Refreshing way to make it "real:"
1. Get students into computer lab
2. Locate a for-real inmate who's in a prison ed
program
3. Have students help inmate with a writing project
he's doing (which also happens to be prison reform)
4. Order sample issues of _Prison Life_ and _The Angolite_
so that they can read about issues from the "criminal"
point-of-view rather than liberal and/or conservative
articles written by "outsiders"
5. Save transcripts of "textual conversation" revolving
around inmate's text.
6. Talk about what your "textual talk" revealed -- the impact
of inmate's writing on students as audience.
7. Ask for collaboratively produced texts as feedback
to be returned to inmate.
A "tired old topic" that turned into the best class I've ever taught.
Real concern, real social exchange, real project, real fun, real
learning.
Beth
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Beth Baldwin, Ph.D. *
Office of Continuing Education *
University of North Carolina at Greensboro *
Greensboro, NC 27412-5001 *
910-334-5301, ext. 44 *
bobaldwi@hamlet.uncg.edu *
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