Imagine being in a school with no fiction books, not being able to read books that you genuinely enjoy and can relate to. The school board is trying to take away fiction books from the curriculum, which won’t allow students to read/relate to real world problems and how to deal with them such as mental illness .For example, Where Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley, a good read, would be taken away. The two stories that collide of Bentone and Cullen and their troubles in the real life would no longer be available, students then would not be able to associate and read about the problems explained in the book. Therefore, fiction books should be included in the curriculum due to the fact that students can pertain to them more than non-fiction …show more content…
“We've learned from this that death can hurt us. It can surprise us. It can scare us. It can keep us up at night. But we've also learned the things that death cannot do. It cannot crush our hopes. It cannot take away the love and support of our family and friends. It cannot make us lose our unending faith in the world and in God. It has saddened us, but it will not prevail.” This quote is showing how even though such an appalling thing occurred something positive did come out of it. Such as Cullen's parents getting closer to each other, when before they did not have a good relationship. Another example is, “Mena Prescott had become, at some point over that summer, someone I learned to truly appreciate, which is not something I do easily with most people. For at least one night a week since Gabriel's disappearance, Mena had shown up at our house with a sack full of groceries and cooked an entire meal, dessert and all.” (Whaley, 2011, chapter 11 page 17) This quote is showing how even though Gabriel disappeared, he got to see the true friends he has. Such as Mena, who stepped up and began to help out the family since she knew they were going through a rough time. Overall these quotes are lessons from the book showing how no matter how bad the situation goes they managed to find some good. Therefore fiction books have many well thought out topics which could teach many things to students if they stayed in the
In the article How Banning Books Marginalizes Children, the author, Paul Ringel, states that approximately fifty-two percent of the books banned in the last ten years illustrate “diverse content”, such as race, religion, gender identity, etc. Ringel believes that attitudes about which books are “appropriate” for kids to read have too often suppressed stories about different cultures and life experiences. He basis his argument around the pretext that when libraries stop the banning it will allow kids to learn how to navigate imaginary worlds filled with differences and apply those lessons to their own lives.
Overall, fiction novels should be authorized to be in the school curriculum. Figment of imagination helps students connect more with the real world and find a solution to the challenges encountered. Students are open to different perspectives of life and learn to be creative and open minded. Lessons like making life and death decisions, telling the truth and the true meaning of friendship
In the article censorship: a personal view by Judy bulme she discusses and touches on censorship in literature in children and young adolescence books. Now in article there are a lot of possible exigencies listed threw out the article one of the main exigencies is that Judy bulme has personal experience with censorship as a little girl, with that personal account she has familiarity that compels and gives her credibility to write this article. With exigencie their also comes a purpose bulme’s purpose in the article is trying to convince parents that you should not coddle a young teen or an adolescent from literature that may not be suitable for them, but let their mind wonder and explain it after they read it. Also she communicates that censorship on books are not right because it’s unconstitutional violating the first amendment freedom of press. The audience she speaks to in article is the group of parents that are like middle age and older that have one track minds, and have to young teens and adolescent ages between 12-9 years old that are hesitant to let their children to read edgy books, teens who were her age and, have or experience the same thing she went thought as a kid, teachers and facility that believe in her cause that have lost their job over edgy books that were not age appropriate to their students. The context that you have to consider in the time of Judy bulme article is there is are a lot of issues going on the America culture that censorship of government felt need be. For inesxctie like the cold war was going on and nobody knew if another war was going to break out at any time. So any material that seemed edgy or conserverial it was going to be censored or restricted by the censors to the minors. Then th...
content of the book, the school board voted 5-4 to ban the book. The book was later reinstated in the curriculum when the board learned that
For many years schools have banned books from being taught to their students because of parent complaints. These books have been shunned from the criteria, which may or may not affect the student’s understanding on a specific subject. People have been fighting to have these books banned because of excessive use of profanity, violence, sex, drugs and many other reasons. They do not look further in the books to see exactly what the author is trying to portray. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is banned in various places in the United States. This book should not be banned because, this book shows an important part in our history, it is not pro-racism, and it shows how far along we have come since then.
The children are the real losers because they are the ones that are not able to read the classic works of literature, which are the backbone of classroom discussions all across the United States. The American Association of School Administrators (AASA) defines censorship as: “The removal, suppression, or restricted circulation of literary, artistic, or educational materials. of images, ideas, and information.on the grounds that these are morally or otherwise objectionable in light of standards applied by the censor” (Miner 1998). In schools there are three types of censorship, one type is a “parent” who doesn’t want their child to read a particular book. Another is a parent, teacher, administrator, or school board member who argues that no one in the class, or school, should read the book in dispute.
Many books have been questioned and challenged. Even as far as to banning them. But what exactly is a banned book and why are they banned? A banned book is a book that has been censored by an authority, a government body, a library, or a even school system. A book that has been banned is actually removed from a library or school system. The actual contextual reasons as to banning them is use of explicit violence, gore, sexuality, explicit language, religion, or dark times in history. On the non-contextual side of the reason why they are banned books are usually because with the best intentions to protect people, frequently children, from difficult philosophies and information. Teachers, or even more common adults, often censor books from children if they feel that the books have maniacal or controversial ideas in them. In some scenarios, those who are censoring books think that a book might be appropriate for a certain, or several groups in society. A book that might be perfectly fine for a ninth grader might easily be horrendous or confusing to a fourth grader. Thus having them exposed and influenced to thinking a certain way and act upon what they have just read. Well at least that’s what people think is going to happen anyways. But honestly, reading books of any genre gives us knowledge, entertainment, and imagination so therefore no books or novels should be banned and is ultimately dependent on the reader’s choice.
To accurately determine what an educational institution should do with a book that contains some degree of cultural or moral shock is to analyze what the purpose of these institutions actually is. “Some parents brought the town’s segregated past and their dissatisfaction with the present into the discussion about the book” (Powell, 1). It is true that people from areas where slavery once ran rampant will be emotionally distressed with books like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. This may be understandable, but ultimately, schools are not purposed to dampen the discomfort of specific students and their families. Education Assistant Professor Jocelyn Chadwick states, “‘you have to remind them you are there to defend the text and not solve social issues’” (Powell, 1). Alleviating the cold reality from members of the community is neither a responsibility of educators nor a pedagogical concern. For the teachers and professors, the education of students, through whatever methods and textbooks, should far outweigh any of the culturally or morally shaky backlash that could follow. However, some disagree with this. “The CHMCA officially objected to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the grounds that ‘the prejudicial effect of the racial characterizations outweigh any literary value that the book might have’...
On average, the normal human being impacts the lives of 80,000 people throughout their lives. Whether it be in a positive or negative way, it is your choice. The fictitious book Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is about a new girl at school named Hannah that committed suicide and sent tapes to thirteen people explaining why she did it, and if they received the tapes then they are one of the reasons why. With this in mind, many school boards have contemplated the idea of getting rid of fiction books, such as this, because of the lack of educational value they provide. This is not a valid argument because fiction can provide meaningful education about topics such as how important impact is, the impact
In schools around the nation, many books have been banned from the teaching curriculum. Some of them deserve to be banned due to the explicit content only suited for adults. Some books like the Harry Potter series, The Catcher in the Rye, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Hunger Games. Granted, there are language issues in Catcher and Huckleberry Finn, but that language exists everywhere. The censorship should not be as strict as it is because many great books are being banned that students should be reading in order to gain an understanding on who some great writers were. Some of the banned books should be reconsidered on whether they should be censored or not.
Is it shocking to know that many pieces of classic literature are banned from classrooms even public school classrooms and libraries? The books Animal Farm by George Orwell and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain each have a recorded history of banishment due to (respectively) "political theories" and “racist aspects”. (Karolides, Bald, and Sova, 15, 336). I read Animal Farm as a school assignment many years ago. I learned so much about due respect and equality among humans that I cannot imagine a school forbidding it in student curriculum. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn provides illustration of a friendship during a period in history to a child given the ...
Walt Whitman once said, “The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.” Between the years 2000 and 2009 a total of 3200 books were challenged in school libraries in an attempt to expurgate, or censor, the content in books provided to students. Today the trend of censorship continues as popular novels such as The Hunger Games, The Fault in Our Stars, and Captain Underpants are censored from schools across the nation (Challenges by Reason).Censorship in regards to literature refers to the examination and suppressing of a book because of objectionable material. The process of censorship in school libraries often begins with an outspoken parent, teacher, student, or administrator and ends in the banning or abridgement of a novel deemed inadmissible. Censorship is protecting many students from controversial, immoral, and potentially unsuitable content; however, this is not always the case. Students, parents, teachers, and administrators with different backgrounds, beliefs, and morals are not creating a library pleasing to everyone because of the variety of opinion. Censorship in school is not justifiable, because it restricts discussion and knowledge of new, controversial, and necessary ideas, allows a handful of people to make decisions for a larger group based on opinion, and undermines democratic ideals.
This burden often falls on teachers. The purpose of this research paper is to discuss censorship in schools and to argue that the censorship of books in the high school English curriculum is limiting and takes away literature that is meaningful to students. How a Book is Censored Brinkley describes a few actions that can lead to the censoring of a book in a school or school system: An expression of concern is simply a question about the material with overtones of disapproval; an oral complaint is an oral challenge to the contents of a work; a written complaint is a formal written challenge to the school about the contents of a work; and a public attack is a public statement challenging the contents of a work that is made outside of the school, usually to the media to gain support for further action (1999). Brinkley also points out an important difference between selection and censorship: Selection is the act of carefully choosing works for an English course that will be age-appropriate, meaningful, and fulfill objectives, while censorship is the act of excluding works that some con... ...
Book banning has a long history and has made both positive and negative impact on readers. People have been trying to stop books from being banned, but there are also people that are trying to ban books to protect their children. Many books have been challenged and even banned because of the “inappropriate” content the books contain such as profanity. Books have started to get censored since the 1500’s and has threatened many cultures. The people who ban and censor books think that they are protecting the readers from the information, but it is secluding the readers from getting more ideas. This creates a negative impact on the readers, especially high school students. People don’t realize that book censorship limits the way they view the world. Many books have been banned in American high schools because of political, religious, sexual, and social reasons. Book banners and parents should be more lenient in what the book expresses because it teaches readers, such as high school students, many lessons that will help them in life.
The censoring of books and other literatures in schools by parents is a common thing, even in the United States, where the freedom within the law protects the educator’s judgment of their professional standards, meaning schools should be trusted to practice their rights to choose which materials may or may not be used in children’s learning environment. Schools already censor materials that are deemed not suitable for young students; school books should not be used to push ideological positions, they should be used to teach children the truth and expose them to ideas that will expand their knowledge, not by influencing them, but by making them understand.