Spanish & Illinois

Wole en frente del Centro para Refugiados by  Olawole Daramola  Hola! El curso  SPAN 332 explora el concepto de emprendimiento social en un contexto latinoamericano. Se aprenden las injusticias en el sistema político contra inmigrantes sin documentos. Además, este curso revela oportunidades para transformar estructuras injustas de la sociedad y es un espacio para pensar sobre innovaciones de valor. Además, cada estudiante tiene un sitio donde ellos ayudan la comunidad latina en muchas formas diferentes. La clase proveerá conocimiento suficiente para navegar y entender las dinámicas de cada organizacion en comunidad donde se trabaja. Por ejemplo, si trabajas en El Centro para Refugiados sabrás tener más paciencia y compasión por los clientes porque en la clase escucharás sobre las barreras que enfrentan los inmigrantes. Éste es el sitio donde yo trabajé. Aprendí mucho en este curso y estoy muy feliz de haberlo tomado. Primero, mejor é  mi español--m...

by Ann Abbott I think it's really important to use the first day of class to set expectations and get students excited. I try to teach it as a typical class so that they know what to expect. However, I have learned over the years that for community service learning courses, it is a good idea to ease into things, to take one step at a time, to use class time to tie up the many loose ends this kind of pedagogy can create. I usually post my lesson plans on the UIUC Spanish Community Service Learning Facebook Page . Why? Because I post a lot of links that we then use during class for information and analysis. I also often have students write responses to my posts as a way to share their analyses, questions, etc. So look for the blue picture above that will accompany my lesson plans for this semester. With that in mind, here are my lesson plans for the first week of SPAN 332 Spanish and Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures and Communities. Week 1, Day 1: Presentación del cur...

We focus on social entrepreneurship that is linguistically and culturally appropriate, with 28 hours of service learning. Week 10 by Ann Abbott Semana 10: El riesgo Martes We talked about ethics. Why? Because people normally think about risk as a financial game that entrepreneurs play. Sometimes they win. Sometimes they lose--and lose big. But with social entrepreneurship, losing your reputation is one of the biggest risks for the organization.  As always, we spent the first five minutes of class in paired conversation. Like I always say, in community service learning (CSL) classes, students have to be able to start and maintain conversations in Spanish, often out of thin air. Those five-minute "hablar sin parar" activities are very important. I transitioned us to our topic--ethics--and emphasized that compliance and ethics are two different things. Just because you are not breaking a rule or a law does not necessarily mean that you are doing the most et...

We focus on social entrepreneurship that is linguistically and culturally appropriate, with 28 hours of service learning. Week 8 by Ann Abbott Semana 8: Medios sociales Martes ¿Qué importancia tienen los artistas solidarios para las causas que apoyan?  ¿Es Angelina Jolie una artista solidaria?   Lee esta página web y analiza las ventajas y desventajas de utilizar las grandes artistas para llamar la atención a una causa . ¿Qué causas apoyan estos artistas latinos?   Mira el video y haz una lista de los artistas que aparecen y la causas que apoyan .  ¿Qué es una fundación?   Echa un vistazo a este documento  y luego explica la diferencia entre una fundación y una organización sin fines de lucro. ¿Qué tipo de branding hace Ricardo Arjona para su Fundación Adentro?  El branding es importante para las empresas sociales. Analiza esta imagen de Ricardo Arjona y el poster de su Fundación para lue...

We focus on social entrepreneurship that is linguistically and culturally appropriate, with 28 hours of service learning. Week 1 by Ann Abbott SEMANA 1: PRESENTACIÓN DEL CURSO Martes: Los elementos del curso Meta: saber por qué quieres dedicar tanto tiempo y esfuerzo a este curso. Aprendizaje en la comunidad: 28 horas I´ll start with the current situation in Champaign-Urbana's Latino community: anxiety over the announced ICE raids on a national level. Reading.  Students skim a December article in the Washington Post about the announced raids . Video.  Together we view this short video about knowing your rights.  Trabajar en la comunidad. I'll put students who took SPAN 232 together with students who didn't. But before they actually get together, they need to think of what they think the others should know, and the others have to come up with two questions to ask. Emprendimiento social: nuestro tema I want them to learn about entrepreneu...

by Nicole Tauster This semester for SPAN 332, in addition to volunteering, we formed groups and signed up for projects that allowed us to help community members/organizations with our Spanish skills. Some groups took over the social media campaigns for local organizations, others wrote grants or created fundraising events. My group did something a little different… We worked with Dr. Pilar Eg ü ez Guevarra, editing and transcribing videos for her. Dr. Guevarra has a webpage and project entitled “Comidas que Curan” and her goal is to inform the inhabitants of Esmeraldas, Ecuador about nutrition and how to use traditional foods in healthful ways. One of the growing problems in Esmeraldas is that products that the locals have used and consumed for years, like the coconut, are becoming more expensive due to gentrification and higher global demand. Because of this many people, especially the younger generations, were using less healthy substitutes for coconut oil, milk, etc. But Dr. ...

by Ann Abbott I try to make my reflections and tests be learning opportunities. That is, I don't just want to know what students know, I want them to learn something new through the process of taking my test or writing a reflective essay. What's even better than that? When the product of their reflection/exam can actually be used for an authentic purpose in the community. To meet an authentic, community-identified need. I was emailing with Ricardo Diaz  this week about the interview that Allison Gattari and I did on public access radio and television. (I was letting Ricardo know how much I enjoyed the conversation and felt that we had just scratched the surface.) When he gave me the link to the CU Immigration TV YouTube channel  and I looked at the page again, it dawned on me: My students could provide editing for the videos that would increase their value for the channel. Ricardo agreed, and so my "Spanish in the Community" and "Spanish & Social E...

by Ann Abbott I was very happy to get an email this evening with a link to an online guest lesson I gave a few semesters ago about social entrepreneurship and social media marketing . Normally when you do a guest lecture, nothing remains from it afterward. This was my very first attempt at teaching online, and I'm glad to have a record of it. The course is called Social Media and Global Change, and you can see the course content on this blog . And for even more information, visit the Global Informatics Initiative website .

by Ann Abbott I love teaching "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities." I focus the course on social entrepreneurship, I teach them basic business principles, we analyze them at work in specific nonprofit examples, and we focus on doing all of this in linguistically and culturally appropriate ways. Here's the syllabus for "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities ." On our first day of class this semester, I covered many of the fundamental elements of the course. Community service learning + social entrepreneurship The students in the course should already be familiar with community service learning, because the prerequisite for this course is " Spanish in the Community ." So they still need to work 28 hours during the semester with a community partner, but in class the academic content focuses on social entrepreneurship. Community service learning Despite the prerequisite, ...

When I think of the engaged humanities, these are the tenets that come to my mind and guide my work. by Ann Abbott Recently an old friend asked if I would be willing to go to her campus this year to give a talk. Yes! I love talking about Spanish community service learning (CSL), and I love the chance to see old friends in the places they work. To organize the trip I needed to send her the usual--my CV, a photo, title of the talk, a blurb. But I also needed to write a paragraph describing my background and expertise in the humanities. Hmmmmm. Even though my PhD is in Hispanic literature, I have felt very distanced from the humanities for many years. When you do work in the scholarship of engagement, you can take a real beating from traditional humanists. "You make us look like a service department." "This isn't a vocational college." "Literature is the heart of Spanish programs." "There's no theory in what you do." But in this pr...

by Ann Abbott First things first: Jesse Hoyt was never a student in my class. But he was a student at the University of Illinois, and I ran into him a lot because of his work with La Colectiva at the University YMCA when I was more involved with CU-Immigration Forum at its beginnings. Most importantly, I think he is a former UI student that current Spanish students should get to know. He's a role model because of the career path he followed, and he's a expert in community organizing, grassroots organizations and immigrant rights. Here are several videos that I hope inform and inspire you. Listen carefully to find out where he worked after graduation (he has moved on now), look up the website and see if they have any job openings that could be a good fit for you. Now listen to his talk at the University YMCA's Friday Forum from the fall of 2013. You'll learn a lot about for-private jails and immigration reform, but you'll also see how professional and exper...

I'm excited to participate in the Education Justice Project this fall. by Ann Abbott I'm going to go to a prison this semester. I've never been to a prison before. I know many people from my hometown, Clay City, Illinois , who have been to jail, mostly because of drugs. On the other hand, I also know a lot of people from Clay City who work as prison guards--one of the most coveted jobs in an area with mostly low-paying, low-security jobs. I'll be going to the prison in Danville, Illinois to teach one class (just one day) through the Education Justice Program  (EJP), run by Prof. Rebecca Ginsburg at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. I have admired their work for many years, even donated small amounts to the project. (I always imagine that money going toward buying a tank of gas to drive from Champaign to Danville and back.) I have also long admired the work that Prof. Pamela Cappas-Toro (Stetson University, Florida) and Lee Ragsdale did with the p...

Kelly and David Students in my SPAN 232 course, "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities," have to do a team project in addition to their 28 hours of community service learning work. These are the results of one of the teams from Spring 2014. The intent is to have them go through the entrepreneurial process on a small scale, create something of true value, and develop their teamwork skills. --Ann Abbott What? For our project, we chose to write a grant proposal for the after-school program called SOAR that takes place at Garden Hills elementary school. The SOAR program is designed to help second language learners from low-income families in the Champaign Unit 4 school district improve reading, writing, and math skills. The program is coordinated by the University of Illinois Center for education in small urban communities in conjunction with the bilingual program at Garden Hills. Each semester, three days of the week, University service-...

Students in my SPAN 232 course, "Spanish & Entrepreneurship: Languages, Cultures & Communities," have to do a team project in addition to their 28 hours of community service learning work. These are the results of one of the teams from Spring 2014. The intent is to have them go through the entrepreneurial process on a small scale, create something of true value, and develop their teamwork skills. --Ann Abbott What? The team project that we chose to do was to plan, pro m ote, and carry out a Spanis h -language booth at a community literary event called Read Across A m erica at Lincoln Square Mall in Urbana, Illinois. W e had three group m embers who divided the work a m ongst the m selves early in the se m ester to carry out the project in the m ost efficient m anner possible. The event allowed us to provide a service to the people of Cha m paig n -Urbana. Our work in the com m unity throughout this se m ester with Spanish 332 has shown us th e nu m ber of Spa...