Teaching As Bronc Busting

You walk into class with only a vague idea of what you are going to do. Specifically, you are beginning a new unit that you have never taught before, one for which you have no curriculum, one you believe in but have trouble wrapping around yourself. The course is a genre study of prison writing, you are asking students to imagine a future in which men and women will stay out of prison. You are asking that they apply the work of the course to what they believe themselves, to what they might be able to do, to some specific action that might result in real, if modest, change, all in the form of a community project proposal.The class has looked at the past through reflective narratives on how they understand prison and the criminal industrial complex. Then they look at the present, what they are reading and incorporating from books, articles, and discussion. But now they look ahead and will take on the task of creating a different future, a different possibility. It is what the books ask, what the world asks, what the society needs. Yes, it is time to call on the imagination and the intellect to create something different than what we have. This must grow out of passion, belief, conviction and must take form in plans of action. Writing can do this if contained in a community of shared vision and support. You are betting your butt on it. Onward, into the great unknown, you say. Pick up your pen. Plot out the hunches that are banging on the hatch down there in the ethers of what might be. You grip the strap on the saddle just before the gate swings open and you take your shot at winning the big one.