Claire Tinley: Former Spanish Community Service Learning Student and Video Producer

Claire Tinley was a wonderful student in my SPAN 232 "Spanish in the Community" course. She then studied abroad in Argentina, a wonderful choice for students who want to take classes with local college students and break away from the big "packs" of UIUC students who go on other programs. I loved getting her colorful e-mails while she was abroad.

This semester she enrolled in a very popular course on our campus, "Writing with Video." Prof. Joseph Squier (a Faculty Fellow and the Academy for Entrepreneurial Leadership and friend of mine) and his colleague began the course in order to use visual media to teach what is usually taught in written form in a college rhetoric course (read more about it). Clair contacted me a few weeks ago to say that she wanted to do her final video on bilingualism--a wonderful topic. But as is often the case, ideas and assignments morph and she ended up doing a fascinating video on environmental racism. Watch it here.

I learned a lot about Champaign and the topic of environmental racism from her video. I think you will too. I want to incorporate this video into the SPAN 232 curriculum in some way so that my students can start thinking about this topic from the viewpoint of what they observe in the local Latino community.

Thank you, Claire, for staying in touch with me, sharing your work, and being concerned about community issues (both here and abroad).

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