LAS 100

Dialogue

This course is both powerful and fun. It includes one-on-one coaching, audio/visual demonstrations, individual work in front of the room, and hands on practice in developing an awareness of language, presence, and self-expression.

Communication is indeed both an art and a science. Through the prism of the American Prison. We will consider the negative forces of failed communication on both a personal and public scale. Where, we ask, is the biggest prison in the world? Is it between our ears? Is it found in the demons of fear, ignorance, prejudice, provincialism, lack of opportunity and possibility? We will explore these dynamic issues.

The United States now incarcerates more of its own citizens than any other country in the world. What is the purpose of prison in the USA today? Americans are perplexed by this question. It represents a national dilemma. Why are we in this predicament? How can prisons, places of little or no possibility, have possibility? A citizenship model might help develop a functional prison system. Inmates have the right to personal safety, and management must protect them to avoid inmates taking matters into their own hands. The Constitution of the United States stipulates civil rights of incarcerated persons.

Most people do not listen with the intent to understand: they listen with the intent to reply. People are either speaking or preparing to speak. They are usually listening within their own frame of reference. We will deploy the art of questioning and listening through interviews with the crime victims, ex-convicts, correctional officers, a warden, a correctional lawyer, and a reporter. This course will also emphasize the developing of contextual terminology: the development of a "field" glossary of terms is a course requirement.

Required Text

Standard Webster's Dictionary is required. Students must have a dictionary with them at all times (Paperback editions are acceptable). There will also be a required reading of copied materials related to class discussions as reading assignments in daily newspapers.

Recommended Text

Student Success: How to Succeed in College and Still Have time for Your Friends, Timothy L. Walter and Al Siebert, Harcourt Brace College Publishers, Fort Worth, Texas. (1996)

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