Goals

To introduce another real-life example of book banning, generate a class discussion about the idea book banning within the realm of children's books, and further discuss whether book banning is just or unjust.

 

Details

Duration: 45 minutes

Assessments: Student discussions

 

Description

1. As a class, we read the handout "Article - In the Night Kitchen" which discusses why "In the Night Kitchen" was banned. We read that as a class and discussed further whether the book should have been banned or not.

2. In order to show students that the banning of "In the Night Kitchen" was not an isolated incident amongst children's books, we passed out the handout, "Article - Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony".

3. To close of the class discussion, we asked students to think about whether the banning of books to children's book was a right people had in society.

Article - In the Night Kitchen
Article...
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Article - Little Abigail and the Beautiful Pony
Article...
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Author Reflections

The articles we passed out were good resources to show students various examples of book banning. It generated a good class discussion, but it may have been repetitive for some of the students to read two articles back-to-back. Instead it may be more fruitful to have students work in groups with the material as a class and have a class discussion after the group activity with the two articles.