Although service learning has gone a long way since the time when, until the mid-1980, it was practically unknown as a pedagogical practice beyond a closed circle of practitioners, in many higher education institutions it still remains a domain of few faculty interested in integrating service learning in their disciplines. While experimenting with teaching English 191 Composition course at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and searching for a way to relate the abstractions of my discipline to the realities of the world, I stumbled into service learning and created a course that truly convinced me of the revolutionary potential of service learning in transforming the stale educational practice. This article will record my experience with the course and the lessons I learned from it.