Table of Contents

Foreword
Lee Pelton

Introduction: Making the case for bringing college to prison
Mneesha Gellman

PART I: Why We Teach in Prison

Teaching Literature Inside: The Poet’s Report
Kimberly McLarin and Wendy W. Walters

Days in the Life of a College-in-Prison Professor
Shelly Tenenbaum

Educating Survivors of the Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline
Elizabeth Langan

PART II: How We Teach in Prison
Genre-based Writing as Empowering Practice for Incarcerated Students
Stephen Shane

The Logistics of Preparing to Teach Inside
Cara Moyer-Duncan

Paywalls, Firewalls, Prison Walls: Bridging the Digital Divide within the Prison Education System
Christina E. Dent

Economics as Literacy for Life
Sally Moran Davidson

One Foot In, One Foot Out: Senior Theses and Remote Internships in the Prison Space
Justin McDevitt and A.D. Seroczynski

PART III: Who We Teach

“You’da done that, you’da been in here with us”
Bill Littlefield

Learning to Live
Alexander X

Author biographies
Appendix: Recommendations for further study

About the Author

Mneesha Gellman is the founder and director of the Emerson Prison Initiative, which brings an Emerson College bachelor’s degree pathway to incarcerated students at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Concord. Gellman is an associate professor of political science in the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies at Emerson College.

Reviews

“In Education Behind the Wall, the authors focus on introducing the reader to key issues and processes in these dynamic institutions—higher education and prisons—and suggest more humane approaches to learning and living productively in both.”
*Fulbright Chronicles*

“This wide-ranging, thought-provoking, and impressive book takes readers behind prison walls, with authors adopting a holistic approach to education, recognising the significance of context, and looking beyond the classroom. . . . Taken collectively, the authors featured in this book bear witness to how education in prison can create spaces endowed with a sense of hope and opportunity, so elegantly described by Alexander X.”
*International Review of Education*

“In this collection, Gellman and her contributors tell powerful and instructive stories about how higher education institutions and individual faculty members can stumble their way into positive contributions to the lives of the incarcerated. (It) makes a significant contribution to this body of work and concludes with an appendix that provides numerous accounts of American carceral culture as well as histories of college-in-prison programs. . . . A useful and brass-tacks guide to how a prison program works.” 
*Academe*

“Gellman and her contributors tell powerful and instructive stories about how higher education institutions and individual faculty members can stumble their way into positive contributions to the lives of the incarcerated. . . . Gellman’s collection makes a significant contribution to this body of work and concludes with an appendix that provides numerous accounts of American carceral culture as well as histories of college-in-prison programs.”
*Reports on Higher Education in Prison*

“Why teach in prison, how to teach in prison, who is taught in prison—these are the compelling questions that motivate the superb essays in Education Behind the Wall. Important at both a theoretical and practical level, this is necessary reading whether you are a veteran of prison instruction or you are only now considering the prospect of prison teaching.”
*Mary Fainsod Katzenstein, Emerita, Department of Government, Cornell University*

"From a resounding forward by Lee Pelton that grounds the importance of college in prison in the bonds between education and democracy, to Mneesha Gellman’s ethically nuanced and politically savvy closing argument, Gellman and her collaborators have given us a superb book that asks the tough questions about why to do this work, and it offers a host of practical answers on how to do it well."
*Daniel Karpowitz, Assistant Commissioner, MN DOC & Special Advisor to Governor Tim Walz*

“When you go to prison, it is rare to get a second chance. This book shows why college in prison is so important. The chapters reveal not only opportunities for higher learning, but pathways to change lives.”
*John Yang, former Emerson Prison Initiative student*