While spending six weeks on the prison voices module, I have certainly learned and improved on many fundamental skills for this English course. Research is a necessary and useful skill in which I have improved on while producing my blogs. Most importantly, I was able to advance my use of primary sources which I have come to appreciate due to its authentic essence. It truly allows you to become more aware and understand the topic in which you are researching more sufficiently. I had used primary sources in pretty much all of my blogs as it gives you a clear picture and the rawness of the work, for example, for my study of criminal broadsides, I had incorporated in the blog the actual newspapers which I was able to access via the old bailey. I was able to choose between many different cases and decide to talk about a story of my choice. This was a useful way of researching on crime and punishment during the 1700-1900 and understanding how society handled criminals and how the law achieved justice.
Moreover one of my favourite topics I had researched was the novel Oliver twist, and more specifically the character of the artful dodger. This was interesting for me as there was a lot to look into, the way in which society treated young proletariat children and how they reacted to juvenile delinquents. The novel itself had given me an insight into the treatment of young children who had ended up becoming delinquents. Charles Dickens had essentially created two opposite characters, Oliver representing the ideal child and Dodger representing the juvenile delinquent.
furthermore, with my research for love tokens and tattoos, I was able to use different examples of primary sources, in this case, they were images of tokens and I had tried to see what they had represented for each convict I had looked into. it was very useful for advancing my skills on analysing images and trying to understand the context of it.
voices from the inside 