Feeding the Roots of Self-Expression and Freedom

This curriculum-based collection of lesson plans is designed to build student confidence for articulating their unique ideas and sensibilities about the world through literary expression.

For this book, Jimmy Santiago Baca, one of the foremost poets in America today, collaborates with two National Writing Project Fellows and literacy professionals, Kym Sheehan and Denise VanBriggle. Together they present a teaching tool that uses poems from Baca’s incarceration as a young man, along with curricular activities and probing questions crafted to help students heal through writing. Each exercise reinforces the theme that a strong grasp of self-esteem borne from unique expression lends itself to the student enjoying day-to-day life at the highest creative and fulfilling level.

Book Features:

• Draws on the extraordinary life and career of Jimmy Santiago Baca, who came to write poetry in prison and now has 28 works in print, ranging from a feature movie Blood In Blood Out to his bestselling memoir A Place to Stand.
• Based on the authors’ combined experience of facilitating hundreds of writing workshops.
• Offers field-tested recommendations to help educators inspire and fortify students suffering from doubt or damaged self-esteem.
• Includes detailed descriptions, exercises, and sample poetry to assist teachers and students in the writing process.

Jimmy Santiago Baca is an award-winning American poet, novelist, screenwriter, and educator. He is the winner of The International Prize for his memoir, A Place to Stand, which is also a film. Visit his website at jimmysantiagobaca.com. Kym Sheehan is an educator with classroom, curriculum, and media expertise. She is a member of the Tampa Bay Area Writing Project and writes for Voices in the Middle. Denise VanBriggle is a poet, educator, curriculum specialist, National Writing Project teacher-consultant, and an official visitor for The Pennsylvania Prison Society.

“This book offers a way, a path, to follow the road to freedom from despair. Are you willing to take that journey? Be brave. Be resolute. Be a resistance fighter for your freedom and the freedom of others. If you will do the work here offered, you will be these things, and the world will look different because you will have made it different.”
—From the Foreword by Rex L. Veeder, professor, Department of English, St. Cloud State University, Minnesota

“Kym and Denise provide tremendous support for the type of writing Jimmy teaches in his workshops. As you become comfortable and more familiar with the material, I encourage you to be creative and take advantage of the events that come up in the lives of your students.”
—From the Afterword by Diane Torres-Velásquez, University of New Mexico

"What a remarkable gift this book is! Using Jimmy Santiago Baca's poignant poetry and prose from prison as a centerpiece, the authors have created an invaluable resource for educators who hope to connect students to the profound themes of social justice, personal journey, and the resilience of the human spirit. I can't wait to use this volume with all of my students, both free and incarcerated."
— Deborah Appleman, Carleton College, author of Critical Encounters in High School English: Literary Theory to Secondary Students

Table of Contents

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Coming Into Language

Making the Rounds

Feeding the Roots of Self-Expression and Freedom

Chapter 1. Dehumanization Process
   The Price is Never Too High
   They Are Humans
   Depersonalization: Steps 1, 2, & 3
   Waking Up in Prison
   My Inability to "Adhere"
   Letters Come to Prison
   A Life of Chance
   It's Not What I Want But What Must Be
   Little Difference
   Life

Chapter 2. Journeying Inward
   I Stand Confused
   This Hatred
   The Guards, Judge, & Society
   Shake Down
   Police (Huda)
   Loneliness
   Freedom Is Mine
   Paranoia
   Prison in the Desert
   I Am Standing in Front of a Brute
   I Sat by the Big Gates of Prison
   Around Here
   Riot
   Everyday
   Before I Sleep

Chapter 3. Illuminating Outward
   History
   All Day
   I Have Asked and Did Not Receive
   In Pain
   My Experience
   The Little Playground I See
   Silver Water Tower
   I Live in Broken Pieces of Myself
   I Look Around Me
   In Prison
   Looking
   The Push Inward
   A Poem for Me in Prison
   So Blind and Led by the Heat Within
   There Is No Message
   Home
   Who Will Give Me Eyes
   So, Lovely Lady
   My Ears
   To Be Worth Something
   That Time You Left
   Padre

Chapter 4. Rehumanization Process
   Pushed Into a Corner
   Little Sparrow
   Early Morning
   To This Hour
   The Morning
   In My Isolation
   Changes
   No Prison Can Keep Me from You
   Winter Morning
   Day Is Beauty
   When You Look at the Rain
   I Keep Thinking How Beautifying Life Is

Cross-Curricular Connections

Sheehan & VanBriggle: On a Personal Note

Afterword/Diane Torres-Velasquez

About the Authors

How to Get Involved

Cited References

Photograph Credits