Delta State Service Learning English Class to Provide Hurricane Relief
Please join me in recruiting students for a unique service learning experience known as ENGLISH 492: THE LITERATURE OF THE HOLIDAYS (also known as Operation Okra Christmas). This two week class will focus on how holiday traditions have evolved in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. One full week of the class will be spent in residence in Turkey Creek, which is an historic enclave near North Gulfport, Mississippi. We will be working to bring good works, constructive relief efforts and holiday cheer to Turkey Creek and other communities devastated by the disaster of August 29, 2005. The other week will be spent in Cleveland planning, processing and analyzing this interdisciplinary service learning effort. We will briefly provide relief, humor and holiday cheer for people in hard times, with an emphasis on the children of the coast. The capstone academic experience will be a formal nonfiction essay of considerable length. We will also be doing writing exercises utilizing STRUNK & WHITE’S ELEMENTS OF STYLE.
This class will be hard work, both in and out of the classroom. Students can choose from a variety of service learning activities, from working construction and clean up jobs to assisting with local Boys and Girls Club activities. However, we will also be caroling, as well as telling Christmas stories and performing holiday skits for the entertainment for children on the coast. Santa Claus will be making several appearances, but he will also bring his overalls, his air mattress and plenty of surgical masks to block out unwanted mold spores from cleanup sites. If you know where Santa and his elves can get donated construction-worker respirators as well, please contact D. Allan Mitchell at the e-mail below and he’ll get word to the North Pole.
Students will be staying in a summer-camp-like bunkhouse designed, engineered, built and previously occupied by student volunteers from Virginia Tech. Students should be willing to strenuously work in rustic conditions, and be sensitive to the emotions of loss and frustration that our fellow Mississippians have experienced on the Gulf Coast. All majors and classifications (including graduate students) are welcome to interview for a spot in the class. Students must receive the instructor’s permission before registering for the class.
I would appreciate it greatly if you could promote this class to your students. More information on Turkey Creek can be found at www.turkey-creek.org. I’d also like to extend best Holiday wishes from Delta State University’s extended family in Turkey Creek.
Regards,
Don Allan Mitchell
Instructor of English
