Syllabus in-progress
WGS 126: Engaging Communities: Seminar on Gender and Violence
In this seminar, you will undertake an in-depth study of gender and violence in the U.S.
and global contexts, with a major part of your study taking place in a community service
setting. This will be a service-learning seminar, which means that you won’t only study
gender and violence in the abstract (through readings and class discussions) but will also
have your own encounters with issues of violence through your community service work.
The two pillars of service-learning classrooms are experience (the service work) and
reflection (readings, discussions, etc.), and this class will incorporate both so that you’ll
learn not only the theories and contexts for gender and violence in society but will also
gain a “real world” understanding of the issues surrounding this topic through your
engagement in organizations addressing the effects of violence. This class will address
violence in several different contexts, including domestic abuse, rape, global violence
against women and violence against sexual and gender minorities. We’ll emphasize not
only problems but also potential solutions; we’ll debate the most effective ways to
address violence on a societal, institutional, and individual level, interrogating the
“personal as political” as well larger power structures which shape our communities
Readings:
Confronting Rape and Sexual Assault, eds. Mary E. Odom and Jody Clay-Warner
Living Between Danger and Love: The Limits of Choice, Kathleen B. Jones
Transforming a Rape Culture, eds. Emilie Buchwald, Pamela Fletcher, and Martha Roth
The Public Nature of Private Violence, eds. Martha Fineman and Roxanne Mykitiuk
The Color of Violence: Incite! Anthology
Women Hold Up Half the Sky, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn
Moodle site readings from various news organizations, websites and journals
Service Project: You will spend at least 30 hours over the course of the semester
working with one of the following local agencies:
STAND! For Families Free of Violence
Community Violence Solutions
Oakland Elizabeth House
Women’s Daytime Drop-In Center
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Service Journal:
As part of your service, you will keep a daily journal of your experiences and reflections
about your service, making connections to the ideas you’re encountering in readings and
discussion. Journal entries should be typed on regular paper, single-spaced, dated, and
kept in a project folder. These folders will be collected every two weeks for evaluation
and will be considered in project grading. Your journal is an important place for
reflection – on the ideas in the readings and on your service - and connection – between
the ideas discussed in class and your engaged participation in the communities addressing
those issues in the world.
Essays:
In addition to your journal project, you will write 2 critical analysis essays, 1250-1500
words each, addressing ideas in the readings and class discussion. You will also research
and write a 2500-word final essay incorporating a particular disciplinary focus related to
your service. Ideas and topics for these essays will be forthcoming.
Class Participation:
In class we will discuss readings that theorize and contextualize gender and violence, and
we will attempt throughout the semester to bring your service experiences into discussion
through these readings. This is an important element of reflection on complex theories
and ideas about gender and how you see them at work in your community engagement.
In addition, you will lead discussion on the readings in group forums and you will also
present your research for the final paper in class at the end of the semester.
Grading:
Critical analysis essays: 15% each
Final research essay: 20%
Service and service journal: 30%
Class participation: 20%
Learning goals:
As part of an engaged learning community, this course will encourage students to address
the common goals of our core curriculum to
 Apply academic methods and/or theories in a way that promotes collaboration
and mutual benefit in a community setting; and
 Demonstrate critical reflection throughout their experience; and
 Express their understanding of the interconnections between their experience
and their responsibilities as members of social or professional communities.
In addition, within the discipline of Women’s and Gender Studies, students will
 Develop critical strategies to recognize and interpret intersections of gender, race,
ethnicity, sexuality and class in local and global contexts and address the ways in
which these conditions of identity are related to violence
 Explore the connections between gender theories and practice in active
engagement with and service in behalf of community partners whose work
focuses on gender equity and justice
 Develop thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments in reading, writing about and
discussing gender and its relationship to violence, the social and historical
constructions of this relationship and their influences in local and global
communities.
Community Engagement Learning Goals and WGS 126
Assignments in the Seminar on Gender and Violence will address learning goals in the
following ways:
1. Apply academic methods and/or theories in a way that promotes collaboration and
mutual benefit in a community setting: The primary focus of the course is service
learning, with an engaged and informed participation on the part of the student. Student
participation is assessed through the service journal, which will require regular reflection
and commentary on service; through class discussion, during which students are invited
to contemplate how their service expands upon ideas and theories in the readings;
through an hours log signed by the community partner; by the instructor’s regular
collaboration with the Engaged Learning Facilitator (ELF), a student specially trained by
Cilsa to support the course, the students, and the community partner; and by final
assessment and discussion of the student’s participation with the community partner
her/himself.
This learning goal also addresses goal #2 in the specific learning goals for the course:
explore the connections between gender theories and practice in active engagement with
and service in behalf of community partners whose work focuses on gender equity and
justice.
2. Demonstrate critical reflection throughout their experience: The service journal is key
to the process of reflection, as is class discussion. Students will be encouraged through
regular feedback on the journals and on class discussion to make connections between
their engaged learning and course ideas and theories. Students will also have formal
writing assignments in which they are encouraged to connect their experiences in and
views of engaged learning to ideas and theories in the readings and in class discussion.
Students are encouraged in written and oral assignments to consider their own world
views, family and social environments and ideas about others, about difference and
diversity, in their reflections on gender and violence.
This learning goal also addresses goal #1 in the specific learning goals for the course:
develop critical strategies to recognize and interpret intersections of gender, race,
ethnicity, sexuality and class in local and global contexts and address the ways in which
these conditions of identity are related to violence.
3. Express their understanding of the interconnections between their experience and their
responsibilities as members of social or professional communities: A key goal of this
course will be to encourage students to bring what they’ve learned through service and
through the readings back to their local community of Saint Mary’s College. Students
will incorporate in their journal and in their final essay what they have learned about
gender violence and bring this knowledge to a greater understanding of how the College
addresses these issues. Their final research essays will ask students to make connections
between theories and ideas on this issue, the engagement of the issue in communities, and
the close reality of the issue on campus. In addition, service will be assessed for the
student’s progressive grasp of these connections from critical, political and personal
perspectives.
This learning goal also addresses goal #3 in the specific learning goals for the course:
develop thoughtful and well-reasoned arguments in reading, writing about and discussing
gender and its relationship to violence, the social and historical constructions of this
relationship and their influences in local and global communities