B&B: Burnin' & Bannin'

Today you will work to uncover some background information that will help you to appreciate the importance of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.

The novel deals with the issue of banned books. Banning and Censcorship are nothing new to humanity. These actions have existed as long as recorded history.

This webquest will give you a brief background on the banning of books and censcorship in modern times. These events inspired Ray Bradbury to write Fahrenheit 451.

These are your tasks:

• To demonstrate understanding about why the Nazis burned books.
• To evaluate why this burning happened and why the students carried out the burning.
• To demonstrate understanding about what it means to ban books.
• To demonstrate understanding about who seeks to ban books.
• To evaluate where you stand on banning books.
• To demonstrate understanding of a local school district's decision on a potential book ban.
• To create different arguments to defend a book against a potential ban.

Nazi Book Burning:

• Watch the following video of the Dr. Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, give a speech at a book burning:
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wELrtx8NxoU
• Answer the following questions:

                             1.       Do you think everyone there wanted to burn those books? Explain why you answered yes or no. (Type 1, 5 lines minimum)

• Visit the following website to learn about Nazi book burning:
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/goebbels/peopleevents/e_book.html
• Answer the following question:

                              2.       Why did this book burning happen?  

Book Banning:

• Visit the following website to learn about book banning:
  • http://www.ala.org/bbooks/about
  • http://www.ala.org/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/statistics
• Answer the following questions:

                              3.       Why are books banned?

                              4.       Who seeks to ban books?

                              5.       What type of people seem to challenge books the most often?

                              6.       Do you think that some books should be banned? Why, or why not?

Local Bans:

• Visit the following websites to learn about recent attempt to ban books at East Penn School District:
  • http://articles.mcall.com/2012-09-12/news/mc-east-penn-kool-aid-acid-test-20120911_1_director-francee-fuller-books-director-julian-stolz
  • http://articles.mcall.com/2012-12-11/news/mc-emmaus-student-reading-book-porn-20121211_1_megan-slifka-list-for-general-education-education-and-college-prep-students
• Answer the following question:

                                 7.       What two books were being considered for banning? Were they banned?

• Visit the following website to learn about some objections that were made about this attempt to ban the books in question:
  • http://articles.mcall.com/2012-09-20/news/mc-east-penn-porn-book-complaints-20120920_1_book-legal-defense-fund-american-booksellers-foundation-general-education-and-college
• Answer the following question:

                    8.       Imagine your favorite book is about to be banned by Dieruff. You decide to argue against its banning at the school board 

meeting. What are some points you would make to argue against it being banned?  (Type 1, 5 lines minimum)

THIS ASSIGNMENT IS WORTH:

20 POINTS

HOW YOU EARN THIS GRADE IS SIMPLE: 

COMPLETED HANDOUT=FULL CREDIT

Congratulations on completing this Webqust!

You are now ready to begin reading the novel, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury.

By completing this webquest, you acquired new schema. Utilize this schema during the reading of novel. See creating schema is mad easy.