Issues in Education: Book Challenges in Public Schools : HOME

Over the past few years, public schools across the country have been increasingly facing challenges to books in curriculum and in classroom/school libraries. School personnel, parents, students, citizens at large, School Boards, government officials - the calls to reconsider what books are required reading as well as what books are accessible to school children K-12 have come from many different directions. And both folks on the side of restriction and folks on the side of open availability articulate the same purpose: Protecting the Children. The words may be the same, but the goals couldn’t be more different.

As students in a public school, you are impacted by the decisions adults make regarding book access. Additionally, you will soon be the adults who can impact others with your vote. It is, therefore, important for you to analyze this hot button issue in education, to evaluate the arguments on both sides, and to make an informed decision about what it means to “Protect the Children” when it comes to books in our school, both assigned and self-selected.

Choosing a topic

Choose one of the avenues of approach for your topic: legal, SEL, or family values/rights.

Write one - two paragraphs to answer the following questions:

• What do you (think you) know about the topic?
• What makes this an interesting topic of investigation for you?
• What experience do you have (if any) with books being restricted and/or your own discomfort with an assigned book or one you’ve seen available on shelves in classrooms or in the school library?

2. Researching

Begin exploring your topic. Be intentionally flexible with the contours of your topic; cast

a wide net, and go down intriguing rabbit holes. Read and listen to what you like and agree with as well as what you don’t like and disagree with.

Keep track of all resourced information carefully on the Resource Tracking Document.

Remember that you’ll need to know where information came from, and you’ll need to be careful to use quotation marks around any information that you take word-for-word.

3. Developing a working thesis statement

Your thesis statement will answer the essential question: your opinion about restricting books in a public high school.

4. Drafting an argument

Draft the argument to support your position. The first two core questions are meant to

be in service to the third; you need that background knowledge to inform your opinion.

5. Revising

You will share arguments with your classmates during in-class workshops, and I

encourage you to confer with me as well in the revision process.

6. Submitting the final draft

Your final draft should be submitted on Google Classroom and printed (double spaced)

to be handed to me in class.

As the topic of “book selection/restriction” is large, it makes sense to choose a more specific, manageable piece of this battle. To that end, consider and then choose one of the following “avenues” for your research. Each has a series of questions designed to help you to think about the topic (you don’t have to answer each question separately in your essay):

• Legal Perspective

  • What are the laws about books in schools?

  • Who are the big names in making and challenging the laws?

  • What are students supposed to be reading, and why, according to federal and state laws?

  • What is the role of a school board?

• Social-Emotional Perspective

  • What are the benefits of “representation”? What are the concerns?

  • What are the groups that people are arguing about in terms of “representation”?

  • What are the arguments about “indoctrination” related to representation?

  • What are the arguments about “safety” in the classroom? Is a “content advisory” or a “trigger warning” enough? too much? appropriate? a red flag?

• Parents’ Rights/Family Values Perspective

  • Which values should a public school embrace in the books assigned/available to students?

  • Who gets to decide the values?

  • What if a book is contrary to parents’/families’ values?

  • When it comes to restricting books, is the difference between assigned reading and independent reading relevant?

Choose one of the avenues listed above for your project. You will likely personalize your focus, limiting it further in order to do meaningful, in-depth work. Conduct research over the next few weeks in order to answer the following core questions for your essay:

• What is the brief and inclusive history of the aspect you have chosen?

• What are the important current battle lines of that aspect (since 2020)?

• To what extent do you believe books should be restricted in American public high schools (9-12), both in curriculum (classroom texts) and independent reading (offerings on classroom shelves and in school libraries)?

Represent yourself and secondary sources honestly. Use only the two required documents for all of your work: the chart document for resources and a draft document. Add both to the assignment on Google Classroom, and do ALL work on these documents from start to stop. Failure to follow these directions may result in your losing credit for part or all of the assignment. You are required to consult and incorporate at least five high-quality, academic secondary resources, all of which must be cited in-text according to MLA guidelines and included on a Works Cited page. Taking work that belongs to someone else and presenting it as your own is plagiarism. Using a large language model (ChatGPT and the like) to get ideas, to draft, etc. is cheating. Do not rely too heavily on editing support from others. Plagiarism on any portion of this project, from early stages to final draft, will earn all applicable penalties, including but not limited to a “zero” on this assignment.