Incarcerated bodies, liberated minds: a narrative of literacy education behind bars.

Words No Pubs Can Hold offers a rare glimpse into literacy learning beneath the most dehumanizing conditions. Deborah Appleman chronicles her function teaching college-level classes at a high-security prison for men, the majority of whom are offering life sentences. Through narrative, poetry, memoir, and fiction, the learners in Appleman’s classes attempt to write themselves back into a society that has erased their resided histories.

The students’ work, through which they probe and develop their identities as readers and writers, illuminates the transformative power of literacy. Appleman argues for the importance of educating the incarcerated, and explores methods to interrupt the significantly common journey from urban institutions to your nation’s prisons. In the sobering endpoint of what scholars have known as the ‘school to prison pipeline,’ she pulls insight through the narratives and encounters of those who’ve traveled it.