Explore materials designed to help educators and students engage deeply with the American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside collection. These interdisciplinary resources highlight the unique perspectives found in prison journalism and support inquiry-based learning, critical thinking, and 21st-century skills development.

Overview

The American Prison Newspapers collection provides rare firsthand insight into incarceration in the United States across two centuries. Written and produced by incarcerated people, these newspapers offer essential perspectives for studying mass incarceration, media history, identity, and community.

Teaching materials for this collection span Sociology, Law, Gender and Sexuality, History, Education, and Literature. They include reading lists, instructional guides, assignments, and curated activities designed for adaptation across classrooms.

Developed in response to the Ithaka S+R report Teaching with Primary Sources: Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors, the APN curriculum emphasizes practices such as scaffolding exposure, inspiring student curiosity, and supporting diverse learning needs. These resources promote cultural competence, critical thinking, media literacy, and creativity—ensuring that students encounter primary sources in accessible, structured, and engaging ways.

Explore teaching materials and guides

Webinar: Teaching with the American Prison Newspapers Collection

Engagement and Curriculum Fellow Brittany Marshall introduces the APN collection, highlighting key themes, teaching strategies, and classroom applications for working with prison newspapers as primary sources.

Watch the webinar
A scanned zine-style page with dense typed text, blue ink washes, and small illustrations, including a prison cell photo and drawings. The page discusses political prisoners, prison writing, and activist appeals.

Reading list: Prisoners’ Rights

A short syllabus exploring the history and principles of prisoners’ rights through texts, videos, and documents—including the United Nations’ Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners and foundational writings on the U.S. penal system.

View the reading list
Abstract illustration of a silhouetted figure enclosed in a blue oval, surrounded by radiating red and orange textured bands.

Instructional guide: Teaching LGBTQ+ History: Queer Women’s Experiences in Prison

This guide centers LGBTQ+ History Month through firsthand accounts and scholarly materials drawn from the APN collection. Includes curated readings, discussion guidance, and multimedia resources for exploring sexuality, identity, and imprisonment.

Use this guide in your course
Pair of hands in handcuffs, overlaid with a rainbow flag gradient representing LGBTQ+ identity.

Instructional guide: What Can Native American People in Prison Teach Us About Community and Art?

An exploration of creativity, cultural expression, and resilience using APN materials. This guide helps students analyze how incarcerated Native American people foster community, identity, and artistic practice.

Explore this teaching guide
Halftone image of a Native American man wearing a bandana, holding a woman close against a bright blue background.

Libguide: Teaching with American Prison Newspapers

An instructional LibGuide for Reveal Digital’s American Prison Newspapers, 1800-2020: Voices from the Inside, featuring interdisciplinary entry points, curated readings, assignments, and strategies to help instructors teach about incarceration through primary sources.

Facilitate interdisciplinary engagement
Stylized black-and-white illustration from the Seagozette showing a lone figure sitting at the end of a long, narrowing corridor of bars with light shining in.

Gain insights on effective primary source teaching strategies

Teaching and Learning with Digital Primary Sources

We’ve partnered with Choice, a publication of the Association of College and Research Libraries, to produce a comprehensive report, Teaching and Learning with Digital Primary Sources.

The report explores nine key insights to address challenges of awareness and discoverability, digital literacy, and cooperation between librarians and teaching faculty.

Discover best practices in the full report
A 1715 painting by Bartolomeo Bimbi depicting an elaborate display of citrus trees laden with oranges, lemons, and limes. The fruit is arranged in a dense, symmetrical composition framed by dark foliage and stone columns, with two sculpted busts and a decorative plaque listing species names at the bottom.

Teaching with Primary Sources: Looking at the Support Needs of Instructors

A comprehensive Ithaka S+R study illuminating how faculty incorporate primary sources into undergraduate teaching, the discovery and literacy challenges students face, and the collaborative strategies that enable successful instruction.

Explore the findings
Bright, abstract pattern resembling marbled paper, with irregular yellow and orange shapes outlined in blue and pink against a mottled background.
View image credits from this page
Stylized black-and-white illustration from the Seagozette showing a lone figure sitting at the end of a long, narrowing corridor of bars with light shining in.

Illustration from “Seagozette.” Seagozette, January 1, 1964. Part of American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside, Reveal Digital. https://jstor.org/stable/community.35008409.

Abstract illustration of a silhouetted figure enclosed in a blue oval, surrounded by radiating red and orange textured bands.

Illustration from “Recount.” Recount 7, no. 3 (October 1, 1962). Part of American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside, Reveal Digital. https://jstor.org/stable/community.34235585.

Pair of hands in handcuffs, overlaid with a rainbow flag gradient representing LGBTQ+ identity.

JSTOR Daily/Getty

Halftone image of a Native American man wearing a bandana, holding a woman close against a bright blue background.

Illustration from “The Speaking Leaves.” Speaking Leaves, The, September 1, 1971. Part of American Prison Newspapers, 1800s-present: Voices from the Inside, Reveal Digital. https://jstor.org/stable/community.34032473.

A 1715 painting by Bartolomeo Bimbi depicting an elaborate display of citrus trees laden with oranges, lemons, and limes. The fruit is arranged in a dense, symmetrical composition framed by dark foliage and stone columns, with two sculpted busts and a decorative plaque listing species names at the bottom.

Bartolomeo Bimbi. Oranges, Limes, and Lemons. 1715. Image and original data provided by SCALA, Florence/ART RESOURCE, N.Y., Artstor.

Bright, abstract pattern resembling marbled paper, with irregular yellow and orange shapes outlined in blue and pink against a mottled background.

Odra Noel. ‘More to Love’ Adipose Tissue. n.d. Part of Open: Wellcome Collection, Artstor. https://jstor.org/stable/community.24717654.