Arts Learning

A total of 30-48 women incarcerated in this jail will participate in four extended creative writing learning sessions of ten 2-hour daily classes taught by two professional published writers. They will publish their works in a total of four professionally produced poetry chapbooks, discovering new forms and skills for self-expression and critique in writing and reading their works, and increasing their self-confidence and self-esteem through personal insights and relationships with their sister writers. Participants will be asked to complete survey questionnaires at the beginning and end of each extended session to compare what they learned, intended to do with further writing, and liked and disliked; they will also be asked to write their own narratives about what the project meant to them. These will be reviewed at evaluation meetings of the Advisory Committee and the teaching artists, along with all other aspects of the project in order to make adjustments and improvements for the next session.