Nelson Algren, Nathan Kantrowitz, and David Maurer discuss language and criminal subculture, including the development of institutional slang at different prisons, the nature of drug addiction and its influence on criminal language and vocabulary, and the myth of the criminal mind. Includes an Interview with an inmate at a Chicago prison.

Discussing the concept of DISTAR (Direct Instructional System for Teaching and Remediation) program, the use of phonics to teach children to read, and interviewing Joe Rosen, Betsy Clayton, and Jim First.

Ellen Afterman, Clinton Sanders and Spellman Young discuss the exclusionary power of language; i.e. white, middle-class language as the standard by which people are intellectually and socially judged, and how groups are using language to define identity.