Classroom Resources for Prisoner in Alcatraz

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theresa breslinPrisoner in Alcatraz

Part 1 Synopsis & Themes

Part 2 Chapter-by-Chapter Exploration

Part 3 About Theresa Breslin

Part 4 Theresa Breslin’s Inspiration for Prisoner in Alcatraz

Stoke BooksClassroom disCussion guide



This guide has been produced to provide ideas for guiding less confident readers through theresa breslin’s Prisoner in Alcatraz, a stylish and thought-provoking short novel with powerful characterization and themes.

in order to promote the development of prediction and inference skills, this guide approaches the book chapter-by-chapter, providing ideas for guided reading and for extension work.

Prisoner in Alcatraz is the first-person narrative of petty crook Marty, who was persuaded by a friend to take part in a bank robbery which ultimately resulted in the murder of a security guard and an innocent bystander. Because Marty escaped on-route to prison and fled in a stolen vehicle across State lines, he was transferred to the notorious federal prison alcatraz.

The book flashes between Alcatraz and the events leading up to Marty’s incarceration. On the one hand, Marty is treated sympathetically as the reader discovers more and more of his deprived childhood, dirt-poor existence and child-like and gullible nature. On the other, there is no attempt to play down the horror of his crimes.

Other characters in Prisoner in Alcatraz range from good to bad, with many shades of gray in between. alcatraz houses truly terrifying criminals, but a prison doctor points out that some of these men can be viewed as pathetic little people with big egos. Prison staff can be cruel, or heroic. A school teacher Marty likes in early life comes forward to speak for him at his trial.

in a very short novel, theresa breslin explores wide-ranging themes of personal responsibility, the individual’s responsibility as a citizen and society’s responsibility towards the vulnerable. it asks questions about crime and punishment, and goodness and kindness.

breslin adopts a “show, don’t tell” approach which is ideal for work on inference skills. the novel also features particularly strong dialogue.

Part 1 SynoPSIS & ThEmES



ChaPter 1: alCatraz

Summary

We learn that alcatraz is a federal prison in the Usa – this means it houses prisoners who have committed crimes against the nation, not local (state) crimes. We learn that it is located near san Francisco and that the rules are very harsh. We learn that the narrator is a prisoner in alcatraz, and he tells the reader his memories of being transported to the prison. Crowds come to the special pier to see the prisoners transported. the narrator remembers seeing red rust on the Golden Gate bridge and hearing the seals on the rocks. he describes a mixture of pride, fear and sadness at being one of the ‘big boys’ in the infamous prison with its harsh rules, and of humiliation at being described by the judge at his trial as not particularly clever.

Read P1 and pause

Discuss rule number Five. What is a “privilege”?

how harsh is rule number Five? Why does the group think that theresa breslin has started the book with it?

Read pages 2 and 3, up to”‘I remember the boat ride”

Who does the group think is telling the story (the narrator)?

how do we know?

Read to the end

the narrator describes lots of different feelings. What are they? in two columns, make a list of the feelings, and the reason for these.

read what the judge and the lawyer said about the narrator during the trial. What sort of crime do the class think has sent the narrator to alcatraz?

Part 2 ChAPTER-By-ChAPTER ExPloRATIon



Pull out the following section and read it closely:

“It made look none too bright. As if I didn’t have the smarts. But here I was now. On that boat. I was one of the big boys. The real hoods. On my way to the most famous prison in the U.S.A. The most famous prison in the whole wide world. Alcatraz.”

ask the group to look for evidence in this passage to suggest:

the judge and lawyer were right, and the narrator is not very clever ˚oR

the narrator is cleverer than the judge and the lawyer thought. ˚(Support if necessary – is it clever to be proud to have committed a crime bad enough to get sent to Alcatraz?)

is there anything funny about this section? how does it make us view the narrator? Do we pity him a little, or are we afraid of him?

activitiesREAD rules 1 to 2 in the alcatraz inmate regulations (below) and check the meanings of the words underlined.

GOOD COnDUCt means conducting yourself in a quiet and 1. orderly manner and keeping your cell neat, clean and free from contraband. it means obeying the rules of the institution and displaying a co-operative attitude. It also means obeying orders of Officials, Officers and other employees without delay or argument.

GOOD WOrK reCOrD means the reputation you establish as a willing, capable workman, 2. doing your best at whatever work you are told to do.

DISCUSS Would these rules have been such a good way for theresa breslin to open the book? Why/why not?

RESEARCh alcatraz and make a display with pictures and facts about the prison.



ChaPter 2: the raid

Summary

We learn a little of the threats that exist in the prison for the narrator, whose name is Marty. He is a small and skinny guy and a group of prisoners planning a break-out have assigned a prisoner called taylor to befriend him in order to recruit him to their plan, as they need someone able to squeeze along an air vent. We discover that the narrator doesn’t like plans – he ended up in prison due to a plan gone wrong. he had escaped from a children’s home and returned to the house he had shared with his late mother, only to be followed by a friend who wanted a get-away driver for a bank job. Marty resists at first but Jay plays on the dreams Marty and his mother had for a new life in Mexico in order to persuade him. In the end Marty agrees, and he writes down the notes and maps for the job, which makes him look very guilty when it all comes to court. Jay gives him a gun, and he likes the feel of it. When a guard chases Jay out of the bank, Marty shoots him. A woman and child begin to scream and Marty fires his gun into the air in order to scare them into shutting up. the bullet bounces off a building and kills the woman.

Read pages 6 – 8 and pause at “The manager and a female clerk.”

Find the point in the chapter when the story (the narrative) shifts back in time. how do we know?

What have we learned in this chapter so far about Marty’s family and early life?

Read pages 8 & 9 up to “Just enough to keep us alive.”

Jay says that breaking into a goods wagon (a type of train carriage) and taking stuff is stealing. Marty says it isn’t. He tells us that his mom called it “sharing”, because they only took a little from those that could afford it, in order to stay alive.

Does the group think Jay is right, or Marty and his mom? Is it stealing to take things from people who can afford it? Does it make it better that Marty and his mom were starving? Is it ever okay to steal?

Jay says “Marty King, you live in a world you just made up.” Does the group agree? Did Marty make up this world himself, or did anyone else live in the same world?

Read pages 9 & 11, up to “Which was bad news for me at the trial later on.”

Are we told when Marty changed his mind and decided to take part in the bank job with Jay?

As we are not told, it seems that the last thing Jay says to Marty to try to persuade him to take part is the thing that changed his mind. What was that?

Why does the group think that this would have worked? Why did Jay decide to use this argument? (Support if necessary – Jay knows Marty from the Children’s Home and knows how to “push his buttons” be reminding him of the good times he and his mom had and their plans).

Why would it have seemed bad at Marty’s trial that all of the notes were in his writing?



Read to the end.

The episode relating to the bank job reads a little like a scene in a film. Marty describes everything in lots of detail. Make lists of all of the things Marty:

sees ˚hears ˚Feels ( ˚ both in his hand and in his emotions)

thinks ˚Put in as much detail as you can, for example, the screaming he hears seems to be coming from far away, “like voices on the radio”. P13

Work with students to story-board the sequence of events together. some images are like “close-ups” – Jay showing Marty the safety catch on the gun, or the guard’s face. Other images are of the setting, and other characters, like the mother and child. Other images are like action shots – Jay running out of the bank, and the terrible events that follow.

activitiesDRAW a “WANTED” poster for Marty, with details of the bank job and the murders.

ChaPter 3: esCaPe Plan

Summary

Taylor tries to persuade Marty to join in the escape plan – the others want him to crawl into the air vent and along the pipe to the control room, where he is to take an imprint of the key for Carter. Carter and company will then jump the guards during a movie showing. Marty is reluctant as going along with someone else’s plan landed him in Alcatraz in the first place. Taylor tries a number of ways to persuade him: he tells him he is lucky to have the chance to take part; that he’ll go crazy in alcatraz; and that “Cut throat” Carter is not a man to fool with. he also tells him the story of another con reputed to have escaped. Marty accepts the official story that this man drowned in the Bay. Marty reflects on how difficult it would be for Carter to conceal a blade, remembering a story that even al Capone’s mother had been strip-searched on a visit to the prison.

After work that day, Marty attempts to reach through the fence and touch the hand of a guard’s child. as punishment, the guards visit his cell that night and beat him up.

Read the first two lines of P17

Does the group understand what Marty means?



Photocopy pages 15 to 20 and hand out copies to the group, with sets of highlighters

This section features a long conversation between Marty and Taylor, which Theresa Breslin writes as direct speech. Check that the group knows how direct speech is marked – with inverted commas, or speech marks.

Ask the group to read the section silently. With a marker, ask them to highlight Marty’s speech one color and taylor’s another.

ask for two volunteers to read the section aloud. One volunteer could read the narrative sections (no highlighting), or read these yourself. rehearse the reading to really get the feel of Marty and Taylor’s characters. Ask other members of the group to support the readers with tips on how to “play” the two men.

When you have finished your reading, look at Taylor’s speech again. There are strong purposes behind most of the things he says. He wants to persuade Marty, sometimes by threatening him, sometimes by flattery and sometimes by “selling” an idea. Discuss the purposes of each individual line of speech and record these on the photocopies. Don’t worry if some lines have no “purpose” – not all speech has purpose!

Now look at Marty’s “answers” to Taylor’s persuasion. Sometimes he seems to be giving simple, honest responses. sometimes he seems to be trying to get rid of taylor. sometimes he seems to be casting doubt on what taylor says. Discuss each line as you did with taylor and annotate these in a similar way.

On one occasion in this conversation, Taylor makes a bit of a joke and Marty doesn’t get it. Can the group find this part of the exchange? (Oklahoma/telephone vs Mexico/postcard).

Read pages 19 & 20, from “I don’t see how…” to “from your mom.”

Hopefully the group will have seen that Marty doesn’t always “get” things, or think them through. Can they see anything sad about the fact that he says “Imagine being in prison all those years and never having a visit from your mom.”? (Will Marty ever have a visit from his mom?)

Read the remainder of the chapter

Why does the group think the guards beat Marty up? Might they think he is a danger to the child? Does that make it alright that they have beaten him up?

activitiesWRITE a script in which one character tries to persuade another character to commit a crime. Decide who the characters are. Decide on the crime. think about different ways of persuading, like taylor used, including:

suggesting good things that a person will get by doing something ˚threatening the person with bad things that will happen if they don’t do something ˚telling the person about other people who have done a similar thing and been very happy ˚with the result

Work together as a shared Writing exercise.



ChaPter 4: the trial

Summary

Marty visits the doctor, who stitches his head wound without anaesthetic and mocks Marty, saying that the prisoners are cowards who would kill another person but can’t take any pain themselves. He pours scorn on Cut Throat Carter’s fame, telling Marty that Carter’s real name is brian Winkel. they discuss names, and the doctor points out to Marty that Mr. Wrigley of Wrigley’s gum must have been teased at school, but went on to become successful.

Marty recalls his mother calling him “king of her heart”, a play on his surname. He remembers his father walking out and how he and his mother stole from the trains. even then, he wondered about real criminals and how they lived – this was spotted by a nice teacher at school, Miss Green, who warned Marty away from the bad boys in the class.

Then Marty recalls his mother’s death and the nurse who sent Marty to the Home where he met Jay. The Home was tough and Marty eventually ran away back to the shack, where Jay found him and enlisted him in the bank job. We learn that the reason Marty was not sentenced to death was that Miss Green came to court to speak for him. She told the court he was trusting and innocent, and lived in a fantasy world. Marty was touched, although he was also stung by the fact that she made him sound dim. but he cried in repentance in the witness box and his lawyer claimed that his father had been killed in the War, and so he got two life sentences instead. but on the way to the state Prison, Marty was uncuffed and got caught up in another prisoner’s escape attempt. They crossed State lines and so Marty was sent to Alcatraz.

Read the whole chapter

Can the group find the place where the chapter switches from the present into the past?

Does the group agree with Marty that Brian Winkel had to change his name?

Make notes on what more the group now knows about Marty’s life before he came to prison.

Why does the group think that Marty’s lawyer lies about Marty’s dad having died in the war?

Read the last paragraph on P29 and the top of P30

the group answered this question while reading Chapter 2:

Why would it have seemed bad at Marty’s trial that all of the notes were in his writing?

Were their answers right?

Read from “I liked that” on P30 to “a raid like this” on P31

Can the group find evidence that Miss Green is right and Marty is a little slow-witted?

Can the group find any evidence in pages 32 – 34 that Marty is, as Miss Green says, easily led?



activitiesRESEARCh the difference between Federal and state crimes in the Usa.

RESEARCh Floyd Hamilton & Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, the Bird Man of Alcatraz and Machine Gun Kelly.

ChaPter 5: Cut throat Carter

Summary

Taylor tells Marty that Cut Throat Carter is sorry about Marty getting a beating and plans to “take care” of the guard responsible. the guard is promptly hospitalized after what looks like a poisoning. Carter then approaches Marty in the yard. Marty thanks him for getting the guard. Carter asks Marty if it is true Marty doesn’t believe he could knife a prisoner. Marty backtracks. Carter has a prisoner stabbed there and then, in front of him.


Does the group understand the link between the guard’s gut-rot and Carter?

Why do the prisoners standing around Marty melt away when Carter approaches him?

Why does Marty’s voice come out all squeaky when he tries to speak to Carter?

Why does the group think Carter has the man stabbed? What can it achieve? Why is it important to him to make sure that Marty is afraid of him? Does he want everyone to be afraid of him? Or does he want Marty to be afraid for a specific reason? Record the group’s thoughts.

activitiesDRAW imagined portraits of Cut throat Carter. Would he have tattoos? What would he be wearing?

RESEARCh alcatraz uniform.

ChaPter 6: loCk down

Summary

Marty has taken the hint and joined the plan. The other cons have made sure he knows – he does – that Carter was sending him a message. Meanwhile all the prisoners are on lock-down as a punishment for the murder. there is a campaign of intimidation against the guards – whispering and cat-calling all night, every night.




Read the group’s thoughts after reading the last chapter on why Carter wanted Marty to be afraid. Were they right?

activitiesmAKE A SoUnDSCAPE of whispered threats, using the lines from this chapter. add in whistles and banging sounds. experiment with lower and higher sounds, strange voices and lower and higher volume. Perform the soundscape with eyes closed or in the dark for maximum effect!

ChaPter 7: dining hall riot

Summary

The time has come for Marty to do his part. He has been prepared over and over again by accomplices Carter and Taylor and another prisoner, Frank “Slugger” Malone. Slugger has his doubts about Marty’s brains but Carter threatens him with chilling “kindness”. While the other prisoners stage a riot, happy to have something to alleviate the boredom, Marty is stripped naked and squeezes along the air vent. He briefly considers escaping alone but in the end is too afraid of Carter. he is almost caught by a guard as he reaches the control room but the guard is too busy to spot Marty’s hand sticking out from the vent in the wall. Marty gets the key, makes the impression and returns back down the pipe to a hero’s welcome.


Use squared paper to draw a rough map of the dining hall, control room and the path of the air vent Marty crawls along. Note that Slugger and Carter tell Marty he must turn right when he reaches the back of the vent at the dining hall – this suggests the vent must go both ways. Mark the place where the vent is open to the sky above.

Read the top of P52 again

Why does the group think that theresa breslin uses such short sentences in the middle section of this page?

read these short sentences chorally – practice a few times until everyone can read together. now add heart-beat percussion.

activitiesSToRy-BoARD this chapter as though it were a film. Work together to decide on the different frames that should be shown.



ChaPter 8: in solitary

Summary

as punishment for the Dining hall riot, privileges are removed. there are extensive searches, but Carter has left the soap with the key impression in the vent and it is not found. Men who were in the Hall are placed in solitary. Marty becomes mentally unstable in the dark and solitude, imagining that his mother has come to visit him. eventually the doctor is called and decides to sedate him and move him to the infirmary, where he helps out with light work.

Read the chapter title

What does “solitary” mean?


Has Marty’s mom really come to see him?

Why does the doc come to see Marty?

Can the group find any evidence in pages 52 – 54 that Marty is, as Miss Green says, easily led?

activitiesWRITE out all the things Marty might tell his mom when she “comes to visit” him in solitary.

ChaPter 9: Break for freedom

Summary

Carter delays on giving the go-ahead, leading to a run-in with Frank. as time passes, Marty finds his way more, getting a job in the laundry and enjoying having enough food and a little money. When Carter finally announces that they’re ready to make the break, he protests - the escape is scheduled for movie night, and Marty says he would prefer to see the new Shirley Temple movie. Taylor covers this over as a joke on Marty’s part.

Of course it is not a joke and Marty is actually so caught up in the movie that it takes him a few moments to realize that the escape has begun. Carter kills one guard and takes the other, John Jefferson Adams, hostage. He gives the other prisoners Adams’ weapon and instructs them to break into the gun-store and then open all the cells. then he takes off with Frank, Marty, Taylor and the guard Adams.

When they reach the laundry room Carter gets adams to tell him how many guards are on the roof, and then kills him. Marty becomes faint and sick at the blood. Carter then reveals that he and Frank plan to escape without Marty and Taylor.



Read pages 55 & 56, up to “a line along Frank’s throat”

What is happening between Carter and slugger here?

Read up to “stupid wisecracks” on P57

Was Marty joking about wanting to see the Shirley Temple film?

Why does taylor make out he was joking?

Read the rest of the chapter

recap the chain of events:

Marty is busy watching Shirley Temple ˚Carter and co jump the guards in the hall ˚One guard is killed and the other (John Jefferson Adams) taken prisoner – Carter takes ˚his gun

Carter sends the other prisoners at the movie to break into the gun store and set the ˚other prisoners free

Carter, Frank, Taylor and Marty head for the laundry, taking Adams with them ˚adams tells them they will not get any further without a key; Carter reveals he has a key ˚Carter asks adams how many guards are on the roof ˚adams won’t tell Carter anything ˚Carter threatens adams with a knife ˚adams tells Carter there are two or three guards on the roof and they may come down to ˚help deal with the riot inside

adams begs for his life ˚Carter kills adams ˚Marty is ill ˚Carter tells Marty and Taylor that they are not coming with Carter and Frank ˚

Ask the group to predict what will happen next. Record their ideas.

Why does Carter plan to leave Marty and Taylor?

If Marty and Taylor stay with Adams’ body, what will the other guards think when they find them?

What could Marty and Taylor do?



activitiesWoRK ToGEThER To WRITE an obituary of John Jefferson Adams. Make up the details of his life and include details of how he died.

ChaPter 10: shoot out

Summary

Carter and Frank tell a protesting taylor that he is too old to swim out to their boat. They are going to escape via the roof, and Marty and Taylor are to stay behind and delay the guards. Carter threatens Marty to the end. When Carter and Taylor break through a metal plate in one of the boilers and escape, Marty and Taylor realize that it might look as though they killed adams. in the end, they decide to knock one another out so they can blame Carter for the whole thing and claim he forced them into taking part. Marty knocks out taylor, and then realizes there is no one to knock him out. in the end, he runs at the wall.

It turns out Carter and Frank made it no further than the roof. John Jefferson Adams had lied to them – there were many more guards on the roof than he said, and they were both shot.

Marty realizes that Carter and Frank used him and Taylor, and that there is no honor among thieves.


review the group’s predictions. Were any right?

ChaPter 11: loCked in for life

Summary

Marty looks back on the episode. Months later, they saw photos of Carter and Frank’s bodies, apparently shot in the back. For once, Marty got lucky. The guard he thought Carter had killed in the movie showing in fact recovers and his memory of the escape is that Marty didn’t want to take part. Marty is now dependent on sleeping pills and is troubled by dreams about John Jefferson Adams’ death. He wonders if the child he once reached out to was adams’. he realizes that he will never have children. he thinks of the little boy whose mother he shot. Other prisoners talk about new escapes, but he doesn’t listen. he has learned to scorn the new prisoners who think that coming to alcatraz is a big achievement. He has finally realised the error of his ways.




Find evidence in this chapter for the following statement:

The escape attempt and John Jefferson Adams’ murder taught Marty important lessons. ˚He finally realized what he had done. He finally realized that he had wasted his life.

Think back to the things Marty thought before, and the things he thinks now. Is there a big difference?

summing uPDid the group enjoy the novel?

What message(s) do they think the novel has?

Was the novel effective in putting these messages across?

Was Marty a well-written character? Did he seem like a real person, who gets some things wrong and some things right, and grows and changes?

Did the novel seem realistic?

READ about theresa breslin’s inspiration for writing Prisoner in Alcatraz (Part 4 of this resource). how closely does the group think that theresa stuck with the inspiration she found on the day of her visit to the prison?



before she became an author, theresa breslin worked for many years as a librarian. she says that she is still a librarian at heart and loves to do research for her books, often reading historic documents and visiting the places where they are set. in the case of Prisoner in Alcatraz, she visited the prison and got the idea for the book while she was there.

theresa has published over 30 books, many of which have been turned into tV and radio series and translated into many languages across the globe. her novel Whispers in the Graveyard won the Carnegie Medal, the most important prize in the UK for children’s

and young adult literature. she has also won the Catalyst book award and the reD book award and has been nominated for many other important prizes.

Theresa is perhaps best-known for historical fiction but she also writes comedy, shorter books for teenagers and younger readers and books for children learning english as a second language. her other book for stoke books is called Mutant.

theresa lives in Glasgow, scotland.

Part 3 ABoUT ThERESA BRESlIn



theresa says that she doesn’t like enclosed spaces, and so she wasn’t very happy when her husband suggested a visit to the old Maximum Security prison Alcatraz. But they were in San Francisco and her husband wanted to go, and so she went along for the ride. she had planned to wander around the workshops, but “as we landed we came across a bookstand where a former prison officer was signing copies of his memoirs detailing his life as a young prison guard in Alcatraz.”

theresa asked the man if he had met some of the more famous prisoners.

“Well, there was the Birdman,” he said. There is a film called Birdman of Alcatraz.

“Really?” theresa said. “That must have been interesting…”

The guard told her an interesting fact about the Bird Man. Now you have read the book, can you guess what it was?

the guard surprised theresa by telling her that he felt sorry for a lot of the prisoners (although not for the Bird Man).

“You felt sorry for these guys?” theresa asked.

“Oh yeah. Some of them were real bad boys. But others, well…”

theresa decided that she would go inside. she had got hooked on the idea of the ‘nobody’ inmates of alcatraz. Who were they? how did they end up in the most notorious prison in the world?

One of these prisoners spoke to theresa through the head-set provided to visitors to the prison. he told about how he hadn’t meant to get in trouble, but as a young man he fell in with the wrong crowd and got carried away by the moment. he talked about how he had lain on his bed in alcatraz and listened to the sad honking of the sea lions in the bay and at new Year the sound of revelry being carried across the water.

theresa sat on the bed and listened, thinking about the locks and bars and the watchtowers and barbed wire. On the way out, she said:

“I’m not surprised no one ever managed to get out of here.”

“Some did,” says the tour guide.

“Convicts escaped from Alcatraz?” theresa asked in surprise.

“Not escape, exactly,” he replied.

theresa went home thinking of a young man lying in his cell. she was thinking of a break-out attempt. there was a story buzzing in her head.

it was called PRISONER IN ALCATRAZ.

Part 4 InSPIRATIon foR PRISonER In AlCATRAz

Classroom Resources for Prisoner in Alcatraz

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Transcript of Classroom Resources for Prisoner in Alcatraz