Collaborative program will bring U of G class to Grand Valley Institution for Women
Soon to be entering his fourth year of teaching creative writing at the University of Guelph, Prof. Lawrence Hill is currently readying a creative writing course that he will bring to the Grand Valley Institution for Women (GVI).
Through the Walls to Bridges (W2B) program, Hill will select approximately 10 upper-year U of G students and 10 students from GVI to participate in his non-fiction creative writing workshop. Students who complete the course will earn a credit towards their post-secondary education.
Hill — award-winning author of The Book of Negroes and The Illegal — first became involved with volunteering in federal penitentiary settings over a decade ago through the non-profit organization Book Clubs for Inmates, when he was invited to visit book clubs by the organization.
“Although I’ve done various kinds of volunteer work in my life, I have to say that being a volunteer with Book Clubs for Inmates was the most electric and exciting and dramatic kind of volunteering I’ve ever done in my life,” Hill said in an interview with The Ontarion. “I met inmates who said to me: ‘I’m working on a screenplay or memoir about my life and I need some help writing this.’ Over and over again, I kept meeting people who were asking for courses in creative writing for assistance and mentorship. That got me thinking: ‘How cool would it be if I could actually teach such a course?’”
Hill explained that his interest in teaching in a federal penitentiary was influenced by the fact that a disproportionately high number of incarcerated people come from Indigenous and African-Canadian communities.
“As an African-Canadian professor, it’s important for me that the University of Guelph reach out to those communities,” he said. “I’m pleased that, through the W2B program, I may have the opportunity to encourage a diversity of writers — including those in Indigenous and African-Canadians communities — to develop their creative writing skills in a course offered by the University of Guelph.”
To prepare instructors, W2B offers training and helps facilitate the partnership between correctional institutions and post-secondary institutions for those who are interested in providing education for inside students.
“The idea is to bring together students from the inside and the outside who normally don’t have an opportunity with one another, especially as equal classmates,” Prof. Shoshana Pollack told The Ontarion.
Pollack is a professor of social work at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) and the director of W2B; she started the program between WLU and GVI in 2011. Since then, W2B has expanded nationally and offers a variety of courses from many Canadian universities including:
- Ryerson University
- York University
- University of Windsor
- University of Ottawa
- University of Toronto
The University of Guelph’s involvement in W2B will begin in September 2019.
To accommodate for the unorthodox class setting, Hill has made a few changes to his non-fiction writing workshop. In addition to writing assignments, like a personal memoir and opinion piece, the course will now include a group project that will be determined collectively by the instructor and students.
The W2B program encourages collaborative learning during their courses. There is no hierarchy — instructors are known as facilitators and students will take on the responsibility for how they would like to see the class run. Because inside students don’t have access to the Internet, instructors design the course so that all materials are provided and students are not expected to seek out additional resources.
“The basic premise is that we’re all learners and we’re all teachers,” said Pollack. “The students themselves have much to teach each other and to teach the facilitator; the facilitator is not the only person who has knowledge in the room.”
Since the first W2B course she taught, Pollack has kept in touch with many of the students and developed a five-day training program with them over the years. The group now acts as the national training body that teaches the W2B pedagogy to instructors across Canada and Europe, offering their instructor training program once every year.
To apply for a W2B course, students must send a letter of interest to the instructor and go through an interview process. Usual prerequisite courses are not as important as having the right attitude when it comes to being selected for the program.
“What I’m looking for are students who will show maturity, flexibility, patience, and an openness to the idea of experiential learning,” said Hill.
Although some students may have some reservations about meeting for class inside a federal penitentiary, both Hill and Pollack stressed that they didn’t feel there was elevated risk to participate in the W2B program.
“People inside are there to learn just like them, and they’re not people to be feared or to be worried about,” Pollack said.
After the successful completion of the course, students participate in a graduation ceremony where U of G faculty and family members are invited to attend. Pollack explained that inside students who complete W2B courses earn transferable credits they can use towards their post-secondary degree, and that many inside students continue their higher education upon release.
“There is a hunger to learn, and to study, and to grow, and to become writers,” said Hill. “You really feel that when you meet with people who are generally denied those opportunities.”
Prof. Lawrence Hill is currently accepting letters of interest to enroll in this non-fiction creative writing course at U of G.
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Feature photo: logo courtesy of Walls to Bridges, author photo by Lisa Sakulensky
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