Children Should Read 50 Books a Year by: Graeme Paton

The Education Secretary [of England] said pupils should complete the equivalent of almost a novel a week because the academic demands placed on English schoolchildren have been “too low for too long”.
In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he said the vast majority of teenagers read just one or two books as part of their GCSEs, normally including John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.

Mr Gove said all schools should “raise the bar” by requiring pupils to read large numbers of whole books at the end of primary school and throughout secondary education.

It follows the publication of a report in December showing that reading standards among British teenagers had slumped from 17th to 25th in a major international league table.

His latest comments came after a tour of high-performing “charter schools” – state-funded institutions that are run free of Government interference – in the United States.

One primary in a hugely deprived area of Harlem, New York, set pupils a “50 book challenge” over the course of a year and children also competed to read all seven Harry Potter books in the quickest possible time.

The Infinity School is currently ranked higher than any other in the city, even though more than 80 per cent of its mainly African American and Hispanic pupils are from poor families eligible for free and reduced lunches. It is among almost 100 schools run by the Knowledge is Power Program (KIPP), a charity established by two teachers in the mid-90s.

Speaking in the US, Mr Gove said: “KIPP have far higher expectations of their students than we have had. We, the Coalition Government, have attempted to raise the bar but, I think, haven’t been ambitious enough.

“Recently, I asked to see what students were reading at GCSE and I discovered that something like 80 or 90 per cent were just reading one or two novels and overwhelmingly it was the case that it included Of Mice and Men.

“Here, kids at the end of primary school are being expected to read 50 books a year. I think we should, as a nation, be saying that our children should be reading 50 books a year, not just one or two for GCSE.”

A recently launched review of the National Curriculum is expected to specify the key authors children should study at each key stage of their education.

As an interim measure, Mr Gove said he wanted to ask leading children’s authors to set out the 50 books each child should learn. The results will then be posted on the Department for Education website, with schools urged to issue the 50 book challenge to pupils.

Mr Gove suggested that authors to be studied by pupils of all ages should include JK Rowling, CS Lewis, Philip Pullman, Kenneth Grahame, Rosemary Sutcliff, Alan Garner and Ursula Le Guin.

He added: “One of the biggest problems in the English state education system is that only a minority can follow an academic education and that only a minority can go to university. Quite wrong.

“Our expectations have been too low for too long.

“The aspiration for someone to read 50 books a year isn’t from a school in the poshest part of Manhattan where they are all going to have bound copies of CS Lewis, this is a school where 83 per cent of the kids are on the equivalent of free school meals, but they still expect them to read 50 books a year.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/8395784/Children-should-read-50-books-a-year-says-Gove.html

Modeling Literate Lives from Choice Literacy

Donalyn Miller, author of the acclaimed bestseller The Book Whisperer, chats with Franki Sibberson about the importance of teachers modeling their literate lives for students. You can visit Donalyn's blog here. Below is the transcript of their podcast conversation, enjoy.

Franki Sibberson: Donalyn, you mentioned that you're interested in modeling literate lives for kids. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Donalyn Miller: Well, I think that many children do not have reading role models. We would hope that they do but sometimes they don't. So if they don't have reading role models at home, I think it's even more vital that they have reading role models at school, and that means teachers, librarians, administrators modeling for kids what a literate life looks like. And for even those children that have parents at home that read, and siblings that read, they still need that support at school. I think that they need to get it everywhere.

Franki: So what do you see as your role, as the teacher's role in doing that in the classroom?

Donalyn: Well, I think we have to live our lives open for the kids, and talk to them about what we are reading, what we are writing, what we are getting out of our reading and writing ourselves, not just in an academic context but how reading and writing enrich our lives personally, and what we find interesting about it.

Franki: Do you think that it's different the way we model for students who do have literate role models outside of school versus those who don't?

Donalyn: Well, I think we need to have awareness first off, do they have reading role models at schools? That's not always easy to get. We may not always know if parents are readers or not. At my school we have a lot of parents that are bilingual and they're immigrant parents, so they may be literate in their native language but not as much in English. So I think the first key is for us to find out what we can about the literacy support and role modeling that they have at home. But as far as how that looks for me on the teaching end, I don't see much difference other than being aware. I think we just need to be that literate person for all the kids.

Franki: Right. And are there certain things that you do to model for your students? Are there certain things that you do to - I guess, two parts. Are there certain things you do to find out about their literate lives outside of school, and then are there certain kinds of things that you do to model?

Donalyn: Well, when I confer with kids during reading conferences sometimes that information comes out. Sometimes people tell me that they've shared a book that they've read in class with a parent or with a sibling. I get e-mails from parents that ask me questions, because they seem to think that I might know books for them to read, so I get a little bit of insight from the kids and the parents that way. But I also think it's important just to have a lot of conversations with parents, so I send out e-mails with literacy news and tips for parents. I just sent one about the importance of reading aloud, even to older children, because what I've found, Franki, is many parents want to help; they just don't really know what to do.

Especially as children get older, they depend more and more on teachers in schools to take over that role of role modeling literacy for kids, because they're not really sure how to go about it. You know, when children are little and you put them on your knee and you read to them, parents understand that. But when their child is 11 it doesn't look the same to them. Sometimes they just want guidance and support.

Franki: Right. It feels different. So how do you balance this goal with the more skills? How do you fit it all into your 90-minute block of making sure you're teaching kids what they need to be readers but you're also finding time to model your literate lives in the classroom?

Donalyn: Well, to me it's about a third and two-thirds. I think it's two-thirds academic reading and focusing on skills, literary elements, comprehension, and the things that we are required to teach them, and that students need to know. But I think about a third of the class time, overall, I would spend on life-long literacy, on reading habits, on role modeling, on conversations with kids about why they need to read, showing them how to find out about books, and learn more about authors, and the things that they need to have some capacity as readers, for reading as a lifestyle, not just as something that they do at school.

Franki: I love that you gave that a one-third, two-third. How did you come up with that? Have you just been observing?

Donalyn: Well, I am thinking quite a bit these days about how do we transition children from school reading to life reading, and asking my questions, "Okay, so what is a good balance for them?" and I think that's about what I've hit on. I might change it tomorrow but I don't think I will.

Franki: No, that is so smart. I really never expected you to give me such a firm number and I love it because that makes sense, and if you think about it like that it's easier to think through your year. Do you have anything else that you want to add about modeling literate lives?

Donalyn: Well, we talked a bit about the importance of it, but what does that look like? What does role modeling a literate life look like? You know, it's telling the kids that I've stay up until 2:30 in the morning reading Mockingjay, and how much I loved it, and then us holding a drawing to see who gets my copy that I just finished. It's letting them know that reading is something that I find is worth losing sleep over. I come in with a box of books almost every Monday, of books that I've found in various places on the weekends. We open up the books and look at them and talk about them. It's just building that excitement because I'm excited about it, and showing them that reading is something that I really love and enjoy, at a personal level. It's not just me, the teacher, standing off to the side and saying, "Hey kids, you need to read because it's good for school." It's about telling them, "Hey kids, I want you to read because it'll add so much to your life."

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/1375.cfm

Does Reading Make Us Happier? by: Joan Bakewell

I was returning a library book last week. It had been important in some research I was doing so I sought to renew it. "No, I'm afraid it's in demand by someone else," came the reply.

A book first published in 1964 was still needed. I'm not surprised. Many books last a lifetime and go on being read. Then, on the library counter, I noticed printouts from our local newspaper. The headline was a question - Libraries slashed? - it asked.

I recall a Latin grammar construction defined as "expecting the answer 'yes'". I felt this applied to the headline. We in the London borough where I live know there will be massive council cuts. In London as a whole there are fears that 130 libraries could go.

And things are bad across the country. Buckinghamshire is said to be considering closing among others the Great Missenden library, inspiration for Roald Dahl's Matilda, who read library books. He would be appalled.

Another book event. Last week I helped celebrate the publication of probably the definitive account of the life and art of the painter LS Lowry, by Dr Tom Rosenthal. It was held in the gorgeous setting of Christies sales rooms, where a fine array of Lowry's work graced the walls.

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Later in the week some 20 of his paintings sold there for nearly £5.2m. There was an irony in seeing Lowry's bleak depictions of the Lancashire poor going for such high prices. Here they were, the huddled masses, hurrying from the factory, to the football match, crowding round a street accident, or spending their unsmiling leisure still fully clad on Lancashire's beaches.

Lowry's work divides people There are those who admire his bleak vision of the world he knew in the 30s and 40s, and those who demean it as nothing more than a host of matchstick men. I am of the former persuasion.

My reason is more than aesthetic, I have a local connection. My own great aunt lived in Salford at Crescent View, just such a row of terrace houses as Lowry painted. I knew the feel of Salford's streets, its little picket fences, and I loved the smell of Nana's stuffy kitchen, full of cooking and drying clothes.

The meaning of books came to me from just such a background. From the age of seven my father attended what was then called Chetham's Hospital in Manchester, a charity school for 40 poor boys founded in the 17th Century as the legacy of Humphrey Chetham. He was a wily old wool merchant whose motto "Quod tuum tene" - hold on to what is yours - just about sums up the industrial revolution that was to engulf the city and make it rich and make it poor.

But Chetham was a philanthropist and left provision not only for a school, but for a library within the same building. That library survives in its original glory - theology, law, local records, leather bound, beautifully preserved. Its Jacobean setting is one of the unsung treasures of Manchester, part of what is now the illustrious Chethams Music School.

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“Start Quote

In our culture the library stands as tall and as significant as a parish church or the finest cathedral”

The schoolboys in my father's day didn't read such books of course, they had their noses into Rider Haggard and Harrison Ainsworth. But my father - and his brothers - held the library in awe, acknowledging as everyone then did that learning and scholarship are among man's highest pursuits.

In the poverty that was then Salford, libraries were cherished. They were seen as the resource for the poor, where they could learn and begin to understand about the world beyond those Lowry streets.

The book I was returning to my local library is subtitled A Study in Protest. It is in fact an account by Christopher Driver of the rise of the anti-nuclear bomb campaigns of the late 50s and early 60s. Then as now, unruly groups grabbed the headlines. They always do.

But the book tells of concerted and sustained action to bring pressure on world powers to abandon nuclear weapons. We know they failed, but along the way they influenced public and world opinion to an extent that perhaps contributed to the test-ban treaties that were to be signed in the 1960s, in the years after the Cuba crisis.

The young have again been out on the streets in their thousands and students are meeting and plotting more protests even now. Will those of us who love libraries be able to make our voices heard? It would be hard to combat allegations of middle-class elitism, and indeed there is a case to answer. If the pressure on finances is so great, at least as far as the coalition believe, then the availability of free books for all will need its defenders.

Reading is a pleasure enjoyed on the move

My defence should not be seen as the attempt merely to rescue a small building in a particular borough, or any other particular places threatened with closure. Rather it is a rallying call for the concept of free libraries. In our culture the library stands as tall and as significant as a parish church or the finest cathedral. It goes back to the times when ideas first began to circulate in the known world. I worry where wisdom will come from.

I am a major consumer of information on the internet. I know that academics and students access information there more quickly and more specifically than they can faced with a shelf load of books. But it's not that relationship I'm concerned about.

I offer you two scenarios. I am on a train going north, the scenery beyond York is glorious and in the slanting light of a winter afternoon has a magical quality not to miss. So I put down the paperback to enjoy it, then I resume my read. Again, on holiday, deck chair beside a blue swimming pool, a landscape of rolling hills and green pastures unfolds before me. I set aside the paperback to enjoy the view, and then return to the pages.

I live with the tensions between the world out there I want to see and even contemplate, and the inner world to which the book gives me access. It is the inner rewards of reading a book in a private and concentrated way that lead you into realms of your own imagination and thought that no other process offers. Something happens between the words and the brain that is unique to the moment and to your own sensibilities.

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It is why, at such moments, it is so awful to be interrupted - and why I am frequently late at meetings because I find it hard to tear myself away. Any society that doesn't value the richness of this encounter with ideas and the imagination will impoverish its citizens.

Of course, there are loads of books around. You can pick up a paperback for a few pounds that will last many years (my shelves are full of ageing paperbacks whose yellowing pages crack when I open them - only hardbacks last forever). Publishers think books are worth publishing, supermarkets think they are worth stacking on their shelves. But these are market transactions. The free public library service is the only way for everyone to have access for free to objects that carry the world's wisdom.

Soon we will all be asked to tell the state what makes us happy, what increases our well-being. No doubt someone will come up with measurements of stress and depression. We might be asked about our sense of neighbourliness or degrees of family closeness. Whether we are hungry or cold or neglected.

There are clearly data about social conditions that are worth collecting, but happiness is a dangerous word. It embraces all the subjectivity of our emotions and inner serenity. It is a reflection of our character, the degree we are wracked by ambition or resentment, by envy or greed. It embraces what might be called spiritual well-being, the sort that might be underpinned by a happy marriage, a satisfying career, deep religious conviction.

Already television vox pops have asked people in the street what makes them happy and had replies that range from their children's laughter, to the music of Beethoven.

I think there might be many who consider one kind of happiness to be a deep armchair, a warm fire and a favourite book.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11797998

Let Children Be the Judge of a Good Book by: Michael Morpurgo

When I was seven years old, my stepfather handed me a novel to read. It was a yellowing copy of Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens – a story which he had enjoyed as a child. He wasn’t trying to be nasty to me, but I’m afraid I didn’t like it at all. The print was small, it was far too long, and the language was complicated. My stepfather, by trying to hurry me towards good literature, succeeded only in putting me off Dickens for years.

As I judged entries for the first “Wicked Young Writers Award” – launched this year to develop writing talent in people aged between five and 25 in the UK, with the winners to be announced today – I was, from time to time, reminded of this problem. Well-meaning parents say to their children: you ought to read this, because it’s the sort of thing you should read at your age. They treat literature as a kind of medicine or tool. But the children pick up on it quickly: they resist it and they become fearful, as I did when confronted by Dickens.

The reverse, thankfully, is also true. For a child, the most encouraging thing in the world is to have a parent or grandparent, auntie or teacher, who really loves what they are reading to you. I was lucky. My mother was an actor, who read Wordsworth and Kipling and Edward Lear to me – and who read with passion. I didn’t understand the half of it, of course, but I learnt to love the music in the words.

When I began to teach, I tried to pass this on. Faced with 35 year-six pupils, I quickly discovered that the battle for their attention was won or lost in a matter of minutes. I remember one afternoon, in particular. The story I had chosen to read simply didn’t work. It was uninspiring and my pupils knew it. I droned on to the end, distracted by the fidgeting youngsters but also by a niggling thought that I could write something better myself.

I stayed awake all that night, writing my own story. In retrospect, the result was quite unremarkable. But I told it to them with conviction, eyeball to eyeball, absolutely believing every word I had written. They knew that this story meant a lot to me and could see I wasn’t afraid to show emotion. And in 10 minutes, I had every single one of them eating out of my hand.

Not everyone is born to write, but I am certain that, in part, I have my mother to thank for my career as a children’s writer. She sparked something in me that eventually caught fire – and before too long, I found that I needed to write.

The best teachers will know this about their own pupils: that there is a clear and direct correlation between those who love reading at a young age, and those who come to love writing. The worst teachers, sadly, don’t – and I do wish their training inculcated in them a love of reading for themselves. Then they would want to pass it on. If it’s simply part of a lesson, the children will know it to be phony. Teachers, like writers, have to mean it.

The winner for children aged five to seven in the “Wicked Young Writers Award” is Rhiannon Paton, who wrote a lovely tale called Ruby, the Raven Who Loved Raisins. The story is set in the Tower of London, where the ravens are fed “meat scraps”. But Ruby – who becomes good friends with the Queen – prefers raisins. It’s simple enough but, reading it, you can sense a terrific natural spark. A sense of colour and taste and sound that, though raw, gives life to her story. You are there, at the Tower of London, with Ruby.

It is up to teachers and parents to nurture Rhiannon’s talents and those of her peers. We won’t, despite the efforts of some educationalists, achieve this by patronising children or pushing them towards the “right sort” of literature.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8136198/Let-children-be-the-judge-of-a-good-book.html

Classroom Literature Circles Expand Thought By: Alexandra R. Moses

The sixth graders sit with their desks pushed together, paperbacks scattered across the makeshift table. The conversation bounces from how a Revolutionary War-era character reacted to the death of his father to a personal story about how one of the students handled her sister getting sick while her parents weren't home.

Never mind the book; teacher Alisa Gladstone asks Courtney what she did about her sister. "Instead of screaming my head off, I called my mom and told her to come home, and then we had to go to the hospital," Courtney relates.

This is how Gladstone runs her literature circles at Blue Ridge Middle School, in Purcellville, Virginia. Students meet in small groups based on themes and start talking, with some prompting from Gladstone. If the discussion veers off course, well, that's part of the point: Literature circles are designed to help students connect with the material, whether it's characters in a novel about war or the antics of Amelia Bedelia.

Courtney's personal story was a response to a question: "Did you ever find yourself in a situation in which you had to make an adult decision?" The students were discussing the theme of childhood to maturity in the young-adult war novel My Brother Sam Is Dead, talking about how events in the book forced the main character to grow up.

"When they have to tie what they're reading to themselves, it becomes more real to them," Gladstone explains. "The students remember what happened in the book because they are able to relate to it, and it helps them grow."

Literature circles essentially are small group discussions about a book. But they're much more than chatter about the parts students liked (or didn't like) in the novel. Through literature circles, students learn how to think in terms of why, not just what. In Gladstone's class, it's not enough for a student to say that the death of the main character's father affected her. She has to explain howit affected her and what that means in relation to the theme they're discussing. The circles also teach interaction, as students take turns talking about and listening to various opinions on the same topic. Afterward, students write reflections and do projects based on the reading.

Name-Dropping:

A sixth-grader created an acrostic poem to illustrate some of the traits of the lead character in Johnny Tremainfor her literature-circle project.

Credit: Alexandra R. Moses

Teaching the Art of Conversation

Gladstone teaches the same students language arts and history, so she uses the circles to tie the subjects together, and she mixes academic levels. The students choose from one of three books heavy in the historical facts she wants them to know. In this case, they're studying the American Revolution, so she offers up My Brother Sam Is Dead, Johnny Tremain, and Fighting Ground. The students pick a book and then choose from one of five themes: childhood to maturity, friendship and loyalty, war, law, or family.

To talk about the first theme, the eight students involved came to the circle with three relevant facts or quotes from their books. A couple of students chose the statement by the title character fromJohnny Tremain that he is "a boy in time of peace and a man in time of war." Gladstone asks the group what it means to be a grown-up. "If you get into trouble, you don't just get grounded," Conor answers. "There's no one to tell you what to do."

The conversation veers quite a bit off course after that, as the students break into laughter and someone tells a story about a television commercial they saw recently. Gladstone, who says some amount of social diversion is necessary for their age, gently guides them back on topic by asking a student who hasn't spoken up yet to share her insights.

Gladstone says giving students a choice about which book to read, which theme to discuss, and, later, what type of project to create, gets the more reluctant readers interested in the books, because they can pick one that speaks to them. The circles have helped improve history test scores, she adds.

"They're able to retain the information a little bit better because they've lived through it with their characters," she states. "On the tests, they'll imagine Johnny Tremain, and they can think through some of those facts and about the people who were there."

The Learning Process

Just how a literature circle looks in practice depends on the students, the teacher, the subject matter, and the curriculum goals. Literature circles in Jennifer McFarland's first-grade class look and sound very different from Gladstone's sixth-grade class. The seven students at Oakland Terrace Elementary School, in Silver Spring, Maryland, just finished reading Good Work, Amelia Bedelia, one in a series of popular books about a maid who misunderstands her employer's directions, to comic effect.

McFarland keeps her circles structured -- giving each student a role, such as connection conductor, scene setter, and word sleuth -- to keep her six- and seven-year-olds on track. Only select students with better reading abilities take part.

"They're getting a full learning process," McFarland points out. "Literature circles hit on the main points that you need to read, think, discuss, and then reflect. If they remember those are the four things they need, they're going to excel in every subject and every grade."

McFarland wants her students to learn what it means to be professional, so they have guidelines. To take a turn speaking, students must say what their role is and why they are speaking, and if someone wants to comment, he or she must say "I agree" or "I disagree because . . . "

In handouts on each role, McFarland has prompts to get the students thinking more deeply about the reading. The connection conductor, for instance, needs to bring examples of real-life connections to the story. McFarland notes that getting them to look for additional meaning in what they read for the literature circle also helps them think beyond simple facts in other subjects as well.

"I am the word sleuth, and I would like to go next because I have a lot of words to share," announces Carl. He has brought a list of words with the page they appear on in the book and their definitions. Today's words include dinner, serve, and table. McFarland uses a marker to copy the words and definitions onto an oversized piece of paper. The students briefly discuss his definition of table as a place to eat, and they finally agree that the definition isn't specific enough. Later, the students will take a quiz on the words.

McFarland uses the circle to meet her district's writing-curriculum goals on persuasive writing andletter writing. For part of their project, the students must write a persuasive letter to Amelia Bedelia's employers, telling them how to be more specific with their hapless maid. They also write reflection journals about the reading and the discussions.

Though Gladstone and McFarland's methods differ, they share the same goal: to encourage a love of reading. McFarland says the practice of digging deeper into the books teaches her students to stop and think about how they know something to be true.

"I love to see where the children's minds go when they're reading the book," McFarland declares. "They're going into this whole extra level of understanding."

http://www.edutopia.org/literature-circles-class-book-discussion

The Reading Bill of Rights-- A Child's Right to Read

A New Assignment: Pick Books You Like by Motoko Rich

JONESBORO, Ga. — For years Lorrie McNeill loved teaching “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the Harper Lee classic that many Americans regard as a literary rite of passage.

But last fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42

, did not assign “Mockingbird” — or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb.

Among their choices: James Patterson‘s adrenaline-fueled “Maximum Ride” books, plenty of young-adult chick-lit novels and even the “Captain Underpants” series of comic-book-style novels.

But then there were students like Jennae Arnold, a soft-spoken eighth grader who picked challenging titles like “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest J. Gaines and “The Bluest Eye” by Toni Morrison, of which she wrote, partly in text-message speak: “I woul

d have N3V3R thought of or about something like that on my own.”

The approach Ms. McNeill uses, in which students choose their own books, discuss them individually with their teacher and one another, and keep detailed journals about their reading, is part of a movement to revolutionize the way literature is taught in America’s schools. While there is no clear consensus among English teachers, variations on the approach, known as reading workshop, are catching on.

In New York City many public and private elementary schools and some middle schools already employ versions of reading workshop. Starting this fall, the school district in Chappaqua, N.Y., is setting aside 40 minutes every other day for all sixth, seventh and eighth graders to read books of their own choosing.

In September students in Seattle’s public middle schools will also begin choosing most of their own books. And in Chicago the public school district has had a pilot program in place since 2006 in 31 of its 483 elementary schools to give students in grades 6, 7 and 8 more control over what they read. Chicago officials will consider whether to expand the program once they review its results.

None of those places, however, are going as far as Ms. Mc

Neill.

In the method familiar to generations of students, an entire class reads a novel — often a classic — together to draw out the themes and study literary craft. That tradition, proponents say, builds a shared literary culture among students, exposes all readers to works of quality and complexity and is the best way to prepare students for standardized tests.

But fans of the reading workshop say that ass

igning books leaves many children bored or unable to understand the texts. Letting students choose their own books, they say, can help to build a lifelong love of reading.

“I feel like almost every kid in my classroom is engaged in a novel that they’re actually interacting with,” Ms. McNeill said, several months into her experiment. “Whereas when I do ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,” I know that I have some kids that just don’t get into it.”

Critics of the approach say that reading as a group generally leads to more meaningful insights, and they question whether teachers can really keep up with a roomful of children reading different books. Even more important, they say, is the loss of a co

mmon body of knowledge based on the literary classics — often difficult books that children are unlikely to choose for themselves.

“What child is going to pick up ‘Moby-Dick’?” said Diane Ravitch, a professor of education at New York University who was assistant education secretary under President George H. W. Bush. “Kids will pick things that are trendy and popular. But that’s what you should do in your free time.”

Indeed, some school districts are moving in the opposite direction. Boston is developing a core curriculum that will designate specific books for si

xth grade and is considering assigned texts for each grade through the 12th.

Joan Dabrowski, director of literacy for Boston’s public schools, said teachers would still be urged to give students some choices. Many schools in fact ta

ke that combination approach, dictating some titles while letting students select others.

Even some previously staunch advocates of a rigid core curriculum have moderated their views. “I actually used to be a real hard-line, great-books, high-culture kind of person who would want to stick to Dickens,” said Mark Bauerlein, professor of English at Emory University and the author of “The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future.” But now, in the age of Game Boys andFacebook, “I think if they read a lot of Conan novels or Hardy Boys or Harry Potter or whatever, that’s good,” he said. “We just need to preserve book habits among the kids as much as we possibly can.”

READ MORE: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week by: AMANDA CHRISTY BROWN AND HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO

Held annually during the last week of September, Banned Books Weekhighlights the benefits of intellectual freedom and draws attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted banning of books across the United States, including books commonly taught in secondary schools.

Here are ideas for celebrating Banned Books Week –- with your students, your children and anyone who believes in having “the freedom to read.”

1. Classic Challenges: Books commonly taught in secondary schools show up again and again on the American Library Association’s most frequently challenged list. Why are some books challenged year after year? Find out why and then “adopt” a banned book like “The Catcher in the Rye” or “To Kill a Mockingbird” by investigating its history of challenges. (For example, a site search for “Huckleberry Finn” on nytimes.com reveals the 1885 editorial “Trashy and Vicious,” republished from The Springfield Republican, on the Concord Library’s ban of the book. You’ll also find a1902 letter from Mark Twain on the Omaha Public Library’s ban.) Then promote a “read-in” of one or more challenged or banned books in your school library.

2. Don’t Read This!: Scan this list. What do these books have in common? Are you surprised to see that they are the Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books for 2000-2009? Use Anna Quindlen’s Op-Ed from 1994 as the model for an essay about personal experiences reading banned books and thoughts about book banning in general. We also invite you to answer our Student Opinion question, “Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library?”
3. Big Name Bans: Did you know that “Harry Potter” topped the library association’s list of most challenged books in the year 2000? Other recent frequently challenged books include the “Twilight” series and “The Perks of Being a Wallflower.” Learn more about recent challenges and then create posters to promote intellectual freedom using some of the titles. One idea: Create a collage of book jackets of some of the most famous banned books. Another: Create a map of challenges, to demonstrate that book bans and challenges are not isolated phenomena, even in the United States. Ask to hang the posters in the school or local library.
4. Join the Club: Create book clubs around banned books. To investigate titles for your club to read, you might use the Books section, including the drop-down menus for finding book reviews and coverage of featured authors. Then hold book “pitches” and form club reading schedules. As you read, respond to the texts, and then execute a final project, either individually or as a group.
5. Blog All About It: Read this article featuring a New Jersey family that blogs together about books and encourages support of Banned Books Week. Choose a banned title to read as a family. Discuss it over dinner and/or online together. Include far-flung extended family by blogging or writing literary letters.
6. ‘Speak’ or Not?: This week, a university professor, Wesley Scroggins,attacked Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak” as “soft pornography” in The Springfield News-Leader of Missouri. Ms. Halse Anderson responded on her blog, as did the teacher and blogger Donalyn Miller on The Book Whisperer Blog. Read the blog posts and discuss both positions. What is “soft pornography”? Should teenagers, as novelist and Harvard student Isabel Kaplan argues in her Huffington Post post, read books with such content? Adapt this 2006 lesson on a book ban in the Miami-Dade school system to study the controversy and write letters to The News-Leader expressing your opinion about the issues raised in the debate. Decide whether or not you want to read “Speak” yourself.
7. Librarians for Liberty: Have you ever been caught reading under the covers? So was the late Judith Krug, the librarian who created Banned Books Week –- and her mother’s reaction to what she was reading taught her a lesson about having the freedom to read that later translated into her passion for the First Amendment and intellectual freedom. Learn more about Ms. Krug and consider the role of libraries in our democracy. What are the implications of book banning? What role do librarians and libraries play – even in the digital age –- in protecting intellectual freedom? Work with school or local librarians to plan a Banned Books Week event -– perhaps a read-a-thon or book festival, featuring banned books, with proceeds to benefit the library. Be sure to thank your librarians for the important work they do.
8. Protective Policies: See how librarians at the Brooklyn Public Libraryhandle challenges to books and other creative works in their collection, and read some sample requests for reconsideration and responses. Consider the fact that different people find different books “detestable,” and that in the name of freedom the Brooklyn library stocks books that offend or disturb many people, like “Mein Kampf.” Interview your local or school librarian about the library’s policies and guidelines about what books to stock and how to handle challenges. Then draft a policy that takes into consideration First Amendment freedoms and tolerance for a range of beliefs and values.
9. Spotlight Censorship: Read about a 2008 traveling exhibition called “Censorship in Public Schools and Libraries,” sponsored by the Long Island Coalition Against Censorship. Research issues of censorship in your area or on a certain theme (like journalism) and build an exhibit of artifacts to represent the history you discover. Write exhibition tags explaining each piece, and invite the community to visit. The American Library Association offers additional display ideas to mark Banned Books Week.
10. Go Global: The Times often covers books and other works that have been censored internationally, like in China and Iraq (as well as, occasionally, by the United States). Read about the role of books in other countries and the implications of book banning abroad and explore Web sites commonly blocked in countries like China and Saudi Arabia. Consider why these governments want to block the content in question, and how national history, culture and politics come into play during such episodes. What does a country’s censorship history tell us about what its government and citizens value? Create a timeline or narrative history of one country’s relationship with censorship, including, if possible, interviews with people who have direct experience.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/23/10-ways-to-celebrate-banned-books-week/

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read from: ALA

September 25−October 2, 2010

Banned Books Week (BBW) is an annual event celebrating the freedom to read and the importance of the First Amendment. Held during the last week of September, Banned Books Week highlights the benefits of free and open access to information while drawing attention to the harms of censorship by spotlighting actual or attempted bannings of books across the United States.

Intellectual freedom—the freedom to access information and express ideas, even if the information and ideas might be considered unorthodox or unpopular—provides the foundation for Banned Books Week. BBW stresses the importance of ensuring the availability of unorthodox or unpopular viewpoints for all who wish to read and access them.

The books featured during Banned Books Week have been targets of attempted bannings. Fortunately, while some books were banned or restricted, in a majority of cases the books were not banned, all thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, booksellers, and members of the community to retain the books in the library collections. Imagine how many more books might be challenged—and possibly banned or restricted—if librarians, teachers, and booksellers across the country did not use Banned Books Week each year to teach the importance of our First Amendment rights and the power of literature, and to draw attention to the danger that exists when restraints are imposed on the availability of information in a free society.

Banned Books Week is sponsored by the American Booksellers Association; American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression; the American Library Association;American Society of Journalists and Authors; Association of American Publishers; and the National Association of College Stores. It is endorsed by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress.

For more information on getting involved with Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read, please see Calendar of Events and Ideas and Resources. You can also contact the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org.

http://www.ala.org/ala/issuesadvocacy/banned/bannedbooksweek/