Inside Voices: Collaborative Writing in a Prison Environment

Authors

  • Alexandra J Cavallaro California State University, San Bernardino
  • Melissa K Forbes University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
  • Larry Barrett
  • Robert Garite
  • Chris Harrison
  • Reginald Jones
  • Igor Kazakovs
  • Otilio Rosas
  • Luis Saucedo
  • Tobias Thurman
  • Agustin Torres
  • Antonio Walker

Keywords:

multimodal composition, incarceration, collaboration, writing pedagogy, prison writing, prison education

Abstract

This article explores how notions of collaboration in the writing classroom are challenged and altered when that classroom is located in a medium-security prison. Based on a for-credit multimodal writing course co-taught by the lead authors, this text (itself a collaboration between the instructors and ten of our incarcerated students) unpacks the processes and practices through which communication is regulated by the institutional authority of the prison (collectively termed the Carceral Communication Framework, or CCF) and places them in conversation with the innovations demanded by the prison’s technological constraints. Contending that collaboration in a prison setting tactically subverts the CCF and provides agency to people who are systematically disenfranchised, we focus on two different dimensions of that process: collaborations between students and teachers and collaborations between the students themselves.

Author Biographies

Alexandra J Cavallaro, California State University, San Bernardino

Alexandra J. Cavallaro is an assistant professor of English at California State University, San Bernardino. Her current research interests include queer literacies and rhetorics, multimodal composition, and critical prison studies. A devoted bookworm, she owns far more books than clothes, so prepare to see this outfit again. In her spare time, she knits socks, works on plans for the Secret Gay Agendaâ„¢, and collects terrible corny jokes (i.e. What do you get when you cross a joke with a rhetorical question?)

Melissa K Forbes, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

Melissa Forbes is a doctoral candidate in writing studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and steadfastly believes that classroom writing should have tangible impact on the world. Her research focuses on online comment sections because she believes that they, too, have tangible impact on the world.  In her off hours she sings karaoke, drinks coffee, and wrestles in costume for crowds of adoring fans. Only two of these are true.

Downloads

Published

2016-04-09

Issue

No. 15 (2016)

Section

Issue #15

License

Creators who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Creators retain copyright, grant Harlot right of first publication, and simultaneously license the work under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Creators are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the Harlot's published version of the work with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this publication.
  3. Creators who wish to select a different Creative Commons license or place their work in the public domain should inform the Editors in the "Comment for the Editor" section during the submission stage. Likewise, creators who prefer traditional copyright should also inform the Editors.