Odyssey Beyond Bars offers college jumpstart programs to students incarcerated in Wisconsin state prisons. The UW-Madison Libraries have taught a library instruction session for the English 100 Communication-A course at Oakhill Correctional Institute since Fall 2019. Odyssey Beyond Bars recently received a grant to increase access to English 100 to three additional sites. As a result, the libraries taught library instruction sessions in Spring 2022 to students at the following institutes: Columbia Correctional Institute, Green Bay Correctional Institute, and Racine Correctional Institute.

Teaching in a correctional institute setting poses unique challenges due to restrictions, such as no access to the internet. We have experimented with instructional models in order to achieve all library outcomes for Communication-A courses. The library instruction team collaborated with course instructors to develop engaging instruction that emphasizes in-person group discussions with students.