Building a Teacher s Toolbox Volume 2, Issue 14

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1 Building a Teacher s Toolbox Volume 2, Issue 14 Prepared by: Robin C. Letendre. M.Ed Learning Disabilities Consultant Mentor Teacher Reading Specialist The school year is in full swing, and teachers are getting into the groove of being back in the classroom! I had the privilege this past Saturday to be at Second Start with 53 new educators, directors, and/or counselors at the New Staff Workshop! (The New Staff Workshop was held on September 25, 2010) What an engaging and dynamic crowd of people! The students across New Hampshire are privileged to have these people as their teachers! As stated in previous issues, this is the time to get started learning about various disabilities that we may or may not encounter in the classroom. Today s issue is going to focus on autism and the autism spectrum of disorders. There are two attachments for you to look at, and in the next newsletter edition, I will highlight the important features of each one. One of the attachments is done by a task force, and the other one is done by a commission. All of the material contained within is excellent to guide your journey through autism and the spectrum disorders. At the New Staff Workshop, Mary Caulfield, from Dover, asked about high interest reading materials that can be used with her students that are beginning to intermediate readers that can help them engage in the reading comprehension process. I have listed on page 8, some book titles that I use that are engaging and interesting to the students. Some of the text is difficult to read for beginning readers, but what I have them do is read a sentence silently, and highlight all the words that they know they can read. Then, I read it out loud and help them with the words that they did not know. The words that they don t know are left blank so they can be practiced. If a word was read incorrectly in their head, then they circle it and we review it. In this activity, students are practicing reading to themselves and then hearing fluent reading being modeled for them. 1

2 If you did not know, September 25-October 2 is Banned Books Week. Attached you will find a list of banned books contained within the pdf of Banned Books. The listing included in that pdf. contains the book title, the author, the year it was banned, and the reasoning why. It would be interesting to share this list with your students and see if they have read any of these books. It is always an engaging conversation to find out why the books are banned. My public library dedicated an entire shelf to Banned Books week, and on the book jacket, they had attached a paper stating why it was banned. Please look at pages 3-7 for engaging material on banned books. A novel that was recommended to me by Etienne Valle from Franklin was 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher. It is on loan at my public library and I look forward to reading it when it is returned. Please pass book reviews along to me so that I can share it with our fellow counterparts in adult education! Continue to get acclimated to the beginning of the year and your students and most of all, enjoy every minute that you have shaping the minds of your learners. 2

3 Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read 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. 3

4 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 , ext. 4220, or bbw@ala.org. ex.cfm 4

5 About Banned & Challenged Books What's the difference between a challenge and a banning? A challenge is an attempt to remove or restrict materials, based upon the objections of a person or group. A banning is the removal of those materials. Challenges do not simply involve a person expressing a point of view; rather, they are an attempt to remove material from the curriculum or library, thereby restricting the access of others. Due to the commitment of librarians, teachers, parents, students and other concerned citizens, most challenges are unsuccessful and most materials are retained in the school curriculum or library collection. Why are books challenged? Books usually are challenged with the best intentions to protect others, frequently children, from difficult ideas and information. See Notable First Amendment Cases. Censorship can be subtle, almost imperceptible, as well as blatant and overt, but, nonetheless, harmful. As John Stuart Mill wrote in On Liberty: If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. Were an opinion a personal possession of no value except to the owner; if to be obstructed in the enjoyment of it were simply a private injury, it would make some difference whether the injury was inflicted only on a few persons or on many. But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. On Liberty, John Stuart Mill 5

6 Often challenges are motivated by a desire to protect children from inappropriate sexual content or offensive language. The following were the top three reasons cited for challenging materials as reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom: 1. the material was considered to be "sexually explicit" 2. the material contained "offensive language" 3. the materials was "unsuited to any age group" Although this is a commendable motivation, Free Access to Libraries for Minors, an interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights (ALA's basic policy concerning access to information) states that, Librarians and governing bodies should maintain that parents and only parents have the right and the responsibility to restrict the access of their children and only their children to library resources. Censorship by librarians of constitutionally protected speech, whether for protection or for any other reason, violates the First Amendment. As Supreme Court Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., in Texas v. Johnson, said most eloquently: If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable. If we are to continue to protect our First Amendment, we would do well to keep in mind these words of Noam Chomsky: If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all. Or these words of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas (" The One Un-American Act." Nieman Reports, vol. 7, no. 1, Jan. 1953, p. 20): Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-american act that could most easily defeat us. 6

7 Who Challenges Books? Throughout history, more and different kinds of people and groups of all persuasions than you might first suppose, who, for all sorts of reasons, have attempted and continue to attempt to suppress anything that conflicts with or anyone who disagrees with their own beliefs. In his book Free Speech for Me But Not for Thee: How the American Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other, Nat Hentoff writes that the lust to suppress can come from any direction. He quotes Phil Kerby, a former editor of the Los Angeles Times, as saying, Censorship is the strongest drive in human nature; sex is a weak second. According to the Challenges by Initiator, Institution, Type, and Year, parents challenge materials more often than any other group. dex.cfm 7

8 Books that I use within my pre-ged classes McGraw Hill/Contemporary The following titles would be best used with intermediate and advanced students since the readings are lengthy, but the topics are incredibly interesting. I have used them in a multi-ability group, and the less proficient readers are still able to participate orally in the discussion. On the Edge Scared Stiff ISBN # On the Edge They Walk Among Us ISBN # Against All Odds ISBN # x J. Weston Walch The book titles listed here can be used with any ability reader, but the target audience would be used with beginning and intermediate readers. Creepy Creatures Baffling Disappearances Mysterious Places Unbelievable Beasts Scary Tales