August 21, 2024 This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies . Editors have highlightedthe following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: fact-checked peer-reviewed publication trusted source proofread by Sharita Forrest, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign During the COVID-19 pandemic, when young people across the U.S.
were struggling with the isolation, disruptions and frustrations imposed by shuttered schools, online learning and the dearth of social activities, the students in then-high school teacher Rachel McMillian's social studies class participated in a unique book club—which she co-led with a man who is on Death Row. Now a professor of curriculum and instruction at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, McMillian documented the experience in a new paper, published in the journal Urban Education . When the book club began in January 2021, Keith LaMar—"Mr.
Keith" to McMillian's students—had spent about 30 years in solitary confinement after being convicted of murdering five other prisoners during a 1993 riot at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville. McMillian taught in public school for 10 years prior to joining the faculty at Illinois. Because mass incarceration affected her own life—and many of her students' lives—she was a longtime volunteer with the Ohio Innocence Project, and she frequently invited people who had experienced imprisonment into her social studies classe.