When I was new to the community, I wanted to learn about the community – about its resources, employment opportunities, and community members.
This assignment allows students to introduce their community and plan a community event while giving the instructor an opportunity to teach and/or assess research skills.
Liz Pope
Adult Educator
To involve the community, this activity includes having the learners organize an open house. As a group, learners and instructor prepare a “to do” list with learners volunteering to take on various responsibilities. The open house becomes what the learners put into it.
After preparing the open house and introducing different community members, learners then identify and describe community resources. The activity begins as a brainstorming session of resources/organizations in my community. Each learner chooses one resource/organization and writes about it, with the intended audience being someone new to the community.
Mini-lessons may include preparing research questions; locating sources (brainstorming sources, webbing); using the library and Internet to locate information; taking notes, using quotations, preparing a bibliography; and the writing process (outline, first draft, revising, final copy, title page, bibliography). On the other hand, the assignment can be used to assess research skills. In this case, mini-lessons may not be necessary.