Learning at the Library » Literacy & Reading

ALA’s frequently challenged books of the 21st century

John Sarubbi — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 03:08:20 +0000

Each year, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom compiles a list of the top ten most frequently challenged books in order to inform the public about censorship in libraries and schools. The ALA condemns censorship and works to ensure free access to information.

A challenge is defined as a formal, written complaint, filed with a library or school requesting that materials be removed because of content or appropriateness. The number of challenges reflects only incidents reported. It is estimated that for every reported challenge, four or five remain unreported. As such, the findings are not comprehensive.

2012

Out of 464 challenges as reported by the Office for Intellectual Freedom

Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey.
Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie.
Reasons: Offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher.
Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, suicide, unsuited for age group

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James.
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

And Tango Makes Three, by Peter Parnell and Justin Richardson.
Reasons: Homosexuality, unsuited for age group

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini.
Reasons: Homosexuality, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit

Looking for Alaska, by John Green.
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited for age group

Scary Stories (series), by Alvin Schwartz
Reasons: Unsuited for age group, violence

The Glass Castle, by Jeanette Walls
Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit

Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Reasons: Sexually explicit, religious viewpoint, violence

What was so fascinating about the top ten books listed are the reasons why these books are being challenged. Consider that the most common challenges are due to “offensive language”, which appears six times and “sexually explicit” content which appears seven times. “Homosexuality”, “Violence” and “Religious Viewpoint” all tied appearing twice. Although the data is not exhaustive, it is interesting to ponder the reasons books are being challenged and how that might intersect with current trending news stories. Consider more recent news stories about gay marriage, violence and religious viewpoint, for example. Then consider popular television shows, beauty and fashion advertisements and popular music that promote either offensive language and sexual explicitness or both. In a more general sense, it is equally interesting that some categories appear at all but there they are.

Below are some graphs courtesy of the ALA website:

Do you agree or disagree that some books should be censored or banned in schools because of the reasons listed? Would you add categories or take some away? What are your thoughts?

Source

Summer Reading

arstessen — Sun, 24 Jun 2012 19:25:21 +0000

As this past week kicked off the first official day of summer, as well as several days where many of us toiled over which friend with an air conditioner to call next, it would appear that it is also time to talk about summer reading. It seems to be viewed as a time when we can kick back and read for “fun” — those guilty pleasure reads or books that have been on our reading list for months. For many young readers, especially those who are still learning to read, this can be an important time, as we never truly “shut off” during summer vacation.

A recent article from the New York Times discusses that choosing what to read during our summer vacation (and what we recommend to students) can be incredibly important. The author suggests that we should always be learning, but summer reading is not for reading with post-it notes or how you will formulate your response essay. Summer should be a time to rekindle our love for reading. Ultimately, reading and learning should be enjoyable. For many struggling readers, reading is something to dread. This article suggests we use the summer to rediscover that reading is supposed to excite us and make us curious to learn about the world.

Summer book recommendation lists, if you need help compiling yours:

NPR

LA Times

NYC Public Library

Life in six words, writers treasure

Jennifer Govan — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 17:34:45 +0000

English teachers Marcelle Mentor and Amanda Stessen conduct a fun, enlightening workshop, Building Your Own Library Using Authentic Literacies. We explore Hemingway*, Smith Magazine, and other great sources for the six word memoir — opening our hearts and minds to “multiple interpretations, insinuations, explorations.” Yes, we find that those brief, oft poetic phrases spark the imagination and sharpen the power of a story. We appreciate that what’s not exactly said — the curious unwritten text — is appetite for conversation and learning in a group or classroom. Our give-away is a self-published booklet with memoirs we create using prompts of love, revenge, pets, and other universal human topics.

Love Memoirs:

Ever strong, through winter wedding plans.

Love is watching his favorite movies.

Constant understanding, words not always needed.

Take my hand, take my heart.

I called him and we cried.

Love: remember to be selfish sometimes.

Sometimes love hurts, but also heals.

Additional

Tomorrow is waiting to become today….

Parents retire, children become tech support.

She hated the shoes, used scissors.

Get even, but surpass highest expectations.

I wish I knew. I didn’t.

Exlax brownies. That will show ‘em!

School over. Summer begins. Freedom returning.

bird hunter.

tightrope walker.

goldfisher snacker.

Burn book will burn.

Caution: hot!

Step, don’t live in another’s shadow.

Pitch the ball, hard and low.

Constantly rebuilding the foundation that crumbled.

Weapons in hand, history repeats itself.

* For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

Used at TC, banned in Arizona: On book removal and silencing student voices

Veronica — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:31:09 +0000

“The freedom to read is essential to our democracy. It is continuously under attack,” – ALA

The events taking place in Arizona’s Tucson Unified School District are hitting too close to home. As a former ethnic studies student and as I continue my studies here at TC with the purpose of improving the educational experiences of Latino youth, I am both saddened and angered at the decisions taking place by individuals who have not set foot in an ethnic studies classroom and who push race and culture to the side as if it had zero value to our students.

In my final semester, as I work towards completing my final Master’s project, I am using some of the books which are currently being boxed up in Tucson’s classrooms. One of the titles, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a frequently used text here at Teachers College. Although the word “ban” is not officially used by the district to describe the removal of many titles, including Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic’s Critical Race Theory, there are others, like me, who feel that the word is appropriate.

Other books being removed from classrooms are:

500 Years of Chicano History in Pictures, edited by Elizabeth Martinez
Message to Aztlán, by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Chicano! The History of the Mexican Civil Rights Movement, by F Arturo Rosales
Occupied America: A History of Chicanos, by Rodolfo Acuña
Pedagogy of the Oppressed, by Paulo Freire
Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years, by Bill Bigelow

In light of the events in Tucson, the American Library Association (ALA) had this to say:

“it condemns the ‘suppression of open inquiry and free expression caused by closure of ethnic and cultural studies programs,’ it condemns the ‘restriction of access to education materials related to ethnic and cultural studies,’ and it urges the Arizona legislature to pass HB 2654, ‘An Act Repealing Sections 15-111 and 15-112, Arizona Revised Statutes; Relating to School Curriculum.’”

How are we as educators to close gaps and inspire if our students do not see themselves in what they learn?

Target School Library Makeovers

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:59:54 +0000

I was reading the news today and stumbled upon this. It made me smile. I hope more corporations will take part in similar initiatives to create long-term effects of positive change for young students!

As the Huffington Post reports, Target has partnered up with The Heart of America Foundation to help transform 76 school libraries since 2007 through a program called Target School Library Makeovers.

With the help of Target team member volunteers, students have a great space to spend time reading books and using new technology to learn and expand their way of thinking.

Target is expected to complete renovations at 42 more libraries by the end of 2011.

The resources available at these school libraries include: new furniture, new computers, and a set of books that students can take home to share with their family.

Pictures below are taken from Target and the Huffington Post.

Zines as Teaching Aides

Anne Hays — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 17:40:48 +0000

If your goal in teaching is to inspire your class to create works of text or art, you might consider using zines as teaching aides. Alison Piepmeier, author of Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism, reports that, “Every time I teach a class about zines, a significant percentage of the students begin making their own. Many of them have never heard of zines, but when I bring in a pile for them to flip through and take home, they become inspired. This doesn’t happen if I require them to read a published anthology of zines… getting their hands on actual zines is necessary to ignite this creative urge.” Piepmeier goes on to discuss the materiality of zines–that their physical form is inherent to their creative charge–but rather than leverage the community-building aspects of paper verses electronic formats, I felt curious about investigating the possibility that zines ignite a desire to learn and create in students (or perhaps anyone) discovering them for the first time. How can teachers incorporate zines into their lesson plans?

But first: what’s a zine? Zines are independently produced publications, usually hand-made and self-printed, stapled together, and handed out or sold through the mail at or slightly above cost. Zines tend to be self-edited or perhaps overseen by a friend, but do not adhere to standards of professionalism found in mainstream media. A particular set of socio-political mores tend to accompany zine production: anti-capitalist, unpretentious, pro-message, do-it-yourself mottos inform the subculture whose participants create zines. Zines are most often compared to blogs, though zines are their print precursor and continue to occupy a separate, if tangential sphere. What makes zines so accessible to new readers is how easy they are to make. Anyone with thoughts, a pen and paper, and access to a photocopier (or printer) can make their own small publication and join the zine community.

So, how can you get your hands on some zines? Well, you can buy zines at a few independent bookstores in the city–St. Marks Books and Bluestockings come to mind. But in the true spirit of zine credo (accessibility, spreading the word, distributing the publication at or below cost) you probably want access to zines for free. Luckily, there are a number of zine libraries in New York City where you can search through, view, and sometimes check out copies of zines. ABC No Rio is the oldest zine library in the city, and their collection focuses on anarchist and political zines, though they also collect personal zines. Their collection is open to the public, though you should check their hours carefully before making the journey to Rivington Street. Brooklyn College, whose collection focuses on zines connected to Brooklyn, newly created a zine library this year. NYU’s Fales Library houses a riot grrrl archive collection that features zines by and about riot grrrls (to access the collection you need to email the archivist first). Closer to home, and most relevant to Teacher’s College students, Barnard has one of the only circulating zine libraries in the country, and their collection is accessible through CLIO. You can visit the library in person to peruse their collection, or you can search through their online catalog (CLIO). A handy tip: their call numbers all start with “ZINES” so if you want to browse, simply type ZINES into the call number entry field and then select to search within call number. And lastly, the annual NY Art Book Fair hosted by Printed Matter and held at MoMA’s PS1 features tables and tables of current, active zine publishers. You can meet the authors and buy their zines. This year, the event is September 30-October 2nd.

But how would you go about using zines in your classroom? Handily, a number of librarians and teachers have created teaching guides on using zines in the classroom. The best of these is by Nicole Pagowski, a reference librarian for Dallas County Community District, who created a thorough teaching guide. Another excellent resource is We Make Zines, an online social networking resource for those who make and read zines; they host a group called Teaching Zines that features a discussion forum with excellent advice on using zines in the classroom. To read academic research on the topic, try searching “zine” as a keyword in ERIC (EBSCO) database, the Education Full Text database, or try Library Literature and Information Science Full Text (many zine authors who create instructional guides happen to be librarians). You can further narrow your search by adding subject terms.

I hope this is helpful!

Alison Piepmeier. “Why Zines Matter: Materiality and the Creation of Embodied Community.” American Periodicals: A Journal of History, Criticism, and Bibliography 18.2 (2008): 213-238. Project MUSE. Web. 21 Jan. 2011. .

Book talk with Wendy Elmer

I-Ching — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 17:06:47 +0000

Education Program at Gottesman Libraries hosts different types of education related events in the library through the year. For instance, Socratic Conversation, book talk, workshop, news display, and film screening. I always find those events resourceful and enjoyable.

This week, I attended a book talk hosted by Wendy Elmer: Book of Poems About Being a Teenager, and other works. I read some of Wendy’s work at a poem reading event hosted by Education program earlier and was really touched by her work. Previously, she shared her works from one of her publications: Books of poems on Bereavement and the Grieving Process. In this book, she bravely and beautifully used poems to express and discuss her feelings of losing beloved ones.

This time, she shared some poems from another publication of her: Book of Poems About Being a Teenager. Different from the previous book which discusses heavy topics that people tend to avoid talking about, she used her unique humor and perspective to look at the emotional ups and downs of being a teenager.

Wendy is a full time staff at Gottesman Libraries who has a great interest in writing at her leisure time. If you are interested in knowing more about Wendy’s work, you can find them here:

Wendy’s works

Happy reading!

Book Expo America (BEA)

melissa cardinali — Tue, 10 May 2011 20:22:35 +0000

What do Russia, Ice T, Roger Ebert and digital publishing in Italy have in common? You guessed it! They’re all at this year’s Book Expo America (BEA) conference at the Jacob Javitz Center in NYC.

BEA is the book world’s annual conference where industry professionals gather to network, learn about trends, hear from authors and get autographs. This year’s BEA runs from May 23-26th and consists of a 3-day exhibit hall plus four days of conference.
BEA is a bit pricey for anyone not invited; one of the great things about this conference is all of the other concurrent book-related events it inspires.

Concurrent Events

For example, this year brings the second annual book blogger convention. This event gives anyone interested in book blogging the opportunity to hear a keynote address by Sarah Wendell, creator of Smart Bitches, Trashy Books, and the option of five workshops or breakout sessions with industry professionals.

Megan Snider, journalist, creator of Write Meg! and Book Blogger panelist shares her thoughts on book blogging:

“No two people ever read a book the same way. We’re daughters and sons, parents, friends, significant others and workers. We’ve traveled, had our hearts broken, survived high school, been betrayed. We’ve loved and maybe lost, but kept moving forward…This is what you bring to a review… How did you relate to it—or how did you find it difficult to relate at all? Did this book reduce you to tears, keep you up at night, create a barrier between you and your family because you could not put it down…?”

If book blogging is not your bag, perhaps you’ll be more interested in some other events:

The IDPF Digital Book Conference at BookExpo America (BEA)

The BlogWorld & New Media Expo NY at BookExpo America (BEA)

For more info on BEA visit their website.

New York Book Week

My personal favorite part of all of this (outside of The Mermaid Chef... which baffles me, how can underwater food look good?) is New York Book Week. “New York Book Week embraces all literary and book activity, and expands the awareness of authors, books and publishing.”

It is celebrated all week long at branches of the NYPL and bookstores throughout the city and most of the events are free. Among the highlights: Charlaine Harris at Bryant Park talking about the 11th Sookie Stackhouse book–cleverly in time for the 4th season of True Blood! Check out the calendar for information on readings, signings, open mics and other FREE events. Sookah!

April is…Poetry Month

melissa cardinali — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:56:36 +0000

If that scares you (and your students) check out some of the resources below, many available online and at TC.

Books

If you’re teaching elementary school, you may already be familiar with these writers of poetry for children: Douglas Florian, Joyce Sidman and Lee Bennett Hopkins. TC has a pretty extensive collection of their books. You can hear Joyce Sidman read some of her books here.

Also recommended, A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Forms or Opening a door : reading poetry in the middle school classroom edited by Paul B. Janeczko.

Lemonade: And Other Poems Squeezed from a Single Word by Bob Raczka, available through the New York Public Library.

Betsy Franco’s A Dazzling Display of Dogs.

For an older audience:
The Ode Less Travelled
Stephen Fry, British actor, screenwriter, playwright, poet, comedian, the list goes on, wrote a guide to writing poetry I find absolutely addicting! Fry believes “poetry is a primal impulse within us all,” and teaches the formulas necessary for creating various types of poetry. Go on, try it! You’ll be writing iambic pentamenter in no time—well, okay it took me at least a week to really get it down. There are 20 writing exercise in all.

Non-print resources

Glossary of Poetic Terms — exactly what it sounds like

Web English Teacher–lots of lesson plans and other teacher resources

Poetry Is – George Quasha’s video project “Speaking Portraits” features poets discussing what poetry is to them. (Note: this is featured above and it’s 80 minutes long.)

Cup of Poetry- Penguin Publisher’s free podcast of poems, organized thematically. The link will direct you to the New York Poets podcast. (Walt Whitman, Dorothy Parker, John Ashbery featured.)

Poetry foundation.org-a plethora of resources including the option to search for a poem by topic.

Internet Poetry Archive- The “goal of the project is to make poetry accessible to new audiences (at little or no cost) and to give teachers and students of poetry new ways of presenting and studying these poets and their texts.” Featured poets include Seamus Heaney, Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, Czeslaw Milosz, Robert Pinsky, Margaret Walker, and Richard Wilbur. Hosted by the University of North Carolina Press and the UNC Office of Information Technology.

Indiefeed Performance Poetry Channel. You may know of Indiefeed as a source for music but they also have a poetry channel that features cutting edge poets, and links to their websites and podcasts.

Favorite Poem Project- Former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky collects videos of Americans reading and discussing their favorite poem.

Poetry Out Loud is the official website for the national recitation contest for youth hosted by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. Also find lots of writing activities, lesson plans and, well, poetry.

Field Trips

Nuyorican Poets Café- hosts writing workshops for high school students, poetry slams on friday, music, theatre and other literary events. Leave your beret and black turtleneck at home, please.

Poetry Project at St. Marks Church “promotes, fosters and inspires the reading and writing of contemporary poetry.” They host special events, publish a literary magazine, offer workshops and weekly readings.

A lot of these resources were collected from the March 2011 issue of College & Research Libraries, the journal of the Association of College & Research Libraries

A Paywall for the New York Times

pamela — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 20:15:17 +0000

Beginning today, the New York Times is implementing a “paywall“: No longer will the content at NYTimes.com be free for unlimited use. Here’s the official announcement made by the NYT on March 17th.

Opinion on this issue has varied widely. The new paywall was very quickly criticized by a variety of interested parties, including a very widely-read author who implies that it is outright “crazy,” for a variety of reasons. However, others defend this move, arguing that in-depth investigative reporting is costly and that readers must do their part to keep it financially viable.

In any case, many of those on both sides of the issue can agree that the rules for digital subscriptions are unduly complicated, and exceedingly easily circumvented. It’s surprising that such an illustrious organization as the NYT would release a system with these negative characteristics.

I remain conflicted on the matter. On the one hand, of course quality reporting costs money, and the NYT has got to get it from somewhere. Very many people would be worse off if the NYT went out of business, and the content they produce is rightfully theirs to distribute however the organization sees fit. So there’s probably nothing morally wrong with making content available to paid subscribers only. However, it could still be quite imprudent for the NYT to take this path: they’ve upset and confused much of their readership, many members of which have been regularly sharing NYT content widely on Facebook, Twitter, etc. Whatever profits the NYT does manage to wring out of their paywall are likely smaller than the pecuniary and non-pecuniary costs associated with it.

Learning at the Library » Literacy & Reading

ALA’s frequently challenged books of the 21st century

Summer Reading

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Life in six words, writers treasure

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Used at TC, banned in Arizona: On book removal and silencing student voices

Target School Library Makeovers

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Zines as Teaching Aides

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Book talk with Wendy Elmer

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Book Expo America (BEA)

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April is…Poetry Month

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A Paywall for the New York Times

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