your cover letter or personal statement.

I know that we're not teaching at vocational schools, but I believe it is unethical on our part to consciously ignore the fact that our students must go out and look for jobs when they graduate. I want my students to learn a lot academically from my Spanish CSL courses, but I also want them to leave the class feeling that I have given them something that they can take with them to their after-college lives.

Add Variety to Spanish Community Service Learning Reflection

by Ann Abbott

A quick reminder of the three pillars of successful Spanish community service learning (CSL):

1. A mutually beneficial community partnership.
   
   
2. Service learning activities that are tied to the academic content of the course.


3. Structured reflection.

In this post I'd like to concentrate on #3, structured reflection. There is so much to say, and so much has already been said. Furthermore, reflection in a second language adds another layer of complexity for the students and instructors.

Still, the 4 C's (Eyler, Giles and Schmiede) are a good place to start (quoted in Service-Learning course Design Workbook from Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning Summer 2001):

1. Continuous: reflection activities are undertaken throughout the service-learning course, rather than intermittently, episodically, or irregularly.
2. Connected: reflection efforts are structured and directly related to the learning objectives.
3. Challenging: reflection efforts set high expectations, demand high quality student effort, and facilitate instructor feedback that stimulates further student learning.
4. Contextualized: reflection activities are appropriate to the particular course, and commensurate with and complementary to the level and type of other course learning activities.

I would add another item to this list: Variety. (Unfortunately, that doesn't start with a "c." Darn.

Vary the format. The Spanish CSL students at the University of Illinois used to do both written reflections and video reflections. This allowed them to develop their written and oral Spanish. (We dropped the video reflections last year, but that's the subject of another post...)

Vary the prompts. Ask students to reflect on a variety of topics. Give them good, varied prompts, but also give them a chance to have the freedom to reflect on whatever strikes them as important. However, avoid the wording that I once used: "Escribe sobre lo que quieras."/"Write about whatever you want." My students did not catch the subjunctive in the question and interpreted it as "Write about what you want." As in, what you want to get out of this experience. The second time that prompt appeared, some students wrote angry reflections, telling me that they had already answered this question! Ha. Now I write, "Decide tú el tema de este ensayo"/"You decide the topic of this essay." Yet another warning: you must tell them that they have to write about their Spanish CSL. When I allow students to choose their own topics, some inevitably write about their study-abroad plans, their love of soccer, and the courses they are going to take next semester--with no connection whatsoever to what they are learning in the community.

Vary the place. Students don't always have to write reflections at home. Make sure that your in-class activities include opportunities for reflection. Students can write in class, conduct interviews, etc.

Vary the content. Students don't always have to write reflective essays. How about a page full of questions that have come to their mind while working in the community. Why not have them draw a community assets map? Could they draw a picture of a representative object from their CSL?

Vary the audience. Are you, the instructor, the sole audience for your students' reflections? Why? Could someone else learn something from their reflections and help them learn? Here are some possible alternative audiences for students' reflections:

• Each other. Our Spanish CSL students at the University do "peer reflection" at least twice during a semester. To do this, they must read a previous reflection by another student and compare/contrast their own experiences. Students who work in different places in the community learn about how that other place functions. Students who work in the same place can see how two people can have very different experiences. Or very different reactions to the same experience.
• The world. If students post to a public forum (website, blog, etc.), their readers can be anyone from anywhere. And if they get comments from those readers, that can be especially exciting.
• Community members/partners. As I have posted before, I ask students to reflect on what they have learned in the community and write thank you notes to community partners/members. When they know that the notes will be hand delivered and read, they choose their words carefully and try to truly show what they have learned. I'm sure there are other reasons for writing real letters to their supervisors in the community or community members--get well letters if someone is sick, a note of encouragement for someone who is going to take a test, a congratulations note to someone who is able to bring their family here to live with them. Any other ideas?
• The editor of a local newspaper. If there is a Spanish-language newspaper in the community, students could send in a letter to the editor or volunteer to write a feature about their class/project and what they have learned. The same could be done in English. Or they could research and write about a particular problem or issue that they encounter in their work in the community.
• Alumni. Does your department or university have an alumni newsletter? Students could write essays in which they compare what and how they learn in a traditional Spanish course (probably what the alumni are familiar with) with what and how they learn in a Spanish CSL course. That could also have the added bonus of alumni feeling motivated to contribute to the CSL program in some way. Maybe. Maybe I'm dreaming.
  

If you have suggestions for other ways to add variety to students' Spanish CSL reflection, please leave it in a comment here!