Keep Reading Fun: Summer Reading Flowchart
Posted: May 12, 2013 Filed under: CLTL, fiction, literature, nonfiction, poetry, reading | Tags: books, literature, summer reading 1 Comment »Can’t decide what to read this summer? Don’t know how to get the whole family reading?
Not sure what to suggest for your Changing Lives Through Literature group—or other book group?
This fun Summer Reading Flowchart will guide you to the right book! We thank Sarah Fudin for sharing this fantastic Teach.com visual.
Brought to you by Teach.com
Sarah Fudin
Read Sarah Fudin’s accompanying article—Keep Reading Fun—also published on this blog.
Sarah Fudin works at an education company where she manages the community relations for the George Washington University’s online MPH degree, an innovative program that allows students to take public health courses online.
Changing Lives and Building Futures
Posted: May 5, 2013 Filed under: CLTL, criminal justice | Tags: American Probation and Parole Association Leave a comment »By Nancy E. Oliveira, Editor
Plan Now for Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision Week— July 21-27, 2013
Now is the time to start planning how you will acknowledge the American Probation and Parole Association’s Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision Week— July 21-27, 2013. This will be a time to recognize the accomplishments of the thousands of dedicated people working in our criminal justice system in the areas of pretrial services, probation, and parole.
The APPA says of these professionals: “They are Changing Lives and Building Futures every day.”
For more information: Pretrial, Probation, and Parole Supervision Week
Image provided by appa-net.org.
Next Week: Summer Reading Info-graphic
Next week, before going on summer vacation, we will post a wonderful and fun summer reading info-graphic and article. Whether you’re looking for a book to read yourself or to share with a Changing Lives Through Literature group or other reading group, next week’s info-graphic will help you choose enjoyable and meaningful reading material.
Blog Takes Summer Break
This blog will go on summer break effective May 19, 2013. We will resume posting new material in September.
Celebrate National Library Week – April 14-20, 2013
Posted: April 14, 2013 Filed under: CLTL, current events, literature, reading | Tags: National Library Week 1 Comment »
By Nancy E. Oliveira, Editor
The American Library Association encourages you to celebrate National Library Week, April 14-20, with the theme Communities matter @ your library.
Local free public libraries continue to provide equal access to literature—from the classics to the latest best-sellers—to all members of their communities. Whether you’re wealthy or poor, educated or not, libraries provide you with great works of literature.
Literature has the power to transform lives. Libraries provide the books—the tangible resources—to help make those transformations happen.
Whether you’re running a Changing Lives Through Literature alternative sentencing group or some other literature discussion group, encourage your members to continue reading and thinking about literature.
Find out how your community matters to your local library by visiting your library during National Library Week. Comment on this blog post to share with us how you participated in National Library Week.
For more information visit American Library Association – National Library Week.
Image provided by American Library Association.
Literature Transforms You
Posted: March 3, 2013 Filed under: CLTL, fiction, literature, reading, theater | Tags: CLTL, Hamlet 1 Comment »Press Release—Dartmouth, MA
Let Hamlet Transform You
In this video, J.C. Wallace portrays the complex role of Hamlet. “To be, or not to be” is one of the best-known lines in English literature. Wallace gives a superb performance of Hamlet’s greatest soliloquy.
Wallace is the founder of the Rhode Island Shakespeare Company and has portrayed Hamlet for the Little Theatre of Fall River.
This video was produced by JoAnne Breault, Director of Communication for Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL). Breault oversees CLTL’s Literature Transforms You campaign which promotes reading literature as a way to enhance lives. CLTL is based at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and was founded by Dr. Robert Waxler and Judge Robert Kane as an alternative sentencing program.
This is the second video in the Literature Transforms You series. Watch the first video—The Tell-Tale Heart.
Please comment on this post to share how literature has transformed you (or someone you know).
Changing Lives Through Literature Project: Literature Transforms You
Posted: February 10, 2013 Filed under: CLTL, literature, reading | Tags: CLTL, dramatic reading, Edgar Allan Poe, interpretive reading 34 Comments »Press Release—Dartmouth, MA
Watch this dramatic rendering of one scene from Edgar Allan Poe’s A Tell-Tale Heart.
Exposing the public to classic literature
The Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL) program has launched a literature project called Literature Transforms You. The project highlights notable works of literature by creating videos marketed on YouTube. The objective is to expose the public to classic pieces of literature and to renew the public’s interest in reading.
“There are so many great works of Literature that people have not been exposed to. Creating a video dramatizes the experience of reading a novel. CLTL is much more than an alternative sentencing program that helps rehabilitate criminal offenders,” explains the project’s Director of Communication, JoAnne Breault. “It inspires people to read and learn—ultimately promoting literacy.”
Using social media to promote literature
Ms. Breault further states that utilizing YouTube is part of a campaign to harness social media for this literature project.
First Poe, then Shakespeare
The first video features David Mello, Supervisor of Children’s Services at the Fall River (MA) Public Library. Mr. Mello dramatically acts out a scene from Edgar Allan Poe’s famous short story, A Tell-Tale Heart.
Ms. Breault’s next mission is to highlight a work of William Shakespeare. “The first time you are assigned to read Shakespeare, there is a sense of apprehension. Once you start reading his words, they are so fluid and melodious; you forget that you are reading old English,” says Ms. Breault.
Children’s books to rival television and video games
Another video will feature a children’s story. “Children are bombarded with violent video games and senseless television. Reading books engages a child’s mind and inspires imagination,” says Ms. Breault.
Seeking volunteer readers and actors
Ms. Breault is seeking volunteers to read captions from their favorite novels and seeking potential actors and actresses to dramatize the scenes. She will perform all of the videography and editing to get the project posted on YouTube.
For more information, e-mail JoAnne Breault at u_jbreault@umassd.edu.
Editor’s Update
David Mello, the spell-binding Tell-Tale Heart narrator in the first Literature Transforms You video, is featured in a Fall River Herald News article by Marc Munroe Dion. The article discusses Mello’s gallery-displayed mask collection which includes a haunting mask of author Edgar Allan Poe. Read the full article.
Woman of the Year embraces alternative sentencing
Posted: December 30, 2012 Filed under: award, CLTL, incarceration alternatives, juvenile | Tags: alternative sentencing, Bettina Borders, CLTL, SouthCoast, Woman of the Year 1 Comment »Judge Bettina Borders, of Bristol County Juvenile Court, was named 2012 SouthCoast Woman of the Year. She made “contributions to the community as a justice and activist,” according to the New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times. Her work includes making use of alternative sentencing programs such as Changing Lives Through Literature.
Read reporter Natalie Sherman’s full article about this amazing Woman of the Year.
Is someone in your community changing lives for the better? Tell us about that person.
To submit brief comments, use the comments link at the top of this post. To submit longer comments, or to include images, email me at cltl@umassd.edu.
We look forward to hearing about the remarkable, and perhaps under-recognized, people in your communities.
–Nancy E. Oliveira, Editor
A year-end letter to our readers
Posted: December 23, 2012 Filed under: CLTL | Tags: alternative sentencing, changing lives through literature, CLTL, criminal justice, literature 1 Comment »
Nancy E. Oliveira, blog editor
Dear Readers,
As we approach the end of 2012, let’s take a moment to reflect on this year’s successes—big and small—of Changing Lives Through Literature and other alternative sentencing programs.
Our purpose
We are the official blog of Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL)—an alternative sentencing program “based on the power of literature to transform lives through reading and group discussion,” as well-stated on the official CLTL website.
The main purpose of the Changing Lives, Changing Minds blog is to support CLTL. This blog provides a place to discuss:
- CLTL and other alternative sentencing programs that reduce criminal recidivism or change lives for the better—share news, concerns, successes, difficulties, and ideas
- Literature—recommend stories that inspire; talk about literary events that enlighten
- Criminal justice reform and other relevant criminal justice topics of today—discuss what works and what changes still need to take place
A milestone reached: 200 posts
We reached a milestone this year—we published our 200th post. Please continue to join us as we embark on our next 200. Also, while CLTL has been around since 1991, this blog turned four years old last month. Let’s look forward to the next four years and beyond.
Thank you
Thank you for contributing your thoughts, experiences, and insights to this blog. Also, thank you for reading it! We hope you find its content meaningful and valuable.
A call to action: share your 2012 success stories
We invite you to share your CLTL (or similar program) successes of 2012. We encourage you to use this blog to share your answers to any of these questions:
- How did your CLTL group or similar program succeed in 2012?
- What breakthroughs were experienced?
- What piece of literature did you or someone in your program find most inspiring?
For shorter comments, please use the leave a comment link at the top of this post and enter your reply. For longer comments, or to include images, submit up to 700 words to cltl@umassd.edu for publication on this blog.
We also welcome your thoughts on what you’d like to read on this blog for the upcoming year.
Again, thank you for helping to make this blog, CLTL, and similar programs a success.
Sincerely,
Nancy E. Oliveira
Editor of Changing Lives, Changing Minds—a Changing Lives Through Literature blog
Photo taken by JoAnne Breault.
Rehabilitation through reading: an opportunity to self-reflect and gain perspective
Posted: December 9, 2012 Filed under: CLTL, incarceration alternatives, reading, Uncategorized | Tags: alternative sentencing, book club, CLTL, reading 1 Comment »By Sara Dawkins
While reading, you use your imagination to visualize a story’s characters as if they’re starring in a movie within your mind. Although the author’s words greatly impact the flow of your mind-movie, your imagination fills in the blanks. Reading about characters who have similar circumstances to yours can help shed light on your own situation. This is one of the base beliefs behind the alternative sentencing program called Changing Lives Through Literature. How can literature encourage positive change in a criminal’s way of thinking?
1. Reflection: When offenders openly analyze their own lives through literary characters, they get a chance for inner reflection that they may never have explored before. They put themselves in the spotlight for self-examination.
2. Positive Role Models: After ordering CLTL classes as part of sentencing, judges may attend the classes involving the offenders-turned-students. By contributing to the literary discussions, the judges start becoming positive role models in the students’ lives—possibly changing how the students view the world. Parole officers can become role models just as much by participating in the students’ progress in the classes. This can greatly increase the chances of rehabilitation and reduce the likelihood of re-offending.
3. Self-Worth: In order for the program to work, students must have a capacity to accept responsibility for their actions. Students must show and demonstrate that they can be proactive in their own rehabilitation. For some, it is difficult to rely only on themselves to stay motivated enough for better lives. Family histories can be pivotal to how students adapt to this method of rehabilitation.
4. Perspective: This alternative method of sentencing is more than just a book club. The literary works chosen reflect students’ lives—either through the characters or the situations. It’s a way for students to examine their actions from the perceptions of others. As their imaginations explore the settings, the literature often drives a point home better than more jail time would.
5. Safety: The philosophy behind CLTL is such that it allows students to feel safe when discussing literature. Students open themselves up and discuss the actions of literary characters, and how the characters relate to themselves.
Alternative sentencing methods for criminal offenders has had great success. Support is growing for methods such as these. Words can be powerful to those who are open to their meanings. We should embrace the success of CLTL and support rehabilitation over punishment to those who need it and who are willing to benefit from it.
Sara Dawkins is an active nanny as well as an active freelance writer. She is a frequent contributor of http://www.nannypro.com/.
A creative writing community project brings people together
Posted: December 1, 2012 Filed under: CLTL, fiction, incarceration alternatives, literature, poetry, Uncategorized | Tags: collaborative writing, Lessons, Matt Harvey, Sally Flint, Stories Connect, storytelling 5 Comments »Lessons: Stories that connect from Stories Connect
Lessons cover
By Sally Flint
People’s lives have been changed not only by reading and discussing literature, but by writing creatively too. In Exeter, England, this has culminated in publishing a book of linked short stories and poems. This book is Lessons and it comes from Stories Connect—a community project, similar in format to Changing Lives Through Literature, that takes place outside prisons to help ex-offenders, substance misusers and other vulnerable people get over difficult times in their lives.
In 2011, after reading Alan Bennett’s Talking Heads and Andrea Levy’s Small Island, discussions centred on the significance of characters in storytelling, how our lives interconnect, and how perceptions of one another can be very different according to our individual experiences. Rather than read more texts to illustrate this, both the participants and facilitators of Stories Connect began a collaborative writing experiment.
Each person invented a character—then got to know his imaginary person through answering a questionnaire which not only detailed a physical description and obvious things such as what the character did for a job, but also smaller things such as what the character kept under his bed. Once each character was firmly established in each writer’s mind the group discussed how the characters’ lives might overlap and be brought together. Part of the success of this collection is that each writer firmly took ownership of his own imaginary character and stepped into his character’s shoes.
However, to bring the characters together it was decided something more was needed—an event. Parties and weddings and all sorts of other occasions were brainstormed and somehow, out of talking about school reunions, the idea surfaced that the characters would all attend a memorial service for a recently retired headmaster, Keith Simon Lung.
Everyone discussed, debated and created—then each person wrote his character’s story in a way that linked to the headmaster and his memorial. The stories took months to shape, edit and bring together as an anthology. This process fostered an environment of trust and commitment. It motivated both participants and facilitators to further improve their communicative and observational skills. Everyone worked hard to make each story stand alone, while ensuring there are many intriguing links to be made across the whole collection and questioned by the reader.
Some of the contributors had never written a story or poem before while some had read and written lots. Perhaps what this book reveals best, and why the group wanted it published, is to show how the process of writing brought them together. The result, Lessons, proves that stretching imaginations and the practice of storytelling unites people at all levels, regardless of age, background, ethnicity or past histories. In the process of creating, the group encountered the unexpected and overcame challenges and, it has to be said, they all laughed lots!
“This is a consummate piece of group story-telling, a feat of cooperation and collaboration,” writes poet and broadcaster Matt Harvey in the book’s forward. He supports and works with Stories Connect.
Lessons is published by Dirt Pie Press, University of Exeter: www.riptidejournal.co.uk
ISBN: 978-0-9558326-7-3
For more information, e-mail either:
Dr. Sally Flint, facilitator and publisher: s.flint@exeter.ac.uk
Louise Ross, Stories Connect co-ordinator: knotaproblem@hotmail.co.uk
Dr. Sally Flint joined Stories Connect in 2007. She is a publisher, writer, and, creative writing teacher. She also co-edits Riptide Journal.
Unbound: Books Behind Bars
Posted: November 25, 2012 Filed under: CLTL, current events, literature | Tags: Books Behind Bars, Boston Book Festival, CLTL, Prison Book Program 2 Comments »Boston Book Festival panel discussion covers remorse, redemption, and resiliency
By JoAnne Breault
JoAnne Breault, author
“When you are in prison, you don’t get to make a lot of choices and you have a lot of time to think about why you are there. You lose your sense of time,” explained former inmate William Gaul to a crowd at the Boston Public Library.
Many prisoners have little or no access to education, mental health treatment, or rehabilitation opportunities. “The Prison Book Program was a godsend to me,” said Gaul. “I began reading in prison and books had a profound meaning.”
Gaul was one of four panelists at Unbound: Books Behind Bars, a panel discussion at this year’s Boston Book Festival, New England’s largest annual literary event. Gaul served his eight-year sentence and graduated from college with a BA in Biblical Theology. He then worked as a coordinator for a criminal justice program and advocated for criminal offenders at American Friends Service Committee. He has been both a client and a volunteer with the Prison Book Program, a Quincy, MA non-profit organization. “While in prison, I traveled the world through reading. I want to give that back,” said Gaul.
Far left: Moderator Dr. Robert P. Waxler; L to R: Panelists William Gaul, Judge Robert Kane, Michael Krupa, and Edson Monteiro
Stories of remorse, redemption, and resiliency resonated throughout the panel discussion as representatives of literacy organizations and former criminal offenders interacted with each other. Independent studies show that criminal offenders who participate in literacy programs are less likely to re-offend.
In addition to former inmate Gaul, the panelists included Judge Robert Kane, Edson Monteiro, and Michael Krupa.
Dr. Robert P. Waxler, author and Professor of English at University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, moderated the panel. “Books create an opportunity,” said Waxler. “They can liberate beyond the steel of a rigid prison.”
Dr. Waxler and Judge Kane co-founded Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL), an alternative sentencing program. CLTL gives criminal offenders opportunities to participate in reading discussion groups—a probation requirement for some.
Panelist Edson Monteiro, an urbane young man, told his compelling story of being diagnosed with Leukemia as a college varsity soccer player. Plagued with surmounting medical bills, Monteiro quit school. “I made some bad decisions,” admitted Monteiro.
Panelists Michael Krupa (l) and Edson Monteiro (r) shake hands.
Monteiro was convicted of a crime. While serving his time, he began reading books about managing finances, business, buying stocks, and religion. “I sought books that would help me excel in life and expand my knowledge,” he said.
Today Monteiro represents a prison success story. He graduated from college in 2010 with a Bachelor of Science degree and has started his own IT company. Books remain an important part of his life.
Panelist Michael Krupa serves as the board chair of Concord (MA) Prison Outreach and leads weekly book discussion groups at MCI Concord and the Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, MA. “As volunteers we come into the prison system and try and humanize their experience,” said Krupa.
During the panel’s question and answer period, Katelyn, a young blonde woman in a tight ponytail, bravely made her way to the podium. She labeled herself as a byproduct of Boston’s inner city. She confided that she had gotten into trouble and ended up in a juvenile detention center. “It was not until after I was incarcerated that I developed an interest in reading books.” Today she attends community college and aspires to become a journalist.
2.2 million people are incarcerated in the United States today. According to the Massachusetts Department of Correction, it costs taxpayers $43,000 per year to incarcerate a prisoner. Programs like the Prison Book Program and Changing Lives Through Literature only cost approximately $500.00 per participant. The end result is a reduction in recidivism.
JoAnne Breault is seeking her Master’s Degree in Professional Writing at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. She hopes to pursue a career in public relations writing.
Photos by JoAnne Breault.
