After I read the prompt to this major assignment, I was left confused. At first, I wasn’t sure how I was going to build a research question and connect it directly to writing. Since I’ve never had experience with writing a research narrative, I first began to brainstorm topics I was interested about. I brainstormed topics related to my major such as health, exercise, and nutrition. Although these topics interest me, I couldn’t think of an adequate method to connect these subjects to writing. I decided to move on and brainstorm different matters that are personally intriguing that are not related to my major. I began to think of topics I’ve discussed and debated in past English courses in high school. A topic that I remembered from junior year of high school was the idea of censorship of books. In junior year of high school, my teacher led an open debate on the topic of censoring literature, so since I had previous experience with this idea, I decided to choose this subject. After completing the first few assignments to brainstorm ideas for the class, I came up with a very specific research question. The first research question I created was “how does censorship of books from Texas reading lists affect students’ writing skills?” I went on the UH library database and began to research specific terms such as “Texas” and “writing skills” to find results connecting censorship of literature to those terms. The UH library database wasn’t showing enough adequate results, so I decided to change to Google for possibly even informal sources. After attempting to research related topics and terms to best fit my research question, I wasn’t able to find enough information. My research question was too specific because the highly publicized and popular banned books weren’t necessarily all banned in Texas but only in some other states. Also, I couldn’t find any information of the effects of banning books on writing skills, but I was able to find more generalized effects. I realized my first research question may have been too specific, so I decided to make my second research question more broad. I built the second research question from changing the first question a little and I resulted with “how does censorship of books from school reading lists affect students?” Although after reflecting on my peers’ replies to my discussions and blog post, I decided to take the “how” out of my question. Two of my peers suggested to remove the “how” to give the audience a chance to form their own opinion before I present my research and potentially influence their original opinion.
After researching and finding consistent information throughout my sources, censorship of books from school reading lists does have an effect on students. When I was researching and trying to find sources, I would keep finding information that was more negatively biased towards censoring books. Although I agree with most of the sources, I wanted to keep my opinion out of the thesis statement and make the thesis more neutral. I added one source that was positively biased towards censoring books because I thought it would help to balance most of the information from the other sources. Also, I wanted to add a range of views and information because most of the information from my sources began to repeat themselves. By doing this, I could keep my essay as neutral as possible and allow the audience to find their own conclusions based off of the research I present. After researching my topic, I learned that children need books that contain “inappropriate” subjects in order to develop and grow. Reading books that have diversity and considered risque topics such as homosexuality can help students find an identity at a young age. As I was growing up, I hoped I could’ve read more books that related to me and my identity because I feel like it would’ve helped me relate and cope with being different in certain aspects than people around me. Also after researching, I realized that another reason children should be exposed to uncensored material is that it could give them different perspectives on situations instead of sticking to the views that they have grown up with and taught early on.
Part II: Annotated Bibliography
Agee, Jane. “‘There It Was, That One Sex Scene’: English Teachers on Censorship.” The English
Journal, vol. 89, no. 2, 1999, pp. 61–69. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/822141.
The source addresses censorship issues and the effect that banning books has on teachers in particular. The source claims that censoring novels or including controversial topics through books in a curriculum creates conflict for teachers. The author of this journal article, Jane Agee, is an associate professor of Language in Education at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She studied eighteen high school English teachers in five different schools to gather the information for her study. Although the source discusses the impact of censorship of books on teachers instead of students, I found valuable information on the reasons why certain books are not wanted to be shown to students. Also, the article contains personal reasons from teachers on why they choose to continue to read or assign controversial books such as diversifying the intellect of students. This is the main point from the article that I want to include in my assignment because it helps to emphasize the importance of the impact of censoring books and the effect it can have on a student’s intellectual growth and development.
Boyd, Fenice B., and Nancy M. Bailey. “Censorship in Three Metaphors.” Journal of Adolescent
& Adult Literacy, vol. 52, no. 8, May 2009, pp. 653–661., doi:10.1598/jaal.52.8.1.
The source includes abstract knowledge about censorship and also describes the censorship of books through three metaphors. The three metaphors the authors, Fenice B. Boyd and Nancy M. Bailey, compare censorship against are with a barbed wire fence, patina, and a dangerous tightrope. Dr. Fenice B. Boyd has a PhD and is a Professor and Chair of the Instruction and Teacher Education Department in the College of Education at the University of South Carolina. Nancy M. Bailey has a PhD and works at the School of Education and Human Services in Canisius College. The authors first explain metaphors in depth and the connections they can help make to understand certain situations. Although, this information isn’t necessarily valuable to my research question, so I will exclude this section. In the metaphor between censorship and a barbed wire fence, censorship is described to be an obstruction and dangerous. It’s explained in the source that like a barbed wire fence, censorship can create barriers within the knowledge and creative thinking of a student. Although I’m neutral on the opinion of the destructiveness of censoring books for this paper, this information can help answer my research question and demonstrate the negative side of banning books.
Casares, Allyson J. “The Effect of Book Banning on Child Culture: A Close Look at the Harry
Potter Series.” The Looking Glass: New Perspectives on Children's Literature, 2003,
www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/153/152.
The source discusses the censorship of books through the Harry Potter novel series and the impact banning books has on the culture of children. The author of the paper, Allyson J. Casares, first begins by defining child culture and the importance environmental factors such as literature have on children’s growth and development. During the time the paper was written, Allyson J. Casares was a student writing the essay for a literature class at Purdue. Currently, Casares has completed her Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction with a focus on Literacy and Language Education. The main point I want to utilize from this source is the importance of books and the impact it solely can have on children. The importance of books remains in the idea that children can grow up reading about similarities within their own lives and parallels they can find within novels to gain a sense of comfortableness. This can allow them to define their own culture as stated in the paper.
Noll, Elizabeth. “The Ripple Effect of Censorship: Silencing in the Classroom.” The English
Journal, vol. 83, no. 8, 1994, pp. 59–64. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/820338.
The source mainly discusses self-censorship of literature by teachers in classrooms for reasons such as fear. For example, mentioned in the journal article, a teacher was forced to resign after being accused of violating district obscenity standards. The teacher had permission to use the play, The Shadow Box, from her principal, but later one of the district’s superintendents ordered her to cancel the use of the play because of offensive language and references to homosexuality. The case did not reach court, but the incident can still have instilled fear among teachers. Although there wasn’t much information on the credibility of the author, Elizabeth Noll, she has previously published more journal articles on various topics. The ripple effect of censorship is explained throughout the paper instead of exclusively within a section. Once a great deal of literature begins to become censored, teachers start to self-censor their curriculum and novels to avoid potential conflicts, which thus further adds to censoring books as a whole. This research can help answer my question by demonstrating that students are being taught restricted, limited, and biased information. Students that are taught biased information are restricted from growing and developing a well-rounded view on different subjects.
Palmer, Megan. “Book Banning Bans the Future: The Negative Effects of Book Banning
Regarding High School Students.” Southern New Hampshire University Archive,
academicarchive.snhu.edu/bitstream/handle/10474/2541/ucur2015palmer.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y.
The source specifically discusses the negative effects of censoring books, which includes classroom, societal, and individual effects. The writer of the paper, Megan Palmer, also addresses the reasons behind banning books and includes methods to take action against the censorship of books. There isn’t much information about Megan Palmer, the writer, because the paper is published as a pdf. The only information that is included within the paper that can add to her sense of credibility is the university, Southern New Hampshire University, which was most likely included because she published the paper while attending that university. The paper includes a credible and essential chart by The American Library Association that illustrates the reasons for challenging books since 2013. The chart could be useful to help explain the background and reasons for banning books which include a variety of topics such as violence, nudity, offensive language, and more. The three effects Palmer focuses on can help answer the main research question itself, but the information within the paper further emphasizes how detrimental these effects can be on students.
ProCon.org. "Banned Books – Top 3 Pros and Cons." ProCon.org. 20 Sep. 2018,
www.procon.org/headline.php?headlineID=005365
The source discusses the advantages and disadvantages of banning books from schools and libraries. For example, one advantage was that books can include some material that is not appropriate for students such as middle schoolers. The material and age of the students varies and depends on one another because some material can be appropriate for students in high school but not for students in middle school. Another example is that banning a book from a public library can help the library maintain its respect from the community. Also, if a book is not available in a certain library, there are different ways and methods to obtain that same book. The author of the article is not stated, so the credibility of this source isn’t the strongest. Although, all the information stated within the article is cited and all the citations are listed at the bottom of the page. Since the majority of the information I collected so far was more biased towards the negative impacts, the goal was to gather more information about the positive impacts of banning books. This source will fit into my assignment because it will give the audience a chance to make their own opinions on the research question instead of potentially influencing them.