CATESOL24

Bring your coffee and join us for an engaging rap session that explores the pivotal role of California community colleges in fostering civic engagement and enhancing digital literacies. This session will delve into how our community colleges empower diverse communities, bridge societal gaps, and cultivate informed, active individuals. Through interactive discussions and real-world examples, participants will gain insights into effective strategies for integrating civic engagement and digital literacies into educational practices, enriching the community and empowering individual voices. Don't miss this opportunity to be part of a transformative conversation.

Explore the innovative and free USA Learns Citizenship course, developed by the Sacramento County Office of Education, and designed to prepare students for the U.S. Citizenship test and interview. This presentation will be a quick dive into the course's comprehensive curriculum, interactive online tools, and student/teacher-friendly design that empower learners with essential knowledge and skills. Discover how this accessible resource supports teachers and guides adult learners in achieving their American dream.

Translingual approaches to service-learning in first year writing courses have the potential to leverage institutional community engagement frameworks in ways that empower the voices of students and community partners and decenter language hierarchies in the classroom and community. This presentation will focus on a Writing Partners @ Sac State course design that aligns with the CSU's Community-Engaged Learning Initiative, centers students' diverse writing practices, and facilitates meaningful collaboration between college and K-12 students. Attendees will have the opportunity to consider how a translingual approach to service-learning might inform community-engaged work at their institutions.

It is possible to create an effective citizenship course using free, easily accessible digital resources. Teaching with these materials empowers students to take control of their study and preparation and be self-directed and self-resourced learners. Participants in the workshop will leave with resources for teaching and studying all aspects of the US naturalization interview as well as a suggested course outline and examples of online assignments and activities.

A benefit of reframing the writing process as a practice-based learning landscape is that students gain voice within their campus communities. When students invest by sharing their work, the art of revision 'revises' the way they see themselves, creating an opportunity for them to experience the joys of becoming writers. This research-grounded workshop highlights benefits of student engagement with peers through two approaches which attendees experience: writing groups and critique letter writing. Attendees participate in a writing community to experience alternative revision approaches which they can add to their own courses in order to foster students' civil engagement and confidence.

Engaging students to interact critically in contemporary problems and topics of civic engagement empowers their critical hope for the future and their own advocacy for a more equitable community. Building on Jeff Duncan-Andrade's theory of of critical hope, the presenter will share a framework and examples on combining civic engagement topics, critical thinking, information literacy, and academic vocabulary development in a pre-transfer-level reading-composition course and take participants through a journey of how to help students understand the nature of injustice, the reasons for engagement or bystanding, the architecture of activism, and the power of non-violent resistance.