Review of Portraits of Literacy Across Families, Communities, and Schools: Intersections and Tensions, Edited by Jim Anderson, Maureen Kendrick, Theresa Rogers, and Suzanne Smythe. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 2005

This article uses James Paul Gee's distinction between acquisition and learning to consider the context of GED tutoring in a correctional facility. It draws on the notion of performance, as defined in Judith Butler's work and in queer theory, to consider the ways that literacy and Identity are performed in the space of the prison. Arguing that Butler's broader definition of performance, while helpful, reads identity out of literacy, the article proposes a notion of transgender literacy that shows how the confluence of "distance and "similarity" can offer a useful way of rereading literacy in institutional spaces.

This article argues that traditional models of WAC too narrowly privilege academic discourse over other discourses and communities shaping the worlds in which our students live and work. Writing Across Communities represents a shift in paradigm informed by Ecocomposition, New Literacy Studies, and Sociolinguistics. A Writing Across Communities approach to writing program reform foregrounds dimensions of ethnolinguistic diversity and civic engagement in contrast to other models or WAC currently institutionalized across the nation. Writing Across Communities, as a resistance discourse, calls for transdisciplinary dialogue that demystifies the ways we make and use knowledge across communities of practice.

Review of four books including: Todd DeStigter. Reflections of a Citizen Teacher: Literacy, Democracy and the Forgotten Students of Addison High. Urbana, IL: NCTE, 2001. Mark Lyons and August Tarrier, eds. Espejos Y Ventanas/Mirrors and Windows. Philadelphia: New City Community Press, 2004. Lena Sze, ed. Chinatown Lives: Oral Histories from Philadelphia's Chinatown. Philadelphia: New City Community Press, 2004. Mark Salzman. True Notebooks: A Writer's Year at Juvenile Hall. New York: Vintage Books, 2003.

This paper describes a model for designing intentional, cross-cultural service-learning partnerships with K-8th grade elementary school students and their surrounding Latino communities. It builds from a local to a global context, working with immigrant populations in Idaho and extending to sister-school partnerships in Jalisco, Mexico. Student voices illustrate the model's ability increase global awareness and intercultural understanding when intentionally applied to a given culture.

Drawing on Donald Schön’s concept of the reflective practitioner and the classical rhetorical concept of stasis, this article observes the habits and tactics of experienced communityengaged instructors of writing and rhetoric. It suggests that a complete reflective practice, combining reflection in and on action, contributes to sustaining effective programs and practices. In moments of tension or apparent crisis, effective reflective practitioners identify critical stasis points effectively, creating opportunities for positive change. The stases of media, language, repertoire, theory, appreciative systems, and role frames are explored.

This article describes the development of a community writing and publishing program, the DiverseCity Writing Series, from 1998 to 2005. Starting as a one-time workshop between a community college English service-learning course and a local women’s advocacy organization, the DiverseCity Writing Series has grown into a year-round partnership between the SLCC Community Writing Center and multiple organizations throughout the Salt Lake City metropolitan area. This mutually beneficial collaboration for the college and the community has been achieved through critical inquiry regarding issues of ownership and discourse as well as the dedication of community members and organizational partners.

In the five years of a newspaper project involving high school and university students that publishes an annual special edition exploring a diversity issue within the local community, several key pedagogical, political, and economic revisions have been made. Nevertheless, the bedrock principles of service-learning and civic journalism have remained constant. The project history shows that a sound theoretical foundation rooted in student and community education and awareness can withstand pressures of censorship by school administrators, ethical and pedagogical concerns that balance student safety with product integrity, and the economic need to become self-sufficient.

Review of Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition by Paula Mathieu. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook Publishers, Heinemann, 2005.

In this essay, I explore the institutional and intellectual resources necessary to develop, revise, and sustain an outreach initiative involving new media composing with community organizations. A retrospective analysis of one course central to this initiative will be offered to illustrate what I term a praxis of new media. A praxis of new media unfolds at the intersection of critical, digital, and community literacies in order to produce transformative knowledge products with all stakeholders. I argue that particular alignments of material and intellectual resources must be in place if such community literacy projects are to sustain the capacity building of stakeholders.

Our goal for this special issue was to gathersome of the most experienced teacher-scholars of community-engaged writing and rhetoric and ask them how they tend and refine their courses in order to keep them meaningful, relevant, and sustainable. In a sense we view this volume as a way to maintain the momentum created by such collections as the 1997 Writing the Community edited by Linda Adler-Kassner, Robert Crooks, and Ann Watters, which helped launch the American Association for Higher Education's effort to increase institutional awareness of service-learning through intra- and interdisciplinary scholarship, and the 2000 special issue of Language and Learning Across the Disciplines edited by Ellen Cushman, which emphasizes matters of institutionalization. Both publications pay special attention to the situated practices of educators in long-term programs and partnerships. We extend that discussion with a collection that foregrounds pivotal pedagogical decisions and generative questions.

Review of The Measure of Service Learning: Research Scales to Assess Student Experience, Edited by Robert G. Bringle, Mindy A. Phillips, and Michael Hudson. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association (APA), 2003

This article connects the author’s practice, Fulkerson’s “map” of composition studies, and insights from critical race studies, specifically whiteness studies, to argue that even though many or even most community-based writing courses fit into a critical/cultural studies-type philosophy, such an orientation is limited. The article argues for “community-engaged procedural rhetorical,” in which students would learn in community-engaged writing courses the meta-skills to analyze what strategies and tactics worked rhetorically and materially to make change in a given situation, and to extrapolate this learning toward the future.

From its beginnings in 1992, the Service-Learning Writing Project at Michigan State University has viewed the composition classroom as a place where rhetorical processes and democratic practices naturally converge. A number of core democratic principles, pedagogical challenges, ongoing conversations, and shared convictions about education for democracy continue to animate and energize the Project’s faculty—including a consistent emphasis on encouraging democratic discourses and learning practices in the writing classroom, a search for pedagogical techniques that connect theory and practice, and efforts to reinvigorate the teaching of the Humanities as important and necessary cultural work in the public interest.

This article chronicles changes in the author’s service-learning pedagogy, concentrating on his recent attention to genre and its consequences for course design. The cumulative influences of rhetoric, discourse community theory, collaborative assignments, and genre theory are traced. The core claim, however, is that instructors should help students grasp the concept of genre as social action. Included are descriptions of assignments for first-year and advanced courses, plus student samples of genre analysis memos.

This article traces the development of a sophomore composition service-learning course, using data gathered from a formal qualitative study as well as subsequent teacher reflection. Course redesign has been guided by the need to balance the initial emphasis on and measurement of academic outcomes with exploration of the ethics of service. The author shares her emerging set of best practices, in which successful critical reflection is best supported by an explicit, front-loaded discussion of ethical terminology and student standpoints.

Drawing on the work of experiential learning experts such as John Dewey to show that one of the foundational objectives of service-learning is to encourage civic engagement, this article argues that students who undertake work in a business environment can develop a strong sense of their roles as citizens. It offers a case study of a workplace communication course to argue that experiential learning in for-profit companies has the potential to allow students to both participate in and critique corporate cultures, learning to act ethically, responsibly and democratically as agents of change.

Over the last several years, service-learning has become a burgeoning area in technical and professional communication studies. In addition to offering pedagogical strategies and theoretical approaches, the scholarship in this area to date points to several concerns for the continuing growth of high-quality service-learning in our field: 1) building reciprocal, sustained community partnerships, 2) developing robust approaches to reflection, and 3) assessing how well models of service-learning achieve their objectives.

Reflecting upon current research and my own pedagogical practices when teaching and administering client-consultant projects in business and technical writing courses, I outline how critical stakeholder theory can help to establish an ethic of care among the participants in client-consultant projects and connect students’ professional and civic lives.

In response to recent calls for internationalization and greater social relevance in professional communication teaching and research, this article links service-learning pedagogy with participatory action research (PAR) methods. A multi-year collaborative project in Kenya illustrates both the challenges and the positive outcomes of international partnerships, which include increased intercultural communication skills, significant contributions to the literature, invigoration of teaching and curriculum, and the development of global civic awareness among all participants. In their recommendations for faculty interested in developing similar partnerships, the authors highlight the importance of understanding the theoretical foundations of service-learning pedagogy and PAR methods, and advocate for the incorporation of exploratory site visits, pre-departure preparation for both students and faculty, critical reflection, efforts to ensure reciprocal benefits, and ongoing outcomes assessment.

Insights from activity theory—specifically, David Russell’s synthesis of activity theory with genre theory—suggest ways to understand and ease problems of clashing expectations encountered in professional writing classes that use a client-based assignment model for service-learning.

This article describes a service-learning-based capstone course for MA students in Professional Writing and Editing at the University of Cincinnati and illuminates the potential advantages of service-learning on an advanced level. Of particular benefit are the rhetorical and ethical challenges that partnerships with nonprofits can raise, requiring students to draw not only on their writing and design skills but also on their informed judgment. Our experience suggests, however, that, for students preparing for writing careers, the goals of “doing good” or “becoming good citizens,” often cited as desirable outcomes for service-learning, should be secondary to the goal of developing a strong professional ethic.

In a recent study of Harvard University students, Richard Light documents that for the over 400 students he interviewed the “most important and memorable academic learning [occurs] . . . outside of classes.” His findings are not surprising. Evidence is mounting that courses and activities that link service and learning in some kind of reciprocal relationship with a community partner, allowing students to use their knowledge in service of others, are among the most effective and meaningful learning experiences. These experiences allow students to develop substantive field knowledge, hone their abilities in problem solving, and deepen their sense of social responsibility (Checkoway; Ehrlich; Giles and Eyler; Marcus, Howard, and King; Youniss and Yates). In this volume we invite readers to explore a number of models for such activities through a diverse and exciting conversation about service-learning in professional communication.

Early, theoretically informed program assessment can be particularly beneficial for professional and technical writing programs that seek to incorporate and sustain service-learning approaches. This article adapts Burkean pentadic analysis for use as a form of institutional critique and illustrates the power of this method through a case study of its application at one state university. The method helps practitioners to understand and respond to the complex motives that drive service-learning programs within their local scenes as they extend their work beyond the university into the community.

They said…he was in the infirmary bein’ treated for a real bad heroin addiction.he was gettin’ the best care that they could ever give him.he was secure the last time the guard made his rounds.he was well when the nurse made her last rounds.he was sure his woman didn’t want him anyhow.he was throwin’ his meds down the toilet.he was givin’ everyone a hard time.he was sentenced one to two.he was in his twenties.he was doin’ alright.he was fine.he was.not.

I thought it would be easy to write about my experience as a convict, but it’s not. I have buried so many painful memories; digging them up is discomfitting. It’s hard to find a flow when you’re writing about a subject that really stirs your emotions. However, I will attempt this very feat…

This essay examines the issue of learning disabilities among the incarcerated population. Studies show that approximately eleven percent of U.S. prison inmates self-report a learning disability, a rate nearly four times greater than that of the general U.S. population. The paper 1) addresses the obstacles in meeting this population’s needs, and 2) argues for the importance of quality educational programming that includes services to those with learning disabilities both to improve rehabilitation for incarcerated individuals while imprisoned and to decrease recidivism upon release.

I became a single mother at the age of 16 and had every reason to be the best mother in the world…

Woke up this morning, had the Lewisburg BluesWent to breakfast this morning, French toast was coldMeat was greasy, they ran out of milk for my bowlI went to the Warden ’bout the way we get fedHe said you lucky you ain’t getting’ water and breadI said Mr. Warden, that ain’t the rulesHe said, this is Lewisburg Penitentiary, it ain’t a thing you can doWoke up this morning, had the Lewisburg BluesI’m so hungry, I could eat my shoes

Review of Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters by Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution. HarperCollins, 2003. Hardback, $24.95, Paper $13.95

Who will watch the watchmen? Plato posed the question, but it is just as important today as it was 2,400 years ago. Power has to be kept in check, as the founders of our country knew when they designed a system of checks and balances in the United States Constitution. An agency that has the power to protect us from enemies also has the power to do us great harm. Police must be able to search for evidence if they are to catch terrorists or other criminals, but when police get access to information about us too easily they can abuse their power. It is vital to protect citizens from police intrusion. In the United States we do this by requiring the police to go to court and obtain a search warrant.

Review of The Soul Knows No Bars: Inmates Reflect on Life, Death, and Hope by Drew Leder, et al.New York: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2000. Paperback $22.95. Hardcover $23.95.

This article reflects upon four years of exploring Augusto Boal’s Image and Forum Theatre techniques in prisons for youth in upstate New York with young men aged 1420. These practices work for prisoners by respecting the “literacy” of survival inside prison and by putting prisoners in control of making meaning with their bodies. Examples show the “embodied knowledge” of prisoners as the basis for collaborative, critical deliberations by prisoner communities who use it to re-envision conflict. The “well-contested” site of the body and the definition of “respect” by prisoners are keynotes to this work.

“I’m not gonna sit and preach to anyone because I myself have been in and out of these doors 12 times. I’m just gonna let you know how it is” —To the Girls at the Audy by Irene Sanchez (17)

It’s pretty fucking funny sometimes to see what goes on with these guys. I mean, this is a federal prison, in a district that is world famous for its hot and heavy drug action, so you’ve got to remember that the inmates here were players.

Author’s note: I need you to know that there are angels on earth—people who knowingly and willingly donate their time, knowledge and resources even in the face of adversity. While I was in Redwood City County Jail awaiting a return to the prison system I so loathe, I encountered several of these special beings in the form of Bill Burns, Instructor of Inmate Education, Usha Potter of Project Read, and Bill’s AmeriCorps volunteer assistant, Alli. The poetry class and my continuing desire to help others would not have been possible without their persistence and hard work. Copies of “Unlocked Voices,” the poetry book that the class wrote together, can be acquired by getting in touch with Mr. Bill Burns at bburns@smcoe.k12.ca.us.

During the spring of 2003, I made three trips to the New Jersey State Prison to observe and participate in the prison literacy program run by the grassroots humanities group “People and Stories.” In the course of these visits, I bore witness to the power of short stories in bringing forth the emotions and personal responses of what is likely New Jersey’s most emotionally repressed population. Gradually, the stereotypes and fears I held about prisoners began to dissolve as the time spent with these men revealed their deep humanity.

I would like to start by introducing myself. My name is Shane Roy Hillman. I am 21 years of age. I have been an inmate at the Calgary Remand Centre since the beginning of April 2003. My experience as an inmate has been a process of learning and making choices. As an inmate, I enjoy observing and listening to everything that goes on in prison and thus have a good knowledge of my surroundings. In my opinion, most inmates become useless to themselves and choose not to try and better their lives. They just wait out the time they have in prison doing nothing and for the most part accomplishing nothing. Prior to my being arrested, I was on a road to nowhere. I was heavily into drugs and alcohol--so heavily that I turned to crime in order to pay for my partying habits. So when I came to jail, I was actually pleased to return to a place where I could become myself again, re-establish my direction in life, and regain control over my mind, body and soul.

Ahh, I remember it well. It was Wednesday afternoon, June 26, 2003. The air conditioner had been out of service for two days and there were damn near 200 inmates laboring away in the prison’s industry—or, should I say, withering away in the prison’s sweat shop. I mean that literally. It was 92 degrees outside and ten degrees higher inside where we sat at our workstations, assembling fluorescent lamps. I suppose the heat would have been bearable were it not for the 100 percent humidity which had the lot of us in a lethargic state of body and mind. Inmates moved sluggishly from lamp to lamp like characters from “Night of the Living Dead.” Not even the guards, who sat beside portable fans, were spared. Our slave masters in this case suffered right along with us— thank God for small favors. And I don’t say that loosely, because the oppressive heat forced them to open one of the steel gates out back. But it was to no avail. Conditions remained the same except for the fact we were now slowly cooking in an open oven as opposed to a closed one.

When I think about my adolescence, subconsciously, I had already prepared myself for incarceration. During my teenage years, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd, using drugs, and coming in the house at all hours of the morning. My father was not really present, and when he did come around to see me, I did not feel the love that a son should have felt from a father. My mother did everything humanly possible to ensure me a positive upbringing, but without the significant presence of my father, I turned to the street. I learned from the street, where throughout my neighborhood it was somewhat of a “rite of passage” to have gone to jail, survived, and come home to tell “jail stories.”

This article is a teacher narrative examining the experiences of a teacher in a correctional facility writing workshop and how those experiences led her to understand that in order to effectively teach the workshop, she had to achieve a deeper understanding of the world of the prison as well as see that the success of the workshop depends on honoring the expertise of all of its members. Inmate work is included in the article that comments on both the importance of writing in their lives as inmates as well as reveals how the workshop setting allows for reflection upon and examination of their lives.

Do you have a tv in your room? No

Service learning as a pedagogy and its partner, community based research, have both made productive interventions into prison and jail life, greeted many times with relief by administrative staffs no longer funded for what some politicians call the “extras” of education. From the inside, administrators and inmates join those on the outside—ex-inmates, educators, concerned family members, students and other citizens—to stimulate intellectual and practical engagements between the separated communities that prison engenders. Many of the activities and programs discussed in these pages have started new conversations that reach beyond the walled and barred “homes” of the incarcerated.

You wouldn’t believe I’m doing time for a man who doesn’t even write me...

The 46-line poem Moon grew out of my work at the Hampden County Correctional Facility in Ludlow, Massachusetts where I have been facilitating writing workshops with incarcerated women for the past five years. We employ the Amherst Writers & Artists method for writing with underserved populations.

This essay describes the drama and metadrama of the final performance of Twelve Angry Men, produced in the spring of 2003 by and for inmates at the “Big House,” formally known as Sing Sing Correctional Facility in New York State. The play was produced by Rehabilitation through the Arts (RTA), an inmate-run theatre program that provides an opportunity, under the tutelage of a handful of theatre professionals, to develop skills in acting, directing, playwriting, and technical aspects of theatre. Over the last seven years, RTA members at Sing Sing have created strong ensemble pieces that have both cultivated an enthusiastic following from the prison population and contributed to participants’ sense of social responsibility, a key component of rehabilitation. The essay traces the closing of the medium-security unit, Tappan, that housed most of the RTA members and the rapid germination of the program in other prisons in New York State.

Review of Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women in Prison by Paula C. Johnson. New York: NYU Press, 2004. Paperback $19.00.

Review of Wall Tappings: An International Anthology of Women’s Prison Writings 200 to the Present, Second edition, ed. by Judith A. Scheffler, foreward by Tracy Huling. New York: The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2002. 329 pp., $18.95

The article describes the dynamics of freshman composition classes for medium-security inmates at the Saginaw Correctional Facility which were linked to parallel classes at Saginaw Valley State University, supported by SVSU student-tutors, and enhanced by collaboratively produced publications of student writing. It presents excerpts from inmates’ essays that tell their stories, explore their relationships, and portray their prison world and discusses the impact of writing on inmates enrolled in the linked composition classes.

This article discusses a service-learning project for an English Composition class, focusing on the theme of incarcerated women. Through class projects, which included a book drive and research for the group Prison Watch, the students and teacher learned to negotiate the tricky demands of audience and worked to develop a new model of successful service learning.