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Adriana M. Chávez
LAS CRUCES – There’s an uncommon however fascinating, and extremely collaborative, partnership between two New Mexico State University school members in two vastly completely different fields: literacy and criminal justice. But it’s a collaboration that won’t have been doable if it weren’t for NMSU’s Teaching Academy, and the college’s help of interdisciplinary analysis.
Mary Fahrenbruck, an affiliate professor in the College of Health, Education and Social Transformation, started mentoring Saundra Trujillo, an assistant criminal justice professor in the College of Arts and Sciences, by way of a program provided by the Teaching Academy. The two started discussing younger grownup novels that embody features of the criminal justice system, since Fahrenbruck research youngsters’s and younger grownup literature.
“I had been reading novels with a criminal aspect, and I always wondered how much of it is true,” Fahrenbruck stated. “I didn’t have anybody to ask that question to, and I had been investigating authors to see how much research they had done. Then when I met Saundra at the Teaching Academy, we started talking about some of the things that we do and I mentioned the curiosity that I had.”
Before assembly Fahrenbruck, Trujillo had questioned how criminal justice college students, significantly graduate college students, may finest discover ways to apply the criminological theories they had been studying in class. A analysis challenge was born.
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Fahrenbruck and Trujillo, with the assistance of an undergraduate analysis assistant, started a study late final 12 months on how college students may study from younger grownup novels, and the criminal justice points addressed in these novels. So far, their study has revolved round 4 books – “Illegal” by Francisco X. Stork, “Juvie” by Steve Watkins, “Long Way Down” by Jason Reynolds, and “Punching the Air” by Ibi Zoboi and jail reform activist Yusef Salaam of the Exonerated Five, a bunch of 5 teenagers who had been convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case and later exonerated.
The study will proceed by way of late 2023 and ultimately embody further younger grownup novels with features of criminal justice embedded in the plot and undergraduate college students. Fahrenbruck stated she’d additionally wish to increase the study to incorporate extra analysis questions relating to youngsters’s literature, and there are plans to incorporate highschool college students, who’re the audience for younger grownup novels.
“What we’re finding so far is that graduate students are able to better apply the criminological theory they’re learning in class to the real-world situations in the novels,” Trujillo stated. “Some students are very technical about what is in the novels, and others are very emotionally connected to the novels and take a little bit of a different perspective in their applications.”
There have been earlier analysis research specializing in the accuracy of crime and criminal justice portrayed in tv exhibits and films, however none have focused younger grownup novels, Trujillo stated.
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“I thought for sure, when we first started, that novels were going to be like TV or the movies, more fiction than not and applying theory won’t really pan out,” Trujillo stated. “But the authors of these novels have done so much research, and some are based on very real-life experiences, so theory application works very well.”
Fahrenbruck stated younger grownup novels could also be extra sensible as a result of readers are in a position to take in extra views in comparison with TV exhibits or motion pictures.
“We can actually see what the characters are thinking in a book. We can delve much more deeply into the novels,” Fahrenbruck stated.
One instance of this was seen when college students mentioned a portion of “Punching the Air” the place the character attends his bond listening to in courtroom.
“There’s a snippet in there that talks about bonding out, and the students grabbed onto that information about the difficulties people face before a judge and posting bond money. They had this really rich, in-depth conversation,” Fahrenbruck stated.
Trujillo added, “I get so excited when I see those kinds of discussions because they’re very much in line with the theory and empirical work that they’re learning.”
“Eye on Research” is offered by New Mexico State University. This week’s function was written by Adriana M. Chávez of Marketing and Communications. She might be reached at 575-646-1957 or adchavez@nmsu.edu.
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