Banned Books Week
The last week of September marks the American Library Association's Banned Books Week. LEARN NC offers school librarians, teachers, and students a variety of resources to celebrate Banned Books Week and learn about challenged books, censorship, and First Amendment rights.
Banned Books Week 2007 poster from the American Library Association.
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Related pages
- Celebrating the freedom to read: Banned Books Week teaches the importance of our First Amendment rights and draws attention to the danger of restricting information in a free society.
- Does my vote count? Teaching the electoral college: Students will learn about the electoral process and its history through reading, research, and discussion. They will then convene a constitutional convention to debate altering this process.
- Collecting Family Stories: Students will interview relatives and compose a family story on the computer. This lesson was completed in conjunction with two other lesson plans (art and media) using the same theme but could be used alone. Student work from all three lessons was compiled in a student portfolio.
Related topics
- Learn more about First Amendment, banned books, censorship, civics, libraries, reading, and social studies.
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As the end of September approaches, school librarians everywhere will be decking the halls with Banned Books Week posters, decorating displays with challenged books, and stringing garlands of their favorite First Amendment quotes. Observed since 1982, the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week: Free People Read Freely “is an opportunity to conduct or sponsor positive educational programs, including exhibits, lectures, discussions, plays, and films, demonstrating the harms of censorship.”
LEARN NC offers school librarians, teachers, and students a variety of resources to celebrate Banned Books Week and learn about challenged books, censorship, and First Amendment rights.
American Library Association’s Banned Books Week website
Find materials to launch your Freedom to Read campaign including a librarian’s guide to Banned Books Week, guidelines for dealing with challenges, a list of the 100 most frequently challenged books, and information on book burning. Sign the Freedom to Read Proclamation and display in your school library to encourage students to “read freely, now and forever.” The Action Guide, Suggested Activities from Banned Books: 2001 Resource Book, edited by Robert P. Doyle contains a plethora of engaging activities to get students involved in the Banned Books Week celebration with film festivals, mock trials, and contests.
Other Websites
- Censored: Banned Book and Censorship Resources
- An Internet directory with general resources on censorship, book banning, Internet censorship, free expression under U.S. Law, and more.
- When Books Burn
- A special collections exhibit that explores book burning and censorship in Germany under the Nazi regime. This exhibition includes historical images, speeches, a timeline, lesson plans, and more.
- Freedom Forum
- In conjunction with the First Amendment Center, the Freedom Forum has created a collection of lesson plans for teaching the First Amendment. In particular, see the lesson, Do Students Have a Right to Read?
- Judy Blume’s Home Base
- This is the official website for this popular children’s author. It contain information about her books, biographical material, writing tips, and more. Read Judy’s thoughts on censorship.
Lesson plans
- A case for reading: Examining challenged and banned books
- This lesson introduces students to censorship and then invites them to read a challenged or banned book and decide for themselves what should be done with this book at their school by writing a persuasive essay explaining their perspectives. (Grades 3-5)
- Censorship in the classroom: Understanding controversial issues
- In this ReadWriteThink lesson, students examine propaganda and media bias and explore a variety of banned and challenged books, researching the reasons these books have been censored. (Grade 10)
- First Amendment Rights: A New York Times Learning Network Lesson Plan Unit
- The Learning Network has created the collection of lesson plans that use recent New York Times articles as springboards for examining important First Amendment topics in interesting and thought-provoking ways.
Articles
- Celebrating the freedom to read
- Banned Books Week teaches the importance of our First Amendment rights and draws attention to the danger of restricting information in a free society.
