Charisse S. Iglesias
Assignments & Activities Archive
Assignment Description
“Avoiding the Savior Complex in Community-Engaged Writing” is a three-day activity to prepare students for community-engaged writing partnerships. Community-engaged writing is a common undertaking in composition courses (Schutz and Gere). While community-engaged writing encourages civic responsibility, exposure to different communities, and engaged pedagogies, the practice does not always value the expertise of communities (Shah). Due to various obstacles, university partners often undervalue and underrepresent the communities with which they work. Obstacles such as the savior complex, specifically, limit the co-constructed knowledge production that community university partners can engage in by developing a server-served relationship. This activity shows students how to engage in reciprocal working partnerships in community-engaged writing to reconstruct the traditional positioning of university as expert and community as recipient, essentially deconstructing systems of power. Reciprocity (Dostilio et al.) is the instrument that helps facilitate effective community-university partnerships due to its function to promote generative partnerships. Reconstructing positions of influence works by negotiating differences and aligning communication strategies, which is important because community partners “have critical insight” and “become invaluable partners” to knowledge production (Shah 16). Using reflection, popular articles, and real-life scenarios, this three-day activity describes strategies for students to practice reciprocal working partnerships in community-engaged writing.