I am not exactly sure what I want to write my essay on but a few topics that have skimmed my mind have been "Why some books become banned?" and "Why do adults view adolescents the way that they do?" I feel that both topics can be discussed with the books that we are going to read in class.
I want to know why some books are banned and who decides that they are put on the banned book list. It amazes me that some schools ban books based on "too sexual" of context and witchcraft. The fact that adults in a school setting think that they can choose what children read is ludicrous. Parents should be the ones choosing or if a adolescent is old enough they should be able to choose what they want to read. Books are meant to be read and not banned.
The other topic that I am thinking about is why do adults view adolescents the way that they do? Some adults think that adolescents are dangerous, crazy and wild, even though just a few years back they were the same way. Just because one adolescent does something bad it puts a bad name out there for everyone. I want to know why they are portrayed in such a bad way in some books and why authors think it is okay to portray them as such bad people.
Learning in the Age of the Trigger Warning
11 years ago
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteI think you have laid out two really nice options for your paper. Either would work well. Here are some ideas I have about each of them:
If you do the book banning topic, I'm confident that there will be lots of really interesting material to read on the subject: everything from history of banned books to supreme court trials to fiction such as "Fahrenheit 451" by Bradbury. I think you might even find that the history of banned books is different for different countries and different US states. There are a lot of places you could take this topic; it might need some narrowing down.
As for the topic of the way youth are understood by adults, this would be a far more subjective topic. I think you might have trouble "proving" that more adults "these days" are fed up with, scared of, or giving up on youth. That is not to say it is a bad topic, quite the contrary, I think it would be very cool! You would just have to decide what it is about the way youth are portrayed and make sure you have evidence of that before you embarque on a particular avenue only to find it is too subjective to support with other sources.
Again, I think both are great ideas! Good luck!
Becca