Banned Books
The Banned Books project focused on the banning of books in elementary to high schools across the nation and world. Each student got to choose any book that they wanted to read and research, the only requirment being it was banned or challenged at some point. I chose the book 'Looking For Alaska', which is a novel by John Green. This book interested me right away when I read the short description, so I decided to go forward and selected it as my book choice. The book was banned multiple times for language and mature topics. It was banned in Tennessee, but also challenged in various states including New York, Kentucky, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Colorado. I think that this book is appropriate, it has very many real life situations that are good for students to read about. I think high schoolers should have access to reading this book, but not any graders below highschool. Some students would be too young for the novel, but older, more mature readers would really enjoy the book. Another aspect of this project was creating a bookmark that related to whichever book you read as well as your opinion on the banning of it. This protion was pretty open ended; you could decide however you wanted to create it. We had about a month to read the books, which was a good portion of time. Once everyone completed reading their book, we did an entire 10th grade potluck reflecting upon the books we read. The assignment was that you had to bring one type of food that related to your book in some way, even if it was quite vague. I made "Alaska Cookies", which were dark chocolate chip cookies. The reason I chose to use dark chocoalte chips was to relate to Alaska's dark personality and sense of humor. These came out quite nicely and I think I found a good connection to use to relate the cookies to my book!
I did not run into any challenges or difficulties throughout this project. Everything was very straight forward, and I found the assignments simple. Reading the book was easy for me, I completed it very quickly. The bookmark was trouble-free; I thought up a design fast and got straight to drawing/painting it. I feel like the easiest part of this project for me was the creative side, meaning the bookmark in specific. I drew a hand holding a cigarette, which is supposed to Alaska. She has red nails because that’s how I envisioned her, and the cigarette is because Alaska smoked. I am proud of my bookmark because I feel like I did the best job I possibly could. I made it simplistic yet detailed, and I feel like everything came together nicely.
I did not recieve any critique for my bookmark, at least not any helpful critique. Generally, the few notes I got about my bookmark were just saying how they liked it. However, I tried my best to give specific feedback to my classmates. I told them what I liked about their work while also explaining what I thought they could improve on. For the online journals I also provided great critique to my peers. I always tried to ask a question at the end of my comment so that they were left thinking after they read my feedback. I really liked this format of the online journals; it gave a great and easy opportunity to learn about others' books!
I absolutley loved the book I read: 'Looking For Alaska." I didn't doubt that I would enjoy it from the start, but I did so even more than I expected! I definitley will reccomend this book to some friends, (I already have)!
At exhibition we handed out our bookmarks to people who attended. One conversation I had was with a former teacher. He asked if I enjoyed the book, I explained how I did and why. I gave a basic plot of the novel and told him how it connected to my bookmark! He was pleased and also said how the book interested him.
Overall, this project was fun and unique. I think I deserve an A+ for a grade. I did my best work, managed my time, helped others, and was proud of my final product. I would not change anything about the Banned Books project, I truly enjoyed it!
I did not run into any challenges or difficulties throughout this project. Everything was very straight forward, and I found the assignments simple. Reading the book was easy for me, I completed it very quickly. The bookmark was trouble-free; I thought up a design fast and got straight to drawing/painting it. I feel like the easiest part of this project for me was the creative side, meaning the bookmark in specific. I drew a hand holding a cigarette, which is supposed to Alaska. She has red nails because that’s how I envisioned her, and the cigarette is because Alaska smoked. I am proud of my bookmark because I feel like I did the best job I possibly could. I made it simplistic yet detailed, and I feel like everything came together nicely.
I did not recieve any critique for my bookmark, at least not any helpful critique. Generally, the few notes I got about my bookmark were just saying how they liked it. However, I tried my best to give specific feedback to my classmates. I told them what I liked about their work while also explaining what I thought they could improve on. For the online journals I also provided great critique to my peers. I always tried to ask a question at the end of my comment so that they were left thinking after they read my feedback. I really liked this format of the online journals; it gave a great and easy opportunity to learn about others' books!
I absolutley loved the book I read: 'Looking For Alaska." I didn't doubt that I would enjoy it from the start, but I did so even more than I expected! I definitley will reccomend this book to some friends, (I already have)!
At exhibition we handed out our bookmarks to people who attended. One conversation I had was with a former teacher. He asked if I enjoyed the book, I explained how I did and why. I gave a basic plot of the novel and told him how it connected to my bookmark! He was pleased and also said how the book interested him.
Overall, this project was fun and unique. I think I deserve an A+ for a grade. I did my best work, managed my time, helped others, and was proud of my final product. I would not change anything about the Banned Books project, I truly enjoyed it!