WSU professor instructs prison art program to benefit California inmates
Through her work at California’s second oldest prison, Washington State University professor of English Anna Plemons is helping incarcerated men take on leadership and teaching roles to benefit their families on the outside.
As an instructor in a statewide program called Arts in Corrections at New Folsom Prison, Plemons helped develop a 24-part curriculum to teach inmates literary principles they can use to teach their children, grandchildren, spouses or other loved ones how to express themselves.
“Over the course of the last almost 10 years, I started to realize there were a lot of people who were incarcerated who were looking for ways to do positive things,” Plemons said. “I also realized a lot of them were interested in being positive role models or influences in their own families outside the prison.”