Censoring Sophomores

When I begin a new unit or novel in my English classes, I like to spend about a week studying/introducing the historical context of the novel and the author's purpose/background. This semester, I have started my Sophomore English classes off with Fahrenheit 451; therefore, we have been exploring the ideas and context of censorship. We have also dissected our First Amendment rights as American citizens. My students have really enjoyed learning about all of the "scandalous" books/movies that have been banned over the course of many centuries. There is so much information available about banned books that it took me a while to decide what was most important to the introduction of Fahrenheit 451.

 Here are a few of my ideas below:

What do you think?

I love to provide anticipation guides for my students to complete before we begin a novel. This allows them to talk about their feelings and ideas of various topics. The anticipation guide that I used for this activity is located here: Novel Links . I allow my students about 15 minutes to read through the guide and answer it. Because most students like to express their opinions, I allow them to participate in an open discussion. I enjoy calling on each students at random and allowing them to contribute their thoughts/ideas. Some classes are really good at participating in this activity, but others are too immature, so I just have to figure out what works for each individual class.



What do you know?

I love to find out what my students know about the topic being introduced with each novel. It is amazing how so many students have no idea what censorship is or what it means. It is also dumbfounding that many students have no idea what their First Amendment rights are. They know that they have "freedom of speech," but they do not know what that actually means. In order to engage my students into the lesson, I like to use Poll Everywhere . I create a series of polls to ask my students and they use their devices (phones/ipad/ipod) to text their answers to the questions. Here is a list of statements that my students had to determine if they were true or false.

1. Music is the most banned artistic medium in the United States. (answer: false)
2. Most books are banned because of sexual content.  (answer; true)
3. The First Amendment protects pornography and obscenity. (answer: false)
4. Any book that is "banned" from a library must be burned or properly discarded. (answer: false)

I also included this statement:

My parents allow me to watch any type of movie or tv show without restriction.

After my students respond to each statement, I tell them the answer to each one. I usually provide an explanation or example to go along with each response. This turned out to be a great activity for my Sophomores.

What do you want to know?

Sometimes it is really difficult to get through to empathetic or indifferent teenagers. Most of them answer any question such as, "what do you want to know about censorship?" with a shrug of their shoulders and an "I don't care." Many of them struggle to see past the walls of their high school or the realms of their social circle. I have spent many hours trying to plan lessons that make my students want to know about a certain topic or situation. For my "what do you want to know?" lesson, I gave each student a post-it note. I asked each of them to write 3 ways that censorship could impact their lives in the future. I collect each note and post them to my dry erase board. Then, I pull a few at random and ask questions as to why a student what be concerned about the answer provided. After this activity, I give the students a list of "banned books" from over the course of the past 100 years. I ask them to pick out 3 books that they would be interested in learning as to why they were banned. As they select their books, I create a chart on my Promethean Board and allow them to contribute their responses. This allows for the students to see what the majority is interested in and it allows them to take ownership of what they want to know.

As the study of Fahrenheit 451 continues, I will be adding lots of lesson plans! Stay tuned!