Changing Lives Through Literature

The University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth is the site of a project, Changing Lives Through Literature; An Alternative Sentencing Program. Participants who had been sentenced from the bench by a judge or may have been selected from clients at a particular court by a probation officer met for the first time:

“In the fall of 1991, Robert Waxler, Robert Kane, and Wayne St. Pierre, a New Bedford District Court probation officer (PO), initiated the first program at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth where Waxler is a professor in the English Department. Eight men were sentenced to probation instead of prison, with an important stipulation: they had to complete a Modern American Literature seminar run by Professor Waxler… For 12 weeks, the men, many of whom had not graduated from high school and who had among them 148 convictions for crimes such as armed robbery and theft, met in a seminar room at the university. By discussing books, such as James Dickey’s Deliverance and Jack London’s Sea Wolf, the men began to investigate and explore aspects of themselves, to listen to their peers, to increase their ability to communicate ideas and feelings to men of authority who they thought would never listen to them, and to engage in dialogue in a democratic classroom where all ideas were valid. Instead of seeing their world from one angle, they began opening up to new perspectives and started realizing that they had choices in life.

“Changing Lives Through Literature is based on the idea that literature has the power to transform. Although it sounds simple – it’s essentially a reading group that meets over a period of weeks and that is attended by an instructor, probation officer, judge, and students – CLTL has the ability to allow us to make connections with the characters or ideas in a text and to rethink our own behavior. The phrase ‘Changing Lives’ may sound grandiose and, in a way, it is. This program can be the first step toward permanent change or an additional step on the path to a new way of being in the world. CLTL contends that through literature, we can more deeply understand ourselves and our human condition. But what is it about literature that allows this to occur? And why do many of us who are involved with CLTL feel that it is one of the most underused tools in the criminal justice system?”

The site provides a list of the novels, short stories and poetry used in the courses. Some of the novels are:

James Agee, A Death in the Family
Mitch Albom, The Five People You Meet in Heaven
Dorothy Allison, Bastard Out of Carolina
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace
Russell Banks, Affliction
Russell Banks, Rule of the Bone
Russell Banks, The Sweet Hereafter
Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street
Chris Crutcher, Ironman
Edwidge Danticat, Breath, Eyes, Memory
James Dickey, Deliverance
Janet Fitch, White Oleander
Alexandra Flinn, Breathing Underwater
Jack Gantos, Hole in My Life
Jane Hamilton, Map of the World
Kent Haruf, Plainsong
Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea
Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

“But what of readers who have not read much or have had poor experiences with school? Many CLTL students struggle through books and think they have retained little of the text. They often are the first ones to say the book had no meaning. But in our discussions, where we sit around the table talking about the text and together recreate the story, where we refashion its travails and its successes, look into why the characters do what they do, and reconsider their actions, these readers often find that, far more than they imagined, a book stays inside them. A character touches a familiar chord, or a story allows them to rethink their own experiences.”

“Independent evaluations of CLTL indicate that the program has cut recidivism rates in half and often has significant impact on reducing violence among offenders. One study indicated that only 19 percent of CLTL ‘graduates’ re-offended while a comparison group of offenders had a 45 percent recidivism rate.”