URBS 230—Community Leadership and Service Learning

Essay

Go back to your initial free-write: “What is ‘leadership,’ and is there any difference between other types of leadership and leadership in the community?” Reread it, and notice how you are seeing the problem with new eyes—some of what previously seemed so self-evident now seems much more complicated; some of what you previously thought now seems naïve, or even just wrong; and now everything is much more nuanced.

Now write an essay on “Leadership in the community.” You can approach this writing assignment in a number of ways—you could write a narrative essay or a personal essay, or you could write a persuasive essay (probably a little longer than a newspaper editorial—maybe for a magazine). The choice is yours, as long as it addresses the three writing standards.

You must deal with the issue of leading in a democratic society. This really involves two questions—

How is it possible to lead when the issues are ill-formed and ambiguous, when the “group members” are nameless and faceless (some of whom have not moved to the community yet, and some of whom are not even born yet!), and everyone is entitled to his/her own opinion?
What are the appropriate behaviors for someone under conditions like these? How does a community leader behave?

The essay should be 4-6 pages in length.

MSU