New thinking about the role of education in confined environments. As the work of Malcolm X, Angela Y. Davis, and others has made clear, education in prison has enabled people to rethink systems of oppression. Courses in reading and writing help incarcerated students feel a sense of community, examine the past and present, and imagine a better future. Yet incarcerated students often lack the resources, materials, information, and opportunity to pursue their coursework, and training is not always available for those who teach incarcerated students. This volume will aid both new and experienced instructors by providing strategies for developing courses, for creating supportive learning environments, and for presenting and publishing incarcerated students' scholarly and creative work. It also suggests approaches to self-care designed to help instructors sustain their work. Essays incorporate the perspectives of both incarcerated and non-incarcerated teachers and students, centering critical prison studies scholarship and abolitionist perspectives. This volume contains discussion of Mumia Abu-Jamal's Live from Death Row, Marita Bonner's The Purple Flower, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and Othello.
Introduction, by Sheila Smith McKoy and Patrick Elliot Alexander Part One: Purposes Riotous Study: Black Studies, Academic Unfreedom, and Surveilled Pedagogy in Prison Education, by Jess A. Goldberg Power Mapping the Capitol: Notes on Abolitionist Pedagogy and Captive Study, by Meghan G. McDowell and Alison Rose Reed The Sacred Writing Circle: Pedagogical Challenges of Creative Writing and Teaching among Incarcerated Women, by Anastazia Schmid Of Toothbrushes, Bread, and Beanstalks: Freedom and Kinship Inside, by Ann E. Green, Richard Sean Gross, and Rachel Swenarton Relational Methodologies and Decolonial Outcomes for the Prison Writing Classroom, by Anna Plemons The Brain Is Wider than the Sky, by David Bennett and Courtney Rein Meteorite, by Elizabeth Hawes Shakespeare with Survivors: Learning from Incarcerated Women in the Me Too Era, by Jenna Dreier Playwriting across the Walls as Abolitionist Practice, by Rivka Eckert Cracks in the Glass Ceiling, by C. Fausto Cabrera Rethinking the Hero Narrative of Critical Pedagogy: Teaching Creative Writing with and for Women at the County Jail, by Molly Dooley Appel and Shannon Frey Spanish Co-instruction in Prison: A Dialogue on Language, Identity, and Pedagogy, by Pamela Cappas-Toro, Antonio Rosa, and Ken Smith Poetic Difference: How Emplaced Writing Influences Lives in Prison, by Seth Michelson Unsettling Literacy: Querying the Rhetorics of Transformation, by Anne Dalke Part Two: Practices Liberators in Theory, Collaborators in Deed: Navigating the Constraints of the Prison Classroom, by R. Michael Gosselin Collaborating to Reimagine Knowledge Sharing in the Prison Classroom, by James King and Amber Shields Disrupting the Time of Incarceration: Close Reading in a Justice-Oriented Prison Classroom, by Rachel Boccio Reading and Writing between the Devil and the Deep Blue: The Appalachian Prison Book Project, by Katy Ryan, Valerie Surrett, and Rayna Momen Narrating Captivity, Imagining Justice: Reading Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in Prison, by Laura E. Ciolkowski From a Public Defender Office to a Prison Classroom: Why I Teach Writing in Prison, by Patrick Filipe Conway Writing Our Lives into the World, by Benjamin J. Hall, Rhiannon M. Cates, and Vicki L. Reitenauer Erasure or Exploitation? Considering Questions in Prison Publications, by Sarah Shotland Self-Care as Ethical Practice for Teachers and Volunteers Working with Writers behind Bars, by Shelby D. Tuthill and Tobi Jacobi Notes on Contributors Index
"This is the first anthology about teaching in prison that is openly written from an abolitionist perspective. A valuable addition to the discourse." - Victoria Law, author of "Prisons Make Us Safer" and Twenty Other Myths about Mass Incarceration
