In working on a website assignment this week, I was looking up information on the censorship of "Lady Chatterly's Love."  By the way, the sex in that book was extremely mild in that book by  today's standards, and it was notoriously banned for sexual content.

Moving on, I was shocked to see which books are still banned in the U.S.  Mind you, these books are not banned by the government.  Rather, they are mostly banned from school districts.

I have read many of these books to my daughter, and plan to teach one of them later in the year.
This list comes from an article in the Huffington Post, I will post a link to it at the bottom of this page.

1. Both the American Heritage and Merriam Webster's dictionaries have been banned in California public schools.

2.  The Grapes of Wrath.      Seriously??

3.  Sylvester and the Magic Pebble.    A wonderful children's book that my sweet girl ADORED.

4. Beloved, by Toni Morrison.

5.  "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?"  Yes, it really is a book about colors and animals.  Banned in 2010 by The TEXAS BOARD OF EDUCATION.  This book was taught to my daughter in Pre-K.  Scandalous.  Isn't that the state that produced Rick Perry - how is this for big government??

6.  "James and The Giant Peach" and "The Witches," by one of my personal favorites from my childhood, Roald Dahl.

7.  "Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl"  Come ON!

8.  Little Women.  Not my favorite by any means, but really?

9.  "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and "A Farewell to Arms," both by Hemingway.  If these are banned, how can people who don't read name drop authors to sound smarter??

10.  "A light in the Attic,"by Shel Silverstein.

11.  "A Wrinkle In Time" - I have a class set already, waiting for sixth grade minds to explore :)


I thought this list was pretty funny - and thought I'd share a laugh.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/29/the-11-most-surprising-ba_n_515381.html#s76400&title=The_Dictionary

Stream of Consciousness

So, for right now this blog only serves a purpose for British Lit class, but once the class is over, I plan to convert it to a blog for teaching ideas.  Please remember that I teach 6th grade literature.  I have decided to put together a brief unit on Stream of Consciousness, as a way to give the kids a taste of things they probably will not be exposed to unless it is in a classroom.  I am actually toying with the idea of using it as a component in a two week unit, in which I give them snippits of different things, like some poetry - I think they'll like "Slam Poetry" and won't otherwise think of it, some travel logs from early American, etc.

Since my blog viewers are undoubtedly only other members of the British Lit class, I would like some input.  Do any of you have any ideas?  I was thinking I would read to them a carefully chosen excerpt from "Portrait of a Young Artist" and then do a power point defining Stream of Consciousness.  Any thoughts?

I recently read "Lady Chatterly's Lover."  It was banned in Britain when it was written, but I thought it was really rather mild.  In my honest opinion, the only reason that it is considered literature is that it was racy for it's time.  This got me thinking....how many pieces in our cannon are only there because they were ahead of their time.  In other words, if they were written today, would they even be a big deal?

Stream of consciousness

For my Modern British Literature class, I finished "Portrait of a Young Man" this week by James Joyce.  It is not something I would normally pick up to read, but I found that once I got past the new structure, I really enjoyed it.

I wonder sometimes why "stream of consciousness" never became more popular?  It seems like it would be so easy to write.  My sixth graders all seem to write that way (which is rather frustrating to read, since unlike Joyce, they never seem to come back around - they just circle and circle).

It is hard to read, but is that only because I am not used to reading things like this, or would it always be hard to wrap your head around something that is written as though you are wrapped up in the protagonist's brain?