The prison in the classroom, the classroom in the prison : literate values and the role of higher education /
This dissertation examines literacy in freshman and sophomore English classes at six Texas prisons, addressing the following questions: 1) what are the various constraints and demands of writing and literature instruction in the prison classroom, 2) what happens when methods and subject matter dev...
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
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[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
1996.
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| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=739325931&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | This dissertation examines literacy in freshman and sophomore English classes at six Texas prisons, addressing the following questions: 1) what are the various constraints and demands of writing and literature instruction in the prison classroom, 2) what happens when methods and subject matter developed in other institutional settings are imported into the prison classroom, and 3) what is the purpose of literacy education in prison and what light does that shed on literacy education and the outside world. After an introductory chapter, chapter II locates institutional control, hierarchy,and irony within both prison and university space. Comparing the two yields unexpected institutional similarities, but their more expected differences are also significant, these contrasts fixing some of our casual beliefs about higher education that become ironic within a prison context but no less so elsewhere. Chapter III asks a question central to prison higher education: whether it's possible to teach students we don't trust. After characterizing the broad lines of liberal education, this chapter defines "trust" through Charles Sanders Peirce's and William James' treatment of its synonym "belief."Extending belief to the question of trust shows that liberal education demands trust. Chapter IV brings problems associated with institutional control and trust into classroom interaction. Although writing classrooms are often considered powerful places for individual creativity and expression, institutional control reveals itself there in writing done for self expression, persuasion, and the workplace. One way to challenge such control is to indirectly confront it, which inmate-students sometimes do by adopting poetic form. Chapter V examines the role of literary discussion in mediating between individual students and larger contexts. Applying Erving Goffman's dramaturgical analysis to the literature classroom shows that problems of trust can be displaced when personal interpretation of trust can be displaced when personal interpretation of trust can be displaced when personal interpretation of literature substitutes for "objective" interpretation. Like poetic form used to confront institutional control indirectly in a writing class, literary texts mediate between class members, hiding the psychological origin of students' interpretive performances while publicly exposing it as text- based, thus allowing a potential healing with words. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: English". |
| Physical Description: | vii, 191 leaves ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilms Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references: pages 184-190. |