English 195W/410W: Writing Program Internship

Reflection on Integrating Community Engagement into Academic Career: 3-stage Action Plan

My work is driven by a deep belief in the value of community-engaged learning as an impactful opportunity for students to develop their writing, research, and critical thinking skills in real-world contexts. While the specific community issues we address may vary, the heart of my work lies in providing students with meaningful, hands-on experiences that connect their academic work to the needs of the broader community. In the past, students have explored topics such as environmental sustainability, mental health, childhood literacy, and workforce development—areas that not only spark student engagement but also make a positive impact beyond the classroom.

In the next three semesters, I plan to take a strategic and sustainable approach to expanding this work. My goals include building ongoing relationships with 2–3 local community partners, developing on-campus workshops and presentations to increase student awareness of internship opportunities, and showcasing the collaborative work of students and partners to apply for grant funding that can support future programming.

The outcomes I hope to achieve are centered on sustainability, connection, and impact. I aim to establish long-term relationships with community organizations, offer consistent group advising and orientation sessions to prepare students for their roles, and create a living archive of materials to guide future cohorts. Through presentations and reflection, students will not only deepen their learning but also develop a stronger sense of belonging, civic responsibility, and a more nuanced understanding of the community around them. I believe this work has the potential to shape lives—for students and for the communities they serve.

Click here for my 3-stage action plan.

Samples from My 3-stage Action Plan
Stage 1 of Action Plan	Intern Preparation	What is an Academic Internship? Video
Stage 1 of my 3 stage action plan. Goals: I will collaborate with campus partners to identify 2-3 community partners with whom I can work. Action Steps: Meet with Noel Mora, Community Partnership Coordinator at the Community Engagement Center to discuss partners. Meet with Abrakam Mendoza, Lead Internship/Professional Employer Relations Coordinator at the Career Center to discuss internship opporuntities. Offer group advising sessions to students as a recruitment tool. Introduce academic internships to students, place them with a community partner for spring 2028, and guide them through the CEC Connect orientation and the community partner's onboarding process. This stage focuses on identifying 2-3 community partners. Desired Outcomes: By the Fall of 2025 I will have met with and developed connections with 2-3 community partners. I will have 1-2 spring internships for students set up with community partners. I will have hosted group advising sessions and internship orientation meetings.	I think the most important thing I have learned from the FLC is the importance of preparing interns for working with community partners. I now understand that recruiting and preparing interns needs to begin the semester before the internship will take place, so I will begin providing advising support for Spring 2026 interns during Fall 2025.	Screenshot from a video I made to introduce academic internships to students. I have learned that I need to offer more support material like this to help students understand what an academic internship is and what to expect out of the experience.

Moving Forward

This FLC has given me the time, space, and support to think more intentionally about how to deepen the community-engaged components of my teaching. I’ve learned about different models of community-engaged learning—especially the distinctions between internships and service learning—which has helped me clarify what kind of experience I want students to have and how to structure that within my courses. I now have a stronger foundation for designing partnerships that are not only relevant to students’ academic and professional growth but also meaningful to the community organizations we work with.

Going forward, I plan to use these learnings to redesign assignments so that students have more structured opportunities for reflection, skill-building, and interaction with community partners. I’m also thinking more about how to build in sustainability—whether through orientation sessions, archives of materials, or ongoing relationships with local organizations. The FLC has also helped me connect with other faculty and campus resources, which I know I’ll continue to rely on as I grow this work. Ultimately, I want to create experiences where students feel connected—to each other, to the campus, and to the broader Sacramento community—and this FLC has helped me take real steps toward that goal.

Faculty Biography

Angela smiling at the camera. Angela Laflen is an associate professor in the English Department at California State University, Sacramento. She teaches in the Writing Program, in the areas of digital writing, online writing pedagogy, and professional writing. Her published work focuses on writing response practices and digital and multimodal literacies, and her work has appeared in Assessing Writing, the Journal of Response to Writing, and Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture, among others. Her book, Critical Data Storytelling in the Composition Classroom, is forthcoming from Utah State University Press.

This work was supported by the Community Engagement Center, the Career Center, and the Anchor/Community-Engaged University Collaborative

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