Education Short List

Two weeks ago, September 26th – October 3rd was Banned Book Week. Tis is an annual event set forth by the American Library Association

“Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.”

AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/index.cfm

KIDS RIGHT TO READ PROJECT
http://www.ncac.org/Kids-Right-to-Read

BANNED BOOKS
http://www.banned-books.com/

BANNED BOOKS WEEK
http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/

It doesn’t matter what personal ideals an educator may have about the particular books on the list – this still can be the time to make learning lessons out of life experiences. I really believe that teachers have a difficult job – working hard to provide their students with a valuable education, while instilling strong manners and discipline. And then, to have to create lessons that incorporate current events and issues – it can be very trying.

So to help out, here are a few suggestions on how to take this current issue of Banned Book Week and implement teachable moments into your class routine.

• Talk about censorship
o The history of censorship in the U.S.
o Evolution and reasoning for Banned Book Week
o For high school classes, you could incorporate censorship throughout the world

• Ask students if they have read any of the banned books
o Have students write a review of the book
o Use as a writing prompt to develop the writing skill set that you are focusing on (compare/contrast, expository, research)

• Learn about your city and state
o Do geography lessons to see which cities and states have proposed banning books, why, and what the outcome was
o For an added bonus you could integrate math into it
• Calculate the distance from your school to the various cities that banned books, do this in metric and U.S. measurements

• Do a class survey
o Create an anonymous survey for each student, review the books that were proposed for banning in the past year
• Have students write whether or not they support banning that book; include telling why
• If students are comfortable, this could be done as an oral presentation