The month of September I like to celebrate Banned Books Week. I feel like this year was more important that ever with the amount of book challenges we have seen in our state. Thankfully, we have a district that follows policy and has a committee decide instead of just pulling books.
I wanted the students to understand what was going on with the book challenges. Most of the time, this encourages them to read. When they find out adults are trying to take books away, they want to read them. You would think adults would figure that out by now.
Banned Books Week Stations
I found stations on Twitter that @Mrs_Bongi had created. I took hers and changed them up to fit my students and time restraints. She had 6 stations, but since I only see the classes for 45 minutes, I knew I wouldn't be able to do all 6.
Station 1
At station 1, students looked at the Pros and Cons of books being challenged. I explained that no matter the issue, and no matter our opinion, we should always have an open mind and hear the other side. You probably won't change your mind, but at least you looked at both sides.
I copied an article from our Gale Opposing Viewpoints database in TexQuest. Students read the article, then formed their own opinions.
Station 2
For station 2 I created ten cards with book summaries. Eight of the books had been challenged, and two had not been challenged. The students' task was to decide which two had not been challenged. They were surprised to find out some of the books that had been challenged and the reasons.
Station 3
At station 3 students had a choice between two articles: Police protests two novels on summer reading list and Texas banned more books than any other state.
After reading their choice of article, they were to write their reactions on post-it notes and stick to the poster.
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| Our Banned Books Weeks display |
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| FREADOM bulletin board outside the library. |
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