Teaching Chinese at ASPC-EYMAN

What is the value of postsecondary education in prison? For the past two years, my involvement with the Prison English Program in the Department of English at Arizona State University has pushed me to explore answers to this question. I began by teaching creative writing for one semester through the Pen Project, an online internship in which undergraduate students provide critical responses to writing produced by inmates at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. The next two semesters, I co-­‐taught Shakespeare on a minimum-­‐security yard at the Arizona State Prison Complex in Florence. This semester, eager to expand my teaching repertoire and the breadth of ASU programming in Arizona prisons, I teach an introductory Chinese language course at the Cook Unit in Eyman.