Beyond Bars Curriculum & Resources

The tremendous growth of our carceral justice work inspired us to develop the Herstory Beyond Bars online memoir writing curriculum website. Thanks to this curriculum and our strong relationships with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people, we can now help people in facilities across the country learn Herstory’s unique approach to memoir writing and create their own writing circles in prisons and jails. The curriculum is also designed for people in re-entry, prison families, court advocates, and anyone interested in offering writing workshops to people behind bars—all with the goal of unshackling people’s stories to encourage self-empowerment and pave a pathway to action.

HerstoryBeyondBars.org articulates the Herstory pedagogy in a user-friendly, step-by-step way for people, such as those who are incarcerated, who do not have access to our facilitator training programs. Through dynamic video and audio as well as a variety of written materials, including  a gallery of stories produced by Herstory writers whose lives have been impacted by incarceration, Herstory’s unique pedagogy comes alive for those who want to either write their own memoir or create writing circles for others to do so. In settings where there are restrictions on internet use and videoconferencing, such as prisons, this curriculum will be available on platforms that incarcerated people can access.

Herstory has successfully piloted the curriculum, still in development, with carceral justice organizations and the largest women’s prison in the country and has introduced it to court advocates, probation officers, law interns, and judges. Each new partnership contributes to the site’s curricular offerings and its ever-expanding library of stories.