Assignment Description

Each student will engage at least six community residents in a conversation about their own individual strengths, associations, and institutional connections and also to learn about the strengths, assets, opportunities, and challenges the community member perceives in the community. (Discussion and guidelines for these Learning Conversations are included in the readings for Week Six). In addition to having conversations with residents of the community, students will also analyze census data, and create an asset map of their communities identifying the associations and institutions present within their communities.

This assignment will culminate into a final product:

Final Product: Each student will write up an analysis of the community based on their conversations with community residents, census data analysis, and discovery of community associations and institutions.

The written analysis will include the following sections:

• Overview of the community
• Brief summary of conversations with community residents
• Asset map
• Short narrative description of the asset map
• Power analysis

The written analysis will also include recommendations for one community project that would build on the strengths and assets identified, take advantage of the opportunities, and address one or more of the challenges learned through the course of the project. The paper will also describe the initial steps needed to begin implementing the community project.

This week work on:

• Writing history of community
• Demographics of community and census analysis