Jule Thomas, professor of teaching in the Rhetoric and Composition Department at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, teaches Basic Writing, First-Year Composition, and Intermediate Composition.

In summer 2025 the Department of English chair sent me a meeting request to share an “interesting teaching opportunity.” Nothing more. I was intrigued but also a bit unsure. My overworked brain moved directly into “what will this entail?” At the scheduled meeting, my chair introduced me to a professor in the Department of Sociology who had obtained a Prison Education Program grant. The mission? To provide 24 men with the opportunity to obtain a bachelor’s degree in sociology with a minor in business management and entrepreneurship from Wayne State University (WSU). 

They needed a composition instructor who could support diverse learners, many of whom had never been in a college classroom or had not obtained a GED. As the prior writing center director for 15 years, I was the obvious choice. But was this a choice I wanted to make? In the end, I accepted the position, and before I knew it, I was entering the cinder block classroom with cement floors, a random array of desks, and 24 men staring at me. The guard shouted, “good luck,” and left. 

The first few class sessions were a blur. I was tangentially aware that teaching would be different “in the inside.” I knew that students would need to handwrite their assignments. I was, however, unaware that this process would be so time-consuming and disconnected from our learning and engagement in the classroom. Feedback was painstakingly slow, and delays related to the facility surveillance process impacted my ability to connect with learners via “just-in-time” feedback. My traditional connection with students in class, online, and via feedback was impossible to mimic. Thus, it became clear that creating a community of learners would require novel just-in-time moments instead. 

To build our community of learners, I integrated activities that pushed me to be transparent and open with my own beliefs and mindsets. I described my own doubts and impostor syndrome as I’d cycled through obtaining a bachelor’s to a PhD and becoming a professor. I shared my fears of “if I was getting it right” every semester I taught. I invited learners to ask me questions that were often focused on biases and perceptions of who they were as human beings and as students. And as a group, we connected these conversations to our basic writing course and the unique experiences with literacy that we all brought with us. It was these moments of raw and honest engagement that helped frame our learning and goals for the semester. With our emerging trust in one another, we dove into “Learning to Read” by Malcolm X—our launch text that would frame our reading and writing over the next 12 weeks.  

As we read, we reflected on Malcolm’s struggle to read, to examine his mindset and beliefs, and ultimately to redefine his identity through literacy and learning. We then connected the reading and our reflections to our own complicated and unique learning histories through a literacy narrative. I reminded the class that we all have mindsets and beliefs that impact our learning. Our goal for the literacy narrative, and for learning in general, was to investigate, troubleshoot, and push against those beliefs and mindsets. To realize that while learning is messy and often difficult, it is attainable and a vehicle for power. 

Because of our constraints on just-in-time traditional feedback, we held conferences where I verbally and textually conveyed that I valued their voices and the stories that had shaped them as human beings. We engaged in writing activities where we played around with “showing” not “telling” language while writing haikus, ten-line stories, and descriptions of our favorite smell. We shared our literacy stories and found that we all had prior histories. Some were positive; many were not. And we then described how those experiences had shaped the ways we saw ourselves as learners. As we embarked on this journey of reflection, I could see learners begin to trust their voice and find power and insight into the complicated history that had shaped them. Learners came to class with drafts of written memories: sitting in the kitchen as their grandmother quizzed them on their spelling test while baking chocolate chip cookies; teachers who saw their potential and supported them when no one else in their world did; moments where they felt lost and the system had failed them. They presented raw and honest moments of their lives, likely for the first time in years. 

In their final reflection essay of the semester, I read narratives in which learners spoke of the hard work it took to complete each assignment. The push and pull of sitting in those memories. Seeing who they once were. Who they were now. Who they wanted to become. Overwhelmingly, these men highlighted how the class showed them the power of reseeing, of acceptance, and of possibility. All of them cited Malcolm X’s “Learning to Read” as the impetus for reseeing themselves. While they might not have freedom, they had power in their words. They made concrete claims such as “I am a writer,” “I am proud of what I have accomplished,” “My voice matters,” “I paint my reality through words,” and more. Their journey had just begun. As an educator, I also felt as if my teaching journey had just begun—or had, at the very least, been transformed. 

However, I knew I still had a lot more to learn, understand, and implement if I was to support impactful learning moments in this unique educational system. While their dedication for learning was astounding, they still struggled with accepting writing as messy and iterative. How could I get them to trust the process? Trust themselves as writers? Fortunately, I was able to teach the same cohort in winter 2026 while also engaged in a WSU Warrior Gateway Collaborative (WGC). The goal was to task faculty to reexamine our pedagogy and implementation in the classroom. My work in the collaborative helped me to resee my teaching. I began to consider how I could move from “saying” to “doing.” 

I began to reflect on how I could provide PEP learners with more control over their learning. Rather than deciding what they should research and write about, I asked them to choose themes they wanted to explore and engage with. Overwhelmingly, they all agreed that they wanted to change the world, even if they were not “in the world” now. We spent a week investigating proposed research themes decided by the class: intersectionality, judicial reform, and grant writing. The following week, learners chose one of the three themes. To establish accountability, the class decided that potential members must write a short research memo in which they justified their decision and described their goals for the semester. They then formed collaborative partnerships with members who they felt aligned with their research and writing focus while simultaneously providing knowledge and support that would be mutually beneficial. I hoped providing learners with choices would also help support their ability to see writing as iterative and collaborative. 

While I had begun to reflect on learner’s mindsets from a new lens, I still struggled with supporting their transition into viewing writing as iterative. They were willing to accept that their prior experiences shaped who they were as learners. Yet, they still held on to beliefs that, with writing, you either “got it right or you didn’t.” They still reminded me that feedback asking for revisions “meant that they had failed.” It became clear that I still needed to further integrate pedagogy that encouraged writers to persist when learning and writing became messy and hard. Yet where to begin? In my next WGC meeting, I shared the habits of mind and beliefs framework I had integrated into my PEP classroom and also the persistent beliefs of learners that “writing was either perfect or wrong.” My peers provided thoughtful strategies of “write with them” or “show them your marked-up drafts and revisions.” Their insights helped me draft concrete classroom activities that moved from “telling” to “showing.” 

That following Monday, I brought in a draft of my grant, handed a copy to each learner, and asked them to provide me with feedback. They stared at me in shock. The once boisterous group of men went silent. I looked at them and said, “What’s the problem?” Finally, someone spoke and said, “Dr. T. We can’t give you feedback.” I asked them why, and multiple voices started to yell, “You are the expert, Dr. T.!”; “It would be disrespectful, Dr. T.”; and on and on. I listened without saying a word. They became silent, squirming in their chairs. Finally, a learner spoke up and said, “Okay. I guess you are going to make us do this. So . . . do we try to give you feedback like you do? Like, respond as a reader? Ask questions? Give ideas for making things more clear?” I responded with a slow and then faster clap. They all laughed. Still shaking their heads, they moved into their groups and began. 

Once time was up, I placed my desk into the center of our classroom as groups took turns reading and describing their feedback to me. I made notes, placed markups on my proposal, and asked follow-up questions. They seemed incredulous and asked, “Are you really going to use this feedback? From us?!” In response, I said, “Of course! I need to see my writing through your eyes and find where I need to reconsider, revise, and delete. I am a writer. Yet writing is hard. And I too need support.” They all chuckled and continued with gusto. 

In subsequent class sessions, I integrated moments of collaborative research, drafting, writing, and revising activities in class. In this almost symbiotic and collaborative process, I saw them begin trusting the hard work of writing: knowing and understanding the audience’s goals, beliefs, values, and interests; carving out spaces where they could respond, troubleshoot, or expand on prior ideas; and joining in and adding on to the perspectives of others. They received feedback from peers and myself that resulted in fearless revisions. I saw them hold themselves differently. Speak to one another as colleagues. Share with and listen to ideas from their peers. Begin collaborative writing initiatives with one another. All while highlighting that writing was hard, messy, and yet attainable. And they were proud of their accomplishments, as they should be. In the span of less than two semesters, these 24 men moved from struggling to write three to five paragraphs to submitting 20-plus-page drafts with 10-plus sources integrated into their essay and works cited. 

This experience showed me that I had always been approaching teaching from the wrong framework. And by doing so, I had defined learning and writing as linear. Even though I said it was not, I demonstrated that it was. I refused to share my own messy writing process, thus making learners believe writing was magically acquired. I forgot to demonstrate the collaborative work it takes to become a strong writer through thoughtful and systematic feedback loops. And I discounted and failed to show the often painful but necessary moments of deleting passages of our writing that no longer serve its purpose. Yet, as I began to trust this new process of showing rather than telling, I became aware of how complex, difficult, and yet transformative it was. For me, certainly. For learners, more so. Because if I showed and reflected on how I struggled, needed support, and had doubts but persisted, then this was simply the “name of the game,” as learners began to call it. It isn’t some magical gift. It might be hard. It might even be daunting at times, but it is attainable.   

I realize that I still have a lot to learn about being an effective educator. Yet, as we always tell our students, learning is a journey. So, why don’t we place ourselves on the same path? I think if we were to slow down, listen, and demonstrate our own beliefs and mindsets, we might get closer to the transformation we hope to see in our learners and in ourselves. And in turn, we might become more impactful mentors and educators. Students might actually believe us when we say “all of us can learn; we all have value; we all deserve to have our voices heard.” 

I now define and describe learning as similar to acquiring the ability to tie one’s shoes. We were given the basic instructions, then developed our own approach, and took a lot of practice to get it right. But we did. And if learning to tie your shoes is a complex process in its own right, how much more time must it take us to learn new ways of thinking, doing, and applying when it comes to the broad spectrum of writing, communicating, and engagement? The PEP Wayne State Warriors and I have just started the race, but if we infuse a new and revolutionary mindset into the spaces in which we teach and learn, all of us will be able to see and reach that finish line. Once there, we can take a rest, retie our shoes, and head out onto the next path! A path that might not always be easy, equitable, or traditional. But a meaningful and transformative path nonetheless. 

References

Baćak, V., Clepper, C., & Scott, H. (2026). “Connecting the Student Belonging and Growth Mindset Research with College Teaching in Prison.” Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2026.2622961 

Lockard, J., & Rankins-Robertson, S. (Eds.) (2018). Prison Pedagogies: Learning and Teaching with Imprisoned Writers. Syracuse University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt20p5732 

Novek, E. (2017). “Jail Pedagogies: Teaching and Trust in a Maximum-Security Men’s Prison.” Dialogues in Social Justice. 

Peleg-Koriat, I., Weimann-Saks, D., & Asraf, K. (2025). “Changing Mindsets in Prison: How Incremental Beliefs Enhance the Effectiveness of a Victim Awareness Program and Support for Restorative Practices.” BMC Psychol. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-03768-9

The Institute for Habits of Mind. (2026). https://habitsofmindinstitute.org/

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