Reflection

When I first was assigned this blog thing, I thought that it was going to be just another thing to do for one of my classes that was just going to be a waste of time. But I actually learned a little bit more than I thought I would. I knew that there many different reasons to ban books in school and public libraries, but I didn't know that so many of the books that I grew up reading or have read recently were on one of the many lists of banned or censored books. I think that doing this project is going to make me think very hard about the texts that I choose to read in my future classroom. We talked a lot in class about censorship and Dr. Rozema gave us a list of some of the texts that are frequently challenged, but through my research I found many more that could be taught in school but have been banned.

I am actually really glad that this was assigned for my ENG 311 class. It made me go beyond what I already knew to find out more information about why books are banned and who bans them. I most likely wouldn't have done research on banned books until I was actually being challenged by a parent as to why I chose a certain book to read in my class. I do believe that it is important to expose students to some banned books though so they can see why someone would want to ban them. I think that it is a great learning experience for students to learn things that other people don't think are appropriate. This helps students come up with their own thoughts on these types of hard issues.

I am also glad that we did this project in class because it gives me another thing that I could do with my students in my future classroom. Blog entries are a good way to get students used to using the internet and responding to things that happen in class a different way than just writing on paper. Students should be exposed to using the internet and computers as much as possible, because when they get to college, these two are very important tools.

Banned books online

I found a website called "Banned Books Online" that lists books that have been censored or have been attempted to be censored in libraries across the country ranging from Ulysses to Little Red Riding Hood. All of the books on this website were picked out of "The Online Books Page" website. Below are just a few of the books and the reasons why they were censored or challenged.

Books Suppressed or Censored by Legal Authorities

Ulysses by James Joyce was selected by the Modern Library as the best novel of the 20th century, and has received wide praise from other literature scholars, including those who have defended online censorship. (Carnegie Mellon English professor and vice-provost Erwin Steinberg, who praised the book in 1994, also defended CMU's declaration that year to delete alt.sex and some 80 other newsgroups, claiming they were legally obligated to do so.) Ulysses was barred from the United States as obscene for 15 years, and was seized by U.S Postal Authorities in 1918 and 1930. The lifting of the ban in 1933 came only after advocates fought for the right to publish the book.

In 1930, U.S. Customs seized Harvard-bound copies of Candide, Voltaire's critically hailed satire, claiming obscenity. Two Harvard professors defended the work, and it was later admitted in a different edition. In 1944, the US Post Office demanded the omission of Candide from a mailed Concord Books catalog.

Aristophanes' Lysistrata, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Boccaccio's Decameron, Defoe's Moll Flanders, and various editions of The Arabian Nights were all banned for decades from the U.S. mails under the Comstock Law of 1873. Officially known as the Federal Anti-Obscenity Act, this law banned the mailing of "lewd", "indecent", "filthy", or "obscene" materials. The Comstock laws, while now unenforced, remain for the most part on the books today; the Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1996 even specifically applied some of them to computer networks. The anti-war Lysistrata was banned again in 1967 in Greece, which was then controlled by a military junta.

Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman's famous collection of poetry, was withdrawn in Boston in 1881, after the District Attorney threatened criminal prosecution for the use of explicit language in some poems. The work was later published in Philadelphia.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau's autobiography Confessions was banned by U.S. Customs in 1929 as injurious to public morality. His philosophical works were also banned in the USSR in 1935, and some were placed on the Catholic Church's Index of Prohibited Books in the 18th century. (The Index was a primarily a matter of church law, but in some areas before the mid-19th century, it also had the force of secular law. A summary of the contents of the last edition, published in 1949, is available from the Internet Archive. The Index was finally abolished in 1966.)

Thomas Paine, best known for his writings supporting American independence, was indicted for treason in England in 1792 for his work The Rights of Man, defending the French Revolution. More than one English publisher was also prosecuted for printing The Age of Reason, where Paine argues for Deism and against Christianity and Atheism.

South Africa's apartheid regime banned a number of classic books; in 1955, for instance, the New York Times reported that Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was banned there as "indecent, objectionable, or obscene". At one time, the regime also reportedly banned Anna Sewell's Black Beauty, a story about a horse.

An illustrated edition of "Little Red Riding Hood" was banned in two California school districts in 1989. Following the Little Red-Cap story from Grimm's Fairy Tales, the book shows the heroine taking food and wine to her grandmother. The school districts cited concerns about the use of alcohol in the story.

In Mark Twain's lifetime, his books Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn were excluded from the juvenile sections of the Brooklyn Public library (among other libraries), and banned from the library in Concord, MA, home of Henry Thoreau. In recent years, some high schools have dropped Huckleberry Finn from their reading lists, or have been sued by parents who want the book dropped. In Tempe, Arizona, a parent's lawsuit that attempted to get the local high school to remove the book from a required reading list went as far as a federal appeals court in 1998. (The court's decision in the case, which affirmed Tempe High's right to teach the book, has some interesting comments about education and racial tensions.) The Tempe suit, and other recent incidents, have often been concerned with the use of the word "nigger", a word that also got Uncle Tom's Cabin challenged in Waukegan, Illinois. For a comprehensive web site describing attempts to ban Huckleberry Finn and other Twain works, see the site Huckleberry Finn Debated, by Jim Zwick.

As you can see, there are many reasons why books get banned and some of the reasons, to me, aren't really anything too big. For instance, the Little Red Riding Hood one is a little bit ridiculous. When kids are reading the story about Little Red Riding Hood, they don't notice that what she is bringing her grandmother is wine. I don't believe that this version of the story in Grimm's Fairy Tales is really promoting the use of alcohol to young children. I can understand the censorship of works of literature with obscene language or explicit descriptions of sexuality in school libraries because of the unwanted exposure to young children, but why is it such a big deal for adults to be able to read about these things. Adults can choose what they want to read, this is a free country isn't it? I just feel that to censor texts for young children when they are inappropriate for their age is alright to do. I know that there are definitely some things out in the world that I wouldn't want my children to read until they are old enough to understand and be mature about "adult" situations or cursing, but when texts are getting censored for people of all ages, I don't really think that it is something that we need to be worrying about. There are a lot more important things going on the world that need our attention, than worrying about what other people are reading (except children).

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

I went to the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. lecture earlier this semester for an assignment in my ENG 311 class and I am really glad that it was required for the class. I admit that I definitely would not have gone if it was just optional. I did enjoy it though. I learned a lot about his life's quest and the life of W.E.B. Dubois. I really didn't know much at all about either of them before I went to this lecture. This lecture was actually very entertaining especially since Gates came to Grand Valley literally days after having surgery on his knee. He joked about being on Vicadin, but that he felt it was really important to make this appointment with GVSU students and faculty.

I really thought that he would talk more about the barriers to using technology in the classroom, but he really didn't get into that. He mostly talked about the Encyclopedia Africana that W.E.B. Dubois dedicated most of his life to. I thought it was really interesting how much set-backs he had to go through to get this encyclopedia a reality. It was really sad that everytime he got close to making his dream come true, something had to come up to make it almost impossible. It was very interesting to get a history lesson of Dubois' life and Gates' life. Dubois was a very important person to Gates and he really gave him a personality in all of his stories that he told us and the struggles he went through.

Gates was very inspiring to me though. He took something that he believed in that didn't look like it would ever get finished and he did it. He make the Encyclopedia Africana a reality. Just like Dubois, most of Gates' life was dedicated to this encyclopedia and you could really tell in his voice that this was something that he was very proud of. Of course he would be though since he spent his whole life working towards this goal. I don’t think Gates realized everything he would need to endure to get his encyclopedia into the public. When so many companies told him he needed to do so many different things, he must have become very frustrated. He had to raise 2 million dollars, but lucky for Gates, he knew someone (Quincy Jones) who was willing to give him $62, 500 that Random House was willing to match. So, Gates was able to make the encyclopedia and when he was asked to make it into a CD-Rom he said yes although he didn't even have any idea what a CD-Rom was. Then he was asked to make a game out of the words to be used in the encyclopedia. Luckily, Gates pulled through and the Encyclopedia Africana became a reality on January 19, 1999.

I do believe that it is very important for all teachers to be familiar with computers and other types of technology so they can teach their students about technology. Some types of technology can be very helpful and beneficial to use in the classroom, such as computers for writing papers, the internet for doing research, slide shows, etc. Every education student as GVSU is required to take a computers in education course, which gives us a very good idea of a bunch of different things that can be used in the classroom. I feel that this class is very important to teach us different ways to incorporate different kinds of learning into the classroom.

OOps! I just noticed that I accidentally posted my last blog entry twice! I obviously didn't mean to do that. Sorry!

Anyways, I found an article on the American Library Association's website about the National Banned Books week. It started in 1982 "to remind Americans not to take this precious democratic freedom for granted." This years marks Banned Books Weeks' 25th anniversary and it runs the last week in September each year. "BBW celebrates the freedom to choose or the freedom to express one’s opinion even if that opinion might be considered unorthodox or unpopular and stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of those unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints to all who wish to read them. After all, intellectual freedom can exist only where these two essential conditions are met."

"Each year, the American Library Association (ALA) is asked why the week is called “Banned Books Week” instead of “Challenged Books Week,” since the majority of the books featured during the week are not banned, but “merely” challenged. There are two reasons. One, ALA does not “own” the name Banned Books Week, but is just one of several cosponsors of BBW; therefore, ALA cannot change the name without all the cosponsors agreeing to a change. Two, none want to do so, primarily because a challenge is an attempt to ban or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A successful challenge would result in materials being banned or restricted."

Each year a BBW kit is developed that is made up of posters, bookmarks, buttons, and a Resource Guide which contains ideas for activities for BBW. The Resource Guide contains a list of the year's banned or challenged books. I think that this is a good idea for the schools to have every year for their libraries. It would give students and teachers a chance to learn more about censorship of books and why they are being challenged in the first place. I think that during Banned Books Week could be a great "teachable moment" when teachers bring up the issue of censorship or banning of certain books and get their students talking about why certain books would be seen as inappropriate to some people. School libraries should make it a point to get this information in the schools for students to learn about.

Texas District

Another article on the American Library Association website was posted the end of September about a Texas School District that pulled two different books from a Junior High School library due to profanity. The superintendent of the Columbia-Brazoria (Tex.) Independent School District said that the books would no longer be available. The books that were banned were Ursula LeGuin’s A Fisherman of the Inland Sea and Zero to Sixty: The Motorcycle Journey of a Lifetime by Gary Paulsen.

"Linda Nall, who revealed herself as the complainant in a September 25 letter to the Brazosport Facts newspaper wrote that she had objected August 29 to a novel that “had the F-word 13 times in the first chapter.” At the September 19 meeting, parent Monte Hurley voiced a separate objection to depictions of sex acts and profanity in Zero to Sixty, which his 12-year-old had borrowed. “I understand that my children hear this stuff in the public, and they’ll hear it in school, I’m sure, but I don’t want my tax dollars to teach it to my children,” Hurley said in the September 21 Facts."

The school actually barred students from checking out any books from the library for three days to make sure that there weren't any other books that could possibly cause an uproar. No other books were found that could cause a problem among middle schoolers or their parents. The library ultimately decided to make a young adult section where controversial books dealing with topics like death, sex, abuse, or suicide, could be found in and the students had to have written permission from a parent/guardian to check out the books in that section.

I feel that in an instance like this it was a good idea on the part of the school district to make sure that students are not exposed to certain issues if their parents think it is inappropriate. For the library to start its own young adult section was a good idea so not every student would be able to come in contact with. I believe in my previous blog I also said that the graphic novels that were being tried should be in a specific and secluded section of the library where not all students have access to. There is always going to be something that parents are going to make a fuss about and most of them are within reason. I think that what this Texas school district did was an excellent way to make parents happy and also keep the books in the library for diversity of texts.

Texas District

Another article on the American Library Association website was posted the end of September about a Texas School District that pulled two different books from a Junior High School library due to profanity. The superintendent of the Columbia-Brazoria (Tex.) Independent School District said that the books would no longer be available. The books that were banned were Ursula LeGuin’s A Fisherman of the Inland Sea and Zero to Sixty: The Motorcycle Journey of a Lifetime by Gary Paulsen.

"Linda Nall, who revealed herself as the complainant in a September 25 letter to the Brazosport Facts newspaper wrote that she had objected August 29 to a novel that “had the F-word 13 times in the first chapter.” At the September 19 meeting, parent Monte Hurley voiced a separate objection to depictions of sex acts and profanity in Zero to Sixty, which his 12-year-old had borrowed. “I understand that my children hear this stuff in the public, and they’ll hear it in school, I’m sure, but I don’t want my tax dollars to teach it to my children,” Hurley said in the September 21 Facts."

The school actually barred students from checking out any books from the library for three days to make sure that there weren't any other books that could possibly cause an uproar. No other books were found that could cause a problem among middle schoolers or their parents. The library ultimately decided to make a young adult section where controversial books dealing with topics like death, sex, abuse, or suicide, could be found in and the students had to have written permission from a parent/guardian to check out the books in that section.

I feel that in an instance like this it was a good idea on the part of the school district to make sure that students are not exposed to certain issues if their parents think it is inappropriate. For the library to start its own young adult section was a good idea so not every student would be able to come in contact with. I believe in my previous blog I also said that the graphic novels that were being tried should be in a specific and secluded section of the library where not all students have access to. There is always going to be something that parents are going to make a fuss about and most of them are within reason. I think that what this Texas school district did was an excellent way to make parents happy and also keep the books in the library for diversity of texts.

Graphic Novel banned

In Marshall County, Missouri a woman named Louise Mills challenged two graphic novels that can be found at the public library in town at the October 4 city council meeting. The two novels, "Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic" by Alison Bechdel and "Blankets" by Craig Thompson, were challenged not for the content of the stories, but because of the illustrations.

“My concern does not lie with the content of the novels, rather my concern is with the illustrations and their availability to children and the community,” Mills told the library board, which called the October 4 meeting, citing sexually explicit drawings in the two coming-of-age books.

Mills went on to explain that her concern centered on children stumbling onto the explicit illustrations after being attracted to the comic-book style of the titles. With photocopies of some of the images projected onto the meeting-room walls, Mills cautioned that collecting such material would lead to the library’s eventually drawing the same clientele as “the porn shop down at the junction,” according to the October 5 Marshall Democrat-News.

I'm not quite sure how I feel about these books being banned from the public library. I do agree with the woman who is challenging the books in that I wouldn't want my future kids being able to very easily find images that are sexually explicit. There are definetely things that young children do not need to be exposed to. Comic books are very popular especially with young boys and I do agree that the graphic novel style books could attract young kids to see what they are all about. I'm sure that there are lots of parents all around the world that wouldn't want their child to be exposed to sexually explicit illustrations.

On the other hand, later in the article another person, "Jeani Wilson also supported having a diversity of materials, saying “If you have only things that you like in a library then it is a private library.”

I do feel like it is important to have a diversified collection of texts in a public library that will appeal to all people. Maybe a solution to having these two graphic novels in the public library is to put them in a place where children will be very unlikely to find them and come in contact with them.

Harry Potter

I found a case on the American Library Association website that had to do with the banning of Harry Potter books. A parent who had previously "unsuccessfully sought the removal of the Harry Potter series from the Gwinnet County (Ga) Public Schools' libraries appealed to the state Board of Education October 3." She believed that the books encouraged witchcraft and said that there have been studies that have shown that kids try to cast spells. Here is a quote from the article:

“Witchcraft is being mainstreamed to our children today,” said Mallory. “My children are the most precious thing in the world to me. I surely do not want them to be indoctrinated into a religion whose practices are evil.”

I really disagree with this as I said before in one of my other blogs. I know that kids are very easily influenced by things that they see on tv and maybe read in books, but I think that if they are taught to know the difference between things that are real and things that aren't they will be able to understand that the things that happen in the books are imaginary. I do know that there are people in the world who do believe in witchcraft and "practice" it, but I don't think that just by reading Harry Potter books that kids will think that they can actually cast spells on people.

These books are supposed to be fantasy fiction books. Just in the genre alone you should be able to tell that it is FANTASY. Reading of any kind is good for children to do. These days, kids are so into watching tv and playing video games that it is getting harder and harder to get them to read. Also, it is very good for students to read books that help them use their imagination. The best kind of reading is when a student gets pulled into the story and even maybe can see himself/herself in one of the characters. I think that the role of parents and teachers is to teach their students how to differentiate between fantasy and reality though. As long as the students understand the difference, there should be no reason for the student to think that they can actually cast spells.

I did a search on Google today and found a really good set of websites that gave me information on banned books. One handy website titled "Banning and Censorship of Children's Books" gave me a couple reasons why people would want to ban children's books from being used in the classroom.

"When people challenge books it is generally out of a concern that the contents of the book will be harmful to the reader. According to the ALA, there are four motivating factors:

Family Values
Religion
Political Views
Minority Rights.

The age level for which a book is intended does not guarantee that someone won't try to censor it. Though the emphasis seems to be on challenges to children's and Young Adult books, attempts are also mounted to restrict access to certain adult books. Most complaints are made by parents and are directed to public libraries and schools."

On a website titled, "Censorship, Banned and Challenged Children's Books" they list the Top 10 Most Frequently Banned Books of 2004:

1. "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
2. "Fallen Angels" by Walter Dean Myers
3. "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture" by Michael A.Bellesiles

4. Captain Underpants series by Dav Pilkey
5. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky
6. "What My Mother Doesn't Know" by Sonya Sones
7. "In the Night Kitchen" by Maurice Sendak
8. "King & King" by Linda de Haan and Stern Nijland
9. "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou
10."Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck.

I can understand after reading "Of Mice and Men" why parents would not want they're children reading it. All of the swearing even surprised me at first when I started reading it. Also, at the end of the book when George shoots Lenny it is pretty unexpected and could be hard for a child in middle school to understand. Even now I would rather read a book that has a happy ending than one that ends with someone shooting their friend, and I'm 22! (Maybe that's just because I'm a girl).

There are some books that I don't really understand why they are banned though. Last semester I tutored a 4th grade boy in reading and we read the Captain Underpants series together. I don't really see a reason why this would be on the top 10 list of banned books. There are two little boys who are mischievous and get into trouble quite a lot and there is a little bit of fighting in them, but the books are pretty much about the good guys, Captain Underpants and the two boys, saving the world from the bad guys. What's wrong with that? Also, I have read all of the Harry Potter books and I love them. And every little kid that I have talked to about these books has loved them too. I don't understand how someone could think that just because a kid reads a book about wizardry that they are somehow worshipping witchcraft or the devil even. Sometimes people boggle my mind.

Banned book in Miami

The issue of banning books in schools is a controversial issue for many people in the United States. Like all controversial issues there are people for the banning of books in schools and there are people against it who say that children need to be exposed to books of all types. I personally think that there certain books that children probably don't need to read because of violence or demeaning behavior or language. There is a certain age that it's important for children to know about the world around them in "real" terms, but until a child reaches an age when they are mature enough to understand the different between the world of books and the "real world" I believe that certain books should not be available through schools.

One issue of banned books was a Cuban picture book called Cuban Kids in the Miami-Dade, Florida Public Schools.

"The (reconsideration) committee was formed to review the challenge of area resident Dalila Rodriguez, even though her children do not attend the school, according to the August 26 Miami Herald. Rodriguez objected to photos in the book of a child with a rifle and children saluting the Cuban flag with the caption, “We will be like Che!” “It’s not that we want the book to be burned,” she told the Herald. “If you want it in Barnes and Noble and somebody wants to buy it, fine. But don’t make it available to an 8- or 9-year-old child.”

"Howard Simon, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida, characterized the book’s removal as “a glimpse of what the future is going to be like unless the courts put a stop to this growing book-banning cancer in Miami–Dade County"

My first blog

I am really excited to be taking the class Literature for Adolescents. I am actually planning on being an elementary teacher, but I thought it would be important to know what kind of literature middle school students read just in case I decide to teach 6th grade instead.

I'm pretty sure that my topic for my blogs in the future will be about books that are being banned in the classrooms. I really want to learn about why certain books are being banned and how this will affect the students. I know that in some schools the Harry Potter books are banned and I personally don't see what the big deal is. I feel like these books are good for students to use their imagination and who can honestly say that they didn't think about being a wizard or having magical powers when they were younger?

So far I have subscribed to the New York Post and Washington Post for education articles, the American Library Association. I had a really hard time finding articles in the New York Post and Washington Post, so you won't see anything in my blog from these two. I used the ALA website a lot for articles and I did a little research on yahoo and google for article also.
Until next time!
~Sarah

Hello

Hello! My name is Sarah and this is my first ever blogging experience! I am keeping this blog as part of a college course called Literature for Adolescents. Hopefully you will find what I have to say interesting. Enjoy!