Theory and Practice for Literacy in the Prison Classroom

Theory and Practice for Literacy in the Prison Classroom
Author: Gregory Bruno
Publisher: Studies in Critical Pedagogy
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2022
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9789004530683

As political tides shift and funding for college-in-prison programming ebbs and flows, educators who work in these contexts are often left with few resources for questioning their practice and their field. To that end, this book aims to encourage dialogue, to ask educators to interrogate their values, beliefs, and practices with and about college-in-prison programming and the students those programs serve. By consulting the works of Paulo Freire and Ernst Bloch, this text seeks to present a methodology for best designing and implementing a meaningfulliteracy pedagogy for incarcerated students at the nexus of social, political, and educational contexts.

Theory and Practice for Literacy in the Prison Classroom

Theory and Practice for Literacy in the Prison Classroom
Author: Gregory Bruno
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 176
Release: 2022-09-12
Genre: Education
ISBN: 900453069X

This volume examines the nuance and complexity of teaching for greater social justice under surveillance and constraint. It presents an inquiry-based methodology for designing and implementing meaningful teaching and learning in literacy courses offered in American jails and prisons.

Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom

Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom
Author: Anna Plemons
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2019
Genre: Creative writing
ISBN: 9780814134658

Anna Plemons argues that, when viewed as a microcosm of the broader enterprise, the prison classroom highlights the way that composition and rhetoric as a discipline continues to make use of colonial ways of knowing and of being that work against the decolonial intentions of the field. Through a mix of history, theory, and story, Anna Plemons explores the fate of the Arts in Corrections (AIC) program at New Folsom Prison in California in order to study prison education in general as well as the disciplinary goals of rhetoric and composition classrooms. When viewed as a microcosm of the broader enterprise, the prison classroom highlights the way that composition and rhetoric as a discipline continues to make use of colonial ways of knowing and being that work against the decolonial intentions of the field. Plemons suggests that a truly decolonial turn in composition cannot be achieved as long as economic logics and rhetorics of individual transformation continue to be the default currency for ascribing value in prison writing programs specifically and in out-of-school writing communities more generally. Indigenous scholarship provides the theoretical basis for Plemons's proposed intervention in the ways it both pushes back against individualized, economic assessments of value and describes design principles for research and pedagogy that are respectful, reciprocal, and relational. Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom includes narrative selections from the author and current and former AIC participants, inviting readers into the lives of incarcerated authors and demonstrating the effects of relationality on prison-scholars, ultimately upending the misconception that these writers and their teachers exist apart from the web of relations beyond the prison walls. With contributions from incarcerated prison-scholars Ken Blackburn, Bryson L. Cole, Harry B. Grant Jr., Adam Hinds, Hung-Linh "Ronnie" Hoang, Andrew Molino, Michael L. Owens, Wayne Vaka, and Martin Williams.

Words No Bars Can Hold: Literacy Learning in Prison

Words No Bars Can Hold: Literacy Learning in Prison
Author: Deborah Appleman
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 219
Release: 2019-06-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0393713687

Incarcerated bodies, liberated minds: a narrative of literacy education behind bars. Words No Bars Can Hold provides a rare glimpse into literacy learning under the most dehumanizing conditions. Deborah Appleman chronicles her work teaching college- level classes at a high- security prison for men, most of whom are serving life sentences. Through narrative, poetry, memoir, and fiction, the students in Appleman’s classes attempt to write themselves back into a society that has erased their lived histories. The students’ work, through which they probe and develop their identities as readers and writers, illuminates the transformative power of literacy. Appleman argues for the importance of educating the incarcerated, and explores ways to interrupt the increasingly common journey from urban schools to our nation’s prisons. From the sobering endpoint of what scholars have called the “school to prison pipeline,” she draws insight from the narratives and experiences of those who have traveled it.

Doing Time, Writing Lives

Doing Time, Writing Lives
Author: Patrick W. Berry
Publisher: SIU Press
Total Pages: 162
Release: 2018
Genre: Education
ISBN: 0809336375

Doing Time, Writing Lives offers a much-needed analysis of the teaching of college writing in U.S. prisons, a racialized space that - despite housing more than 2.2 million people -remains nearly invisible to the general public. Through the examination of a college-in-prison program that promotes the belief that higher education in prison can reduce recidivism and improve life prospects for the incarcerated and their families, author Patrick W. Berry exposes not only incarcerated students' hopes and dreams for their futures but also their anxieties about whether education will help them. Beginning by exploring the need to move beyond narratives of hope when discussing literacy initiatives within prisons, Berry then illustrates how teachers and students frequently hold on to different beliefs about literacy and its power in the world. After discussing the possibilities and limitations of professional writing courses in prisons, the author argues that we need to pay greater attention to teachers and their motivations in prison education initiatives. Finally, he offers a case study of one formerly imprisoned student who uses writing in his current life and how this does (and does not) connect with what he learned in his prison education program. Combining case studies and interviews with the author's own personal experiences teaching writing in prison, Doing Time, Writing Lives chronicles how incarcerated students attempt to write themselves back into a society that has erased their lived histories. It challenges polarizing rhetoric often used to describe what literacy can and cannot deliver, suggesting more nuanced and ethical ways of understanding literacy and possibility in an age of mass incarceration.

Transforming the School-to-Prison Pipeline

Transforming the School-to-Prison Pipeline
Author: Debra M. Pane
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 348
Release: 2014-01-01
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9462094497

Critical theory as an umbrella for transformative practices, deconstruction of dominant ideologies, and re-conceptualization of practices serve as a model to ensure that research is firmly planted in a theoretical framework. Pane and Rocco take significant care to ensure that their work rests upon the research and data of leading scholars and national data sources.”—Education Review “Revolution, not reform, is required to release the power of teaching .... Virtually, all teachers possess tremendous power which can be released, given the proper exposure. We can’t get to that point by tinkering with a broken system. We must change our intellectual structures, definitions and assumptions; then we can release teacher power.” (Hilliard, 1997) This book was written during a time of growing upheaval and disagreement about how America should educate its students, particularly those who are poor, diverse, and failing school. Dominant educational research, newspapers, and popular movies such as “Waiting for Superman” continually fuel public debates about whether our 21st century schools provide justice for all, decrease the achievement gap, and leave no child behind. However, even though one of teachers’ greatest concerns and why many leave the profession, classroom discipline is rarely brought to the forefront of discussion. As a result, public discourse does not get into what actually happens during disciplinary moments that ultimately leads to the disproportional tracking of particular students into exclusionary school disciplinary consequences, which funnels an underclass of students into the school-to-prison pipeline. This book is a scholarly study, presented here as a readable story, and practical guide for walking teachers, administrators, and teacher education programs through the process of transforming traditional ways of thinking about classroom discipline and teaching in order to create student-centered, creative, non-punitive classrooms that authentically engage the most alienated and oppressed students in our schools and society.

Prison Pedagogies

Prison Pedagogies
Author: Joe Lockard
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Total Pages: 294
Release: 2018-07-20
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0815654286

In a time of increasing mass incarceration, US prisons and jails are becoming a major source of literary production. Prisoners write for themselves, fellow prisoners, family members, and teachers. However, too few write for college credit. In the dearth of well-organized higher education in US prisons, noncredit programs established by colleges and universities have served as a leading means of informal learning in these settings. Thousands of teachers have entered prisons, many teaching writing or relying on writing practices when teaching other subjects. Yet these teachers have few pedagogical resources. This groundbreaking collection of essays provides such a resource and establishes a framework upon which to develop prison writing programs. Prison Pedagogies does not champion any one prescriptive approach to writing education but instead recognizes a wide range of possibilities. Essay subjects include working-class consciousness and prison education; community and literature writing at different security levels in prisons; organized writing classes in jails and juvenile halls; cultural resistance through writing education; prison newspapers and writing archives as pedagogical resources; dialogical approaches to teaching prison writing classes; and more. The contributors within this volume share a belief that writing represents a form of intellectual and expressive self-development in prison, one whose pursuit has transformative potential.

Adolescent Literacy and the Teaching of Reading

Adolescent Literacy and the Teaching of Reading
Author: Deborah Appleman
Publisher: Principles in Practice
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Education
ISBN: 9780814100561

Deborah Appleman dismantles the traditional divide between secondary teachers of literature and teachers of reading and offers a variety of practical ways to teach reading within the context of literature classrooms. --from publisher description.

"These Kids Are Out of Control"

Author: H. Richard Milner IV
Publisher: Corwin Press
Total Pages: 201
Release: 2018-07-18
Genre: Education
ISBN: 1506301819

Today’s classrooms reimagined If you’re looking for a book on how to "control" your students, this isn’t it! Instead, this is a book on what classroom learning could be if we aspire to co-create more culturally responsive and equitable environments—environments that are safe, affirming, learner-centered, intellectually challenging, and engaging. If we create the kind of places where our students want to be . . . A critically important resource for teachers and administrators alike, "These Kids Are Out of Control" details the specific practices, tools, beliefs, dispositions, and mindsets that are essential to better serving the complex needs of our diverse learners, especially our marginalized students. Gain expert insight on: What it means to be culturally responsive in today’s classroom environments, even in schools at large How to decide what to teach, understand the curriculum, build relationships in and outside of school, and assess student development and learning The four best practices for building a classroom culture that is both nurturing and rigorous, and where all students are seen, heard, and respected Alternatives to punitive disciplinary action that too often sustains the cradle-to-prison pipeline Classroom "management" takes care of itself when you engage students, help them see links and alignment of the curriculum to their lives, build on and from student identity and culture, and recognize the many ways instructional practices can shift. "These Kids Are Out of Control" is your opportunity to get started right away!