Dissertation Ideas: A Broad Perspective

Service-learning has become a burgeoning area in the field of composition studies within the last fifteen years. Many college and university English departments use service-learning pedagogy in their writing courses to instill the ideals of citizenship and community involvement in students. Ffew studies have explored the critical role faculty members play in the teaching, research, and institutional viability of service-learning and civic engagement in higher education. The purpose of my research is to develop an understanding of faculty members’ personal motivations for engaging in service-learning initiatives, to examine their use of service-learning pedagogy in the teaching of writing, and explore their professional attraction to service-learning as a discipline.

In addition to its impact on composition faculty members, a number of studies have been conducted showing promising results of the academic impact of service-learning. However, many of these studies lack an in-depth discussion of what students specifically learned about writing. I am interested in studying what students, who have participated in a service-learning themed composition course, have to say about what they learned about writing.

Could I get any broader?