Overview
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.
Full Product Details
Author: Anna Plemons ,
Kristin L. Arola
Publisher: National Council of Teachers of English
Imprint: National Council of Teachers of English
ISBN: 9780814134658
ISBN 10: 0814134653
Pages: 185
Publication Date: 30 November 2019
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Temporarily unavailable
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Author Information
Anna Plemons is a clinical assistant professor at Washington State University-TriCities, where she teaches in the English and Digital Technology and Culture programs. Since 2009 she has also taught nonfiction narrative through the Arts in Corrections program at New Folsom Prison. She has published work related to prison education in Teaching Artist Journal, Community Literacy Journal, and the edited collections Prison Pedagogy: Learning and Teaching with Imprisoned Writers (2018) and Critical Perspectives on Teaching in Prison: Students and Instructors on Pedagogy Behind the Wall (2019).
