Goals

To go over a current events article about censorship in order to have students think of book banning as a current issue and not just a past issue.

 

Details

Duration: 30 minutes

Assessments: Student reflections/journals, Student discussions

 

Description

1. We gave students a current events article about a professor at ASU who was sued by the Turkish government for her novel and read it as a class. The article served as an example of how censorship is still an issue for the present.

2. After reading the article, we displayed the PowerPoint, "Turkish Author on Trial" and asked students to answer predicting questions on a separate piece of paper.

3. The last item was to have a small group discussion about the article and the issues of censorship.

Article - Turkish Author on Trial
Article...
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PowerPoint - Turkish Author on Trial
Article comprehension prompt...
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Author Reflections

This was a quick activity we did to keep students' minds on the issue of censorship that surrounds banned books. Although it is not an in-depth activity, the article is a great example of censorship in current events. This may have been better to introduce to students at the very first day of the unit along with "Little Abigail and Her Beautiful Pony" and the article about "In the Night Kitchen".