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Major Sentences This Fall, two Syracuse University Writing & Rhetoric majors went to prison—that is, they participated in internships at Auburn Prison. The internships—sponsored by Writing Program Chair and Director Eileen Schell and completed as part of the Writing major—involved Victoria Arnold and Alonna Berry tutoring inmates working toward their GED. Victoria and Alonna taught reading and writing skills—but they also found that they learned a great deal as they worked alongside their tutees. As part of their work, Victoria and Alonna chose poems, speeches, and other pieces for close reading. They shifted from reading and writing to history and math, as needed, in order to meet the needs of the students with whom they were working. And they experimented with teaching styles, sometimes commanding a classroom of 25 and sometimes working one-on-one, trying to find styles that were effective and engaging. As they taught, they also practiced and learned a number of what Victoria calls "transferable" skills: being a good listener, being patient, and working hard to branch out and connect with people. "We needed to make sure we engaged people," Victoria explains. "After all, there is no participation grade in life." Though the two majors worked together and shared similar experiences in Auburn, they plan to pursue different paths upon graduation. Alonna, who expects to graduate in May 2011, chose the internship because of her career aspirations; she hopes to work as an attorney and judge. She writes, "I figured that working inside a prison with inmates is an experience that most attorneys and judges would never get. . . Now I believe it is one that most should experience." The internship answered her questions about how the prison system functions and, though she was scared at first, taught her to become comfortable with concepts like "criminal" and "inmate"—words that had previously made her nervous. By the end of the fall she found herself thinking about criminals and criminal law differently: "This internship taught me to have an open mind to justice, injustice, and how those words function in the United States Criminal Justice system." A dual major in Writing and History, Victoria says that the internship helped confirm her plans to pursue community work in the Syracuse area after graduation this spring. The experience at Auburn, she says, helped her realized that systems had failed many of the inmates there and helped her understand that the men were not prisoners but people. "Steve Parks taught me not to let my privilege be my weakness," she says. "After graduation, I want to keep working to help others get ahead." Victoria and Alonna also blogged about their experiences, linking the work that they did in the prison with texts that they read. This helped them collect their thoughts and contextualize their experiences, creating a working/learning experience that differed from volunteering in a number of ways. Both are presenting their work as part of the "Writing in Public Spaces" panel at the Writing Program Spring Conference. Although the internships ended in December, Victoria and Alonna have continued to work at the prison this semester. Both strongly recommend the internship to Writing majors: "If as a student you are open-minded and ready to grow and experience new things, this is the internship for you. This is and has been a life-changing experience." —story by Emily Dressing |
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