Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
How do you read different texts?
Do you read a government text different
than a computer manual?
Do you read a math text different than you
read a bestseller like Twilight?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Does purpose influence method?
Does interest influence method?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
What is literature?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
What literature is “appropriate,”
what writing is “offensive,” and
what writing should be deemed
“obscene”?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Can literature be at the same time
“appropriate” and “offensive”?
Consider books that vividly relate child abuse, rape,
murder, incest, mental illness, suicide, and other
offensive subject matter -- such as A Child Called It, The
Color Purple, The Bell Jar, The Kite Runner, and Oedipus
Rex. Of what, if any benefit is there in reading these?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
What literature is or is not
appropriate for high school students
to read?
What criteria should books meet to be in a high school library?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
In light of the recent Beulah School Board
decision to ban the bestseller Midnight in the
Garden of Good and Evil, what do you think
should be the requirements for a book to be
retained in a public high school library?
What types of literature do not belong there?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Literature in Society [a high school textbook…like many at BHS]
In an improbable complaint about this textbook, two eminent AfricanAmerican authors were the main targets of censorship. An excerpt
from Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man was deemed offensive for its use
of the word ‘nigger,’ and the sexual slang in Nikki Giovanni's poetry
was found unacceptable. School officials also found intolerable a
reference to homosexuality elsewhere in the book and seized the everso-dangerous texts (that include Wordsworth and other immoralists)
while 12th-grade students were reading them“
(excerpt from : http://www.banned-books.com/bblistj-z.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie. The Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran
put a price on the head of this author for writing this book which
allegedly is critical of the Islam religion. Rushdie, as a result, went
into hiding for an indefinite period of time, fearing for his life.
[Rushdie participated in the 2008 UND Writer’s Conference.]
Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The Toronto School Board
banned this classic from all its schools, claiming it was racist for use of
the word "niggers." Even Golding's Nobel Prize in literature did not
protect this author's book“
(excerpt from : http://www.banned-books.com/bblistj-z.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)by Mark Twain
The word ‘nigger,’ which appears many times in the novel, was the cause
for the removal of this classic from an eighth-grade reading list. In the 1950s,
the NAACP objected to the book's perceived racist tone. In 1984, the book
was removed from a public high school reading list in Waukegan, Illinois,
because a black alderman found the book's language offensive. “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“American Heritage Dictionary (1969)
In 1978, an Eldon, Missouri library banned the dictionary because it
contained 39 ‘objectionable’ words. And, in 1987, the Anchorage School
Board banned the dictionary for similar reasons, i.e., having slang definitions
for words such as ‘bed,’ ‘knocker,’ and ‘balls.’ “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Annie on My Mind
The Olathe, Kansas school system ordered all copies of this book removed from
high school library shelves. It is a story of two women who meet and fall in love
and struggle with declaring their homosexuality to family and friends.
As I Lay Dying (1932)by William Faulkner
In 1986, Graves County, Kentucky, the school board banned this book about a
poor white family in the midst of crisis, from its high school English reading list
because of 7 passages which made reference to God or abortion and used curse
words such as ‘bastard,’ ‘goddam,’ and ‘son of a bitch.’ None of the board
members had actually read the book. “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
This book is about censorship and those who ban books for fear of creating too
much individualism and independent thought. In late 1998, this book was
removed from the required reading list of the West Marion High School in
Foxworth, Mississippi. A parent complained of the use of the words ‘God
damn’ in the book. Subsequently, the superintendent instructed the teacher to
remove the book from the required reading list. “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Forever by Judy Blume
Forever censored, this wildly popular teen novel was attacked once again for
its frank treatment of adolescent sexuality and was removed from an eighthgrade optional reading list. In Rib Lake, Wisconsin, a school district principal
had the book removed from the library after confiscating a copy from a
student in the lunchroom, finding ‘graphic descriptions of sex acts.’ “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
The county's board of education decided to remove all school curriculum
materials and library books containing any and all ‘profanity’ and
‘pornography,’ both concepts ill-defined. The tremendous public outcry
made the board backtrack and resolve to review its selection policy.
However, after this conciliatory decision, and while the review process still
inches along, most of the books in Andrews's popular series Flowers in the
Attic were removed from the high-school library for ‘pornographic’
content.”
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Censored, Banned, or Challenged Authors
“Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck
Several months after the book's publication, a St. Louis, MO library
ordered 3 copies to be burned for the vulgar words used by its
characters. It was also banned in Kansas City and in Oklahoma. “
(Excerpts from http://www.banned-books.com/bblista-i.html, 1-19-09).
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“The dirtiest book of all is the
expurgated book.”
~American poet Walt Whitman
[ex·pur·gate (kspr-gt) tr.v. ex·pur·gat·ed, ex·pur·gat·ing,
ex·pur·gates
To remove erroneous, vulgar, obscene, or
otherwise objectionable material from (a book, for example)
before publication.
(The Free Dictionary by Farlex, 1-19-09)].
(http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“What progress we are making. In the
Middle Ages they would have burned
me. Now they are content with burning
my books.” ~Sigmund Freud, 1933
(http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Every burned book enlightens
the world.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson, American
transcendentalist poet and essayist
(http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Books won't stay banned. They won't
burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of
history, the censor and the inquisitor have
always lost. The only weapon against bad
ideas is better ideas.”
~Alfred Whitney Griswold, New York Times, 24 February 1959
(http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Think for yourselves and let others enjoy
the privilege to do so, too.”
~Voltaire
[French enlightenment writer named Francois-Marie Arouet,
author of Candide]
(http://www.quotegarden.com/censorship.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Examine some information on the history of
banned books –particularly those banned for
reading at a high school level – at these Web sites:
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/banned-books.html
(“Unfit for Schools and Minors.”)
http://www.banned-books.com/bblistj-z.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banned_books (examine the links)
http://www.albany.edu/~mr3240/isp605/#introduction%20&%20
scope (Banned Books: A Pathfinder)
http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/bannedbooksweek/
bannedbooksweek.cfm (American Library Association)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Examine some of the information at
The First Amendment Center Web site:
http://www.firstamendmentcenter.org/speech
/libraries/topic.aspx?topic=banned_books
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
To understand the definition and laws
surrounding obscenity and pornography,
examine some of the information under
“Obscenity” at
The Free Dictionary by Farlex Web site:
(http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/obscenity, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
"For only when free men write and
speak truth will the exercise of
arbitrary power be exposed and
opposed."
(http://www.banned-books.com/bblistj-z.html, 1-19-09)
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
“Literature has been the salvation
of the damned; literature has inspired
and guided lovers, routed despair,
and can perhaps…save the world.”
~ John Cheever, American novelist and short story
writer, also known as “The Chekov of the Suburbs.”
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
How does Webster’s Tenth New Collegiate Dictionary
definition of a snake differ from Emily Dickinson’s
poem “A narrow Fellow in the Grass”?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Of what – if any value – is literature?
How does reading for pleasure differ from the
study of literature?
Why study literature at all – What is the purpose?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
F. Scott Fitzgerald (author of The Great Gatsby)
once described “the test of a first-rate intelligence”
as “the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the
mind at the same time, and still retain the ability
to function.”
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
What is necessary to discuss literature?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
Irony
Theme
Tone
Reader’s Response
Critical Strategies and Analysis
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature
What shall we study?
What is the literary canon and why
study those particular works?
Introduction:
Reading Imaginative Literature