Changing Lives Through Literature part 5 of 5: Can literature change lives?

The following set of blog posts summarizes the work I have done with an organization called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). My first post described CLTL, next were two interviews with former CLTL students, Ken, Sheila, and Veronica. This final post of the series, “Can literature change lives?” provides several empirical studies that appear to validate the ability of humanities education to assist individuals struggling through poverty and drug addiction—two major, interrelated factors in most crimes. Overall, these studies bolster the eponymous tenant of CLTL: that reading literature changes lives for the better.

The Clemente Course and Hope House

Social issues such as crime and poverty go hand in hand, yet individuals affected by both are unique personalities. CLTL uses literature and writing to stimulate students’ minds and reduce their chances of reoffending. The overall goal is to use literature for social change. Beyond work with criminal populations, Earl Shorris’ Clemente Course in the Humanities has taken a similar approach to humanities education as CLTL. The Clemente course focuses on all urban poor rather than just criminal offenders. Instead of literature, the eight-month Clemente course teaches logic, art, history, and moral philosophy. According to Shorris, the intensive study of the humanities is an effective way to move people out of poverty and into community engagement and meaningful work.

Similarly, at Hope House, a California rehabilitation centre utilizes volunteer, female Stanford professors to teach classes in philosophy and the humanities to groups of fifteen to twenty female addicts and ex-convicts who have been placed in a residential drug and alcohol treatment program (The Hope House Scholars Program). This Clemente-derived course focuses on classic texts with an emphasis on political and social issues, borrowing much from the successful Clemente model. A study done by program founders Debra Satz and Rob Reich revealed that approximately seventy percent of the women who participated in this program remained drug free and out of prison, far better than the national average for rehabilitation programs.

Humanities in Perspective

In Portland, the Humanities In Perspective (HIP) Program has been offered to impoverished individuals for the past five years by the Oregon Council of Humanities in collaboration with Reed College. As a comparison group for the course, HIP was also introduced to a group of incarcerated inmates at a nearby medium-security correctional facility. Like Hope House, the HIP program follows the Clemente Course paradigm—in this case, a progression from ancient classics to twentieth century American literature.

In the Fall semester students read key ancient Greek works drawn from texts in history (Thucydides), philosophy (Aristotle & Plato), poetry (Tyrtaeus & Sappho), and drama (Sophocles & Euripides). In the Spring Semester readings are drawn from more contemporary texts including Emerson, Thoreau, Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, Tennessee Williams, Martin Luther King, and Toni Morrison, exploring four central themes: knowledge and virtue, power and justice, love and desire, and social responsibility.

In 2005, the Portland group of urban poor and the incarcerated inmates completed pre-course and post-course surveys. The Portland group reported increased self-esteem, verbal abilities, and open-mindedness, while the incarcerated group reported increased desire for civic involvement, literary reading, and goal setting.

Can literature change Lives?

Changing Lives Through Literature was also the subject of an empirical research study (Jarjoura and Krumholz, 1998). This study compared a group of 32 former CLTL participants with a control group of 40 regular probationers. A follow-up analysis indicated that only 6 of the 32 men in the reading group (18.8%) were convicted of crimes after their experience in CLTL. In the control group, 18 of the 40 men (45%) had reoffended. According to these results, CLTL graduates were three times less likely to reoffend.

Currently, new versions of CLTL are being adopted by academic programs such as the English department at Curry College and the English department at the University of Rhode Island. Curry College is considering having their English majors intern with CLTL as a unique educational experience.

Further psychological Evidence

Research from the cognitive science of reading literature (alternatively called Cognitive Poetics or Empirical Studies of Literature) provides the important theoretical and empirical backdrop against which to set the effectiveness of programs of CLTL and the Clemente Program, potentially explaining why CLTL works.

Probably the most persuasive studies come from Professors David Miall (English) and Don Kuiken (Psychology) at the University of Alberta and Keith Oatley (Psychology) at the University of Toronto. Their collective research outlines how reading fiction allows us to script, or rehearse, scenarios that we do not normally encounter in our day to day lives. In doing so, reading allows for inner speculation about how we ourselves would react in the fictional situations characters face, causing readers to empathize with characters. Furthermore, the plot structure of fiction involves a surplus of cognitive activities like planning and imagining. All of these simultaneous cognitive activities lead to, as Miall and Kuiken state, “larger implications for the self”—which means that characters and plotlines transcend the experience of reading itself and simulate experiences that motivate readers towards self-change.

Oatley’s studies further this argument, his work demonstrates that engaging in fictional worlds improves our empathic abilities—that is, fiction reading was positively correlated with the ability to empathize with others. Fiction reading thus increases understanding of the necessary and appropriate social interactions of everyday life.

Ultimately, I believe Oatley and Miall’s work provides the psychological backdrop explaining how CLTL works: it offers disenfranchised readers the opportunity to enjoy and reflect on the emotional benefits of the reading experience, while also choosing to make more socially appropriate decisions in regarding their futures and their interactions with others.

In conclusion, I’d like to recognize an excellent new essay by CLTL facilitator, Dr Erin Battat, a postdoctoral fellow in Harvard’s American Studies program. Please leave comments or read there other posts I’ve written for the CLTL blog, Changing Lives Changing Minds:

Book Review: “Missing Sarah” by Maggie de Vries

Has the Torch Been Passed? A Review of the 2008 Annual Conference

A Different Light: Report from the 2009 Changing Lives Through Literature Conference

Starting and Maintaining a CLTL Juvenile Program: An Interview with Michael Habib

 

Changing Lives Through Literature part 4 of 5: Interview with Veronica, CLTL Student, Boston, MA

The following set of blog posts summarizes the work I have done with an organization called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). My first post described CLTL, next were two interviews with former CLTL student, Ken and Sheila. This fourth post, “Interview with Veronica,” discusses the importance of writing in the CLTL classroom and highlights the last of three interviews I conducted during a February trip to Boston.

Writing and CLTL

Writing is used in many ways in the Changing Lives Through Literature classroom. Some facilitators begin a class with writing, while others schedule writing periods in the middle or at the end. But, according to long-time CLTL facilitator Tamlin Neville, feedback is of central importance for CLTL writing assignments:

Students write more easily than they speak.  A quiet student may shed her reserve when she takes up her pen.  One who speaks distractedly may become a different person on the page, composed and able to organize his thoughts. . . . with writing, teachers enter into a one-to-one relationship with a student.  This is a place where a teacher can really listen and attend.

Professor Taylor Stoehr, Ken’s facilitator, has his students begin and end the class by writing for ten minutes on a question raised by the text.  Stoehr collects the work, adds his comments, and returns it, typed and printed, to the students. In this way, each student’s work is “published” once Stoehr distributes copies. At graduation, students receive a booklet of their own writing plus an anthology of class writings.

CLTL allows students to see reflect on their lives through novels, short stories, memoirs, poems, discussion, and writing. According to Stoehr:

These students have been told they are incompetent readers and writers, and this tends to make them so. But the incompetence is superficial in most cases. Their speech skills are usually more than adequate and often superb . . . A student’s own writing helps them objectify their experiences, and this, in turn, opens the way for change.

Veronica

The West Roxbury courthouse women’s CLTL program is specialized for women suffering from mental illness, drug addiction or both. Veronica, a single mother, was more reserved than my previous interview subjects, Ken and Sheila. Yet Veronica’s shyness is nothing compared to her crippling inability to communicate before taking CLTL. Veronica told me, “I would never talk to nobody before; I never got along with nobody.” She continued:

In front of the class everyone would get a chance to talk about their problems. I have never opened up to people like I did with Adita, the people In my class, and Leigh, the teacher. I got to learn a lot and become closer with people. Now I’m very open.

The opportunity to share her thoughts and feelings in reading/writing group environment changed Veronica’s ability to communicate with others. But she also told me about some other positive benefits of CLTL, specifically benefits for her daughter:

I never used to read before, now I read, I have a library card for the first time ever. I write more, read more, talk more. Reading keeps you out of trouble. I even read more to my daughter now. She loves animal books!

Volunteers like Adita Velasquez, Veronica’s probation officer, and Leigh, the Boston English professor who facilitates Veronica’s course, used a structured program of reading and writing to effect the positive changes for students in the West Roxbury program. But, as Veronica puts it, “we’re finished but we’re still not finished.” Each year, Leigh collects and publishes the best writings from the CLTL group. As in the men’s Dorchester programs, this is the first time Veronica have ever seen their writing in print.

In conclusion, I’d like to recognize an excellent new essay by CLTL facilitator, Dr Erin Battat, a postdoctoral fellow in Harvard’s American Studies program. My next post will align the insights I’ve gathered from my work with CLTL with several similar projects that seek to use humanities education to help impoverished or disenfranchised populations. Please leave comments or check other posts I’ve written for the CLTL blog, Changing Lives Changing Minds:

Book Review: “Missing Sarah” by Maggie de Vries

Has the Torch Been Passed? A Review of the 2008 Annual Conference

A Different Light: Report from the 2009 Changing Lives Through Literature Conference

Starting and Maintaining a CLTL Juvenile Program: An Interview with Michael Habib

 

Changing Lives Through Literature part 3 of 5: Interview with Sheila, CLTL Student, Boston, MA

The following set of blog posts summarizes the work I have done with an organization called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). My first post described CLTL, next was an interview with former CLTL student, Ken. This third post, “Interview with Sheila,” highlights the unique interview I conducted while at Boston’s Dorchester Court House. In your opinion, could a similar to CLTL could succeed in Canada?

Sheila

The Dorchester Women’s Program classes are smaller, but, according to Judge Sydney Hanlon, a smaller group allows for a more intimate environment in which to discuss themes of violence, illness, responsibilities for children, and unthinkable tragedies (Trounstine and Waxler, 56). At the 2009 CLTL Annual Conference, Probation Officer Adita Velasquez would later share a similar sentiment:

In the CLTL classroom, I’m aware of what’s going on with each of these women, and I’m listening to what they tell us about those stories. And the same thing happens again and again: violence. The classroom is a special environment for them. We discuss are how they should handle it, what’s there to protect them, and how they see themselves.

At the same conference, Hanlon stated that she once sat in a CLTL classroom with eight women, all mothers. At some point in each of their lives, all of these mothers had witnessed shootings, and all of them had life insurance policies on their children. “Hearing something like that changes a judge: you don’t see people the same way again.”

Sheila and I also met at the Dorchester courthouse. Sheila is an amateur poet and told me she has not been able to put down Hemmingway since recently graduating from CLTL. Hemmingway is one of her “old favourites.” Sheila contrasted her early experiences in the CLTL classroom with the transition she saw in other students:

There was a lot of closed-minded girls that were in the class . . . there was some girls, the things that we were reading, the words they used, you know, especially like the books about slavery, you know how they used the old-time words. And how they would word it and the girls were like offended. But they learned and they changed and they became more open . . . in the class you could see that everyone became more open-minded.

Sheila is still close with one of the girls from the class, but also shared an interesting anecdote about a chance meeting on the subway:

But I do see a lot of them in passing and I do say hi and things like that. And one time I saw a girl on the train, and she was reading! I had to go up to her and tap her in order for her to put her head up. She had like a thick, thick book in her hand and she was reading.

Unlike Ken, Sheila discussed lasting bonds with her classmates, which is unsurprising considering the Dorchester women’s class is five times smaller than the men’s. Sheila’s anecdote on the train shows that CLTL students also form a lasting bonds with books.

Does it work?

Along with Vasquez, Ken and Sheila also expressed surprise at the effectiveness of the CLTL program, Ken told me, “[a] lot of people they did go into [CLTL] to get the 6 months off [probation]. . . But towards the middle of the class you just want to be there. At least for me, you just really want to be there.” A similar comment came from Sheila, “basically what I did [CLTL] for was to get the six months off [probation] . . . But I found myself liking it.” Although CLTL is for criminal offenders, CLTL creates students engaged in a unique and pedagogical approach to criminal justice.

Does it work? Changing Lives Through Literature was also the subject of a research study (Jarjoura and Krumholz 1998). This study compared a group of 32 former CLTL participants with a control group of 40 regular probationers. A follow-up analysis indicated that only 6 of the 32 men in the reading group (18.8%) were convicted of crimes after CLTL. In the control group, 18 of the 40 men (45%) had reoffended. CLTL graduates were three times less likely to reoffend.

My next post will summarize my interview with former CLTL participant, Veronica. Please leave comments or check other posts I’ve written for the CLTL blog, Changing Lives Changing Minds:

Book Review: “Missing Sarah” by Maggie de Vries

Has the Torch Been Passed? A Review of the 2008 Annual Conference

A Different Light: Report from the 2009 Changing Lives Through Literature Conference

Starting and Maintaining a CLTL Juvenile Program: An Interview with Michael Habib

 

Changing Lives Through Literature part 1 of 5: What is Changing Lives Through Literature?

The following set of blog posts summarizes the work I have done with an organization called Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). This first post, “What is Changing Lives Through Literature?,” describes the tenets of CLTL based on notes I’ve taken from the past two CLTL annual conferences in Boston. The remaining four posts describe unique interviews I conducted while in Boston for the CLTL 2009 conference. Each interview is between myself and three former CLTL participants. I believe a program similar to CLTL could succeed in Canada, but it will require a great deal of lobbying and effort by committed individuals. Now that I am finished my Master of Arts degree, perhaps I will begin this process.

Changing Lives Through Literature

Ken, Sheila, and Veronica are a unique group of Literature students. Unsurprisingly their classes are held at the University of Massachusetts, in the town of Dartmouth, but perhaps surprisingly their enrolment began at Boston’s Dorchester and West Roxbury courthouses. These three individuals are criminal offenders engaged in a rehabilitative program called “Changing Lives Through Literature” (CLTL). This program is comprised of dozens of classes, taking place in a variety of locations throughout the United States. No two classes are the same—the curricula differ, the syllabi differ, the terms of graduation differ, and even subject matter differs. An example of the latter case would be in Texas where the focus is not on literature, but philosophy and politics.

For the past 15 years, CLTL participants, judges, probation officers, and facilitators have acted under the overarching belief that bringing great works of literature to criminal offenders may help them gain insight into their lives and behaviour, while learning that they are not alone with their problems. CLTL instructors are typically professors of English, teaching students whose presiding judge has offered CLTL in lieu of jail time or probation. Frequently a student’s judge and supervising probation officer will join the class. Judge Robert Kane, CLTL co-founder and Massachusetts Superior Court Justice, tacitly implies that many members of the criminal justice system frown upon CLTL’s grassroots approach to criminal justice:

“The court system is too fast moving and quick paced to really deal with individuals. Changing Lives Through Literature wants to slow things down and treat offenders like individuals, but our peers think we’re crazy. That’s what we’re up against and it’s damn hard.”

Ultimately, CLTL aims to create an environment a where professors, probation officers, judges, and offenders can discuss great works of literature as equals—for this reason the instructors are called facilitators.

For the past two years I have travelled from Waterloo, ON in Canada to Boston, MA in the United States to attend the Changing Lives Through Literature annual conference. This year provided an exciting opportunity to sit down with the three aforementioned CLTL graduates. During these one-to-one interviews, the semi-structured interview protocol asked four questions:

1. Could you please describe your experience with the program?

2. Could you share your experience with the program?

3. Do you think of people differently after taking the program?

4. Do you think of yourself differently after taking the program?

Following these interviews, I also had the opportunity to meet and discuss CLTL with two probation officers: Pam Pierce and Adita Velasquez. The following is a qualitative analysis of this overall these interviews.

Ken, Sheila, and Veronica were each enrolled in different classes, and it is important to first note some of the similarities and differences between how different CLTL classes are run. CLTL programs require the support of a presiding judge who can dictate the terms and sanctions of a criminal offender’s probation. In a way, CLTL’s pedagogical approach to criminal justice is “crazy,” insofar as that indicates a dramatic shift from modern jurisprudence. The implementation of a CLTL program is an elaborate process requiring, at least, one judge, one probation officer, one instructor capable of facilitating a post-secondary level discussion of literature, and a group of students whose position within the legal system places them on probation and with a willingness to engage the program.

While a judge decides the implementation of each CLTL program, each class is organized by one or more probation officers. Adita Velasquez, the West Roxbury probation officer who arranged my interview with Veronica, was ordered by her presiding to begin a CLTL program—mainly because of her Master’s degree in psychology with a specialization in bilingual counseling. “I never in a million years thought a program like this would work” recounts Velasquez:

“I primarily deal with probationers who suffer from mental disease and drug addiction. My judge told me about this Changing Lives Through Literature program and he said another judge was pressuring him to start a similar program in West Roxbury. So he ordered me to do it. I thought he was crazy.”

Judges require probation officers, like Adita, to refer criminal offenders for the program, and an instructor to arrange reading materials, syllabi, writing assignments, and a meeting space. CLTL classes are held on a university campus, and this is often the first time students have entered a university classroom. Judges are encouraged to participate in class, but there is no dictum forcing them to do so. Group discussions are a fundamental part of the CLTL classroom; every student must speak, and every student must complete written assignments that will be shared during the discussions. Instructors type up the students’ writing, provide brief feedback, and return the pieces to their authors. As a graduation token, selections from each graduating student’s writing is collected into a printed volume. Finally, while attempts at mixed-gender classes have been attempted in the past, classes are typically same-sex.

My next post will summarize my interview with former CLTL participant, Ken. Please leave comments or check other posts I’ve written for the CLTL blog, Changing Lives Changing Minds:

Book Review: “Missing Sarah” by Maggie de Vries

Has the Torch Been Passed? A Review of the 2008 Annual Conference

A Different Light: Report from the 2009 Changing Lives Through Literature Conference

Starting and Maintaining a CLTL Juvenile Program: An Interview with Michael Habib