While studies in the biological and psychological sciences have suggested that writing can promote physical healing, such studies offer a limited understanding of writing as a complex, embodied, and social practice. This article asks how and under what social and pedagogical conditions writing might promote experiences of healing in community…

While the social, political, economic, educational, and cultural consequences of high rates of incarceration have been well documented, the social psychological dynamics have not received as much discussion. I offer here a first person narrative reflection on the connections between a writing workshops and raising social awareness of the realities…

Entering jail is an assault on the senses. While volunteers and inmates might share visceral experiences of entering the institution, to enter "into" jail is not the same as being "in" jail. To be "in" is to be monitored--watched and listened to without exception or reprieve. To be in jail is to follow unwritten laws…

Partnerships between writing across the curriculum (WAC) and civic engagement (CE) programs are not given much attention but these partnerships improve each program significantly. CE programs can borrow models from WAC for professional development and obtain support for specific kinds of writing assignments; WAC programs can find among CE…

Rhetorical theorists have argued that agency is a communal experience, but material conditions in jail "and" society often prevent prisoners and college students from experiencing it in meaningful ways that embrace difference. Challenging those conditions by bringing both groups together in a writing workshop enables everyone to resist…

During a series of writing workshops at a shelter for young homeless people in Copenhagen, I examined to what extent the literary practice of student-driven imitation with its emphasis on self-governance and a dialogical approach can engage marginalized learners in reading and writing. I found that student-driven imitation had the potential to…

This paper, presented at the CCCC 2008 Senior Citizens Writing session, draws upon my experiences as a senior workshop member and past teacher. Addressing workshop leaders, it emphasizes the need for the many-faceted seniors' voices to be "translated" and tested within a workshop's microcosm before entering the outside world's macrocosm.

This article presents the experience and emotional responses of the two authors and the content of the Writing Workshop Manual that they created for the Caretta Community Center in McDowell County, West Virginia. Their technique shows not only the contrast of their private and public personas but also some of the outsider/insider dialogue that…