Using controversial literature with young adults: a case study and insights.
Last fall I was a fresh library school graduate and a new librarian at my high school. I was eager to get to know the students and for the students to get to know me, and I wanted credibility from students, teachers, and administrators.For the library's second display of the school year, I selected books and posters based on two American Library Association guides: "Books Challenged or Banned in 2009-2010" and "Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century." One of the books on display was garnering a lot of interest from students, Mein Kampf, or My Struggle by Adolf Hitler. Our edition has a black cover, potentially concealing naughty, illicit proclamations inside. At the very least, students at my Jewish private high school knew that the book was written by Hitler, who spearheaded the murder of millions of Jews.
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THE IDEA
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Mein Kampf had the potential for some fervent debate among students. Sure, To Kill a Mockingbird, Their Eyes Were Watching God, Lord of the Flies, and The Catcher in the Rye are all on the ALA's banned or challenged books lists, but they are also on the required reading list for courses at my school, so students would likely find these challenges amusing and weird. "Who would want to ban books that we're required to read?" they might wonder. "There's nothing objectionable about these books," they might say. Yet, Mein Kampf would likely be highly objectionable to these Jewish students.
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How would students react to a book that they despised? Would they defend it? Should the book be read by students at our school? And, by extension, should it be in our library?
I decided a skit might be a good way to introduce a debate, so I wrote a skit involving a librarian scolding an engaged student reading Mein Kampf in front of our display rack. The high school audience would no doubt find it amusing that a librarian would deride a student for reading a library book. The skit ended with the lines from both librarian and student: "Fight censorship! Read banned books!" The first script hit the recycling bin for a few reasons. First, it was partisan in favor of maintaining the book in our library. Second, my library director recommended that I use two student actors because she felt the audience would respond better to its peers. So I revised the script to feature two students.
Finally, I wanted to have a discussion after the skit. Having a skit and discussion in the library would be too disruptive to students who needed to do coursework and may not capture enough attention. Grade-level meetings in the school theater would be a good venue for the presentation, as students are required to attend and pay attention. I needed two student actors for each meeting, so I emailed the school drama teacher, Ralph Morris, and sent along the script. Morris replied with a much more nonpartisan, nuanced script, featuring strong counterarguments, as well as a list of drama students.
Convincing student actors to commit took some cajoling. They probably worried they might look like fools defending a creepy book in front of their friends and teachers. To make their jobs easier, I allowed them to read the script on stage rather than memorize it.
THE PERFORMANCE
We had an audience of about one hundred twenty-five students and teachers per performance. I introduced the actors and the skit, explaining that it "considers one of the most controversial books in our library." I moderated discussions after each skit, in which students often reiterated arguments from the actors.
One of the characters in the skit wants to remove the book from the library by having his parents talk with the school principal. "That book is total filth," he asserts. "It's not appropriate for high school students, especially here. Don't you have any respect for the six million Jews Hitler murdered?"
Many students' relatives have painful connections to the Holocaust, so the argument that it would be insensitive to feature the memoir of the mastermind of the Holocaust in a Jewish school library has a personal resonance. The heart of the matter is whether considerate Jewish students should read Mein Kampf. Other students saw having access to the book as part of their First Amendment rights. A number of students also voiced the sentiment, "If we don't want to repeat history, then we must learn from it." The student reading Mein Kampf in the skit asks, "Don't we have to study cruel dictators along with civil rights leaders?" The school offers a Holocaust studies course in which some students research the psychology of the Nazi Party. The memoir is a primary source, which could be very useful for research. The library strives to support the curriculum.
Some students suggested that the book could incite radicals to commit terrorist acts. The student actor critical of reading Mein Kampf states, "Ideas can change people--sometimes for the worse!" The book, no doubt, does include what the skit refers to as "horrible ideas," deriding Jews for their "parasitism" and "unclean dress" (150, 57). Hitler also refers to "moral stains on this 'chosen people'" (57). The book has been banned in Germany since 1945. When the Institute of Contemporary History (IFZ)--located in Munich--applied to reprint a scholarly edition of the work in 2009, the Bavarian state government, which owns the copyright, denied the request citing fears that it would rejuvenate "far right" groups (American Library Association). The young man accused of perpetrating the shooting spree in Tucson, Jared Loughner, counted among his favorite books: Mein Kampf, The Communist Manifesto, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and The Phantom Tollbooth. The media has speculated whether any of these or other books could have influenced the suspected gunman to allegedly commit such violent acts.
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EVALUATION
The three- to five-minute discussions were a major success. About two-thirds of the student audiences supported having Mein Kampf in our library, with one-third against it. Ninth and tenth graders tended to be more critical of making the book available to students. Afterward, students came to the library to view our banned books display and the American Library Association's lists of banned and challenged books. They checked out the banned books on display. They learned that some books have been banned and challenged since their first publication, and the students became involved in a contentious intellectual freedom debate. Faculty commended the skit and the discussion for their respectful presentation of difficult subjects. Faculty also mentioned that students talked about the project long after it finished. "You really got them riled up," one teacher said.
I had shown the students that the library is not just a place for quiet study, socializing with friends, and relaxing with video games during a free period or after school, but also a dynamic arena for fervent debate about important issues of our time rooted in the Bill of Rights and democracy.
DO IT YOURSELF
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Many of the works on the American Library Association's lists of banned and challenged books can be used to spark dialogues among students, depending on a school or community's demographic profile. For example, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, have been controversial because they include racial epithets. The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank has been criticized because of the author's frank discussion of human development while coming of age during the Holocaust. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger and The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky are controversial because they feature swearing and graphic descriptions of sex. Lolita by Vladmir Nabokov has been chided because it features pedophilia and incest.
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If you wish to create your own program on intellectual freedom and controversial literature, here are some suggestions:
1. Get approval from your library director and/or school administration before going forward with a presentation on banned, challenged, or potentially divisive literature. You will need their support in the event of negative reactions from the community.
2. Collaborate on the program with other library staff and/or school faculty and parents. This will help you flesh out the ethical dilemmas and meanings of the works that you may not realize.
3. Make sure that you have an engaging discussion with students. Ask probing questions but try to stay nonpartisan as the moderator. Just repeat and clarify students' arguments.
4. Talk with students and adults in the audience after the presentation for their reactions. Audience comments will help you revise and improve the program with other groups and in future years.
Creating a forum for debate can be a double-edged sword. We want our students to be critical thinkers who are knowledgeable and respect the multiple sides of today's issues. Certain debates, however, can be very inflammatory in particular communities. We must be sensitive to this. Administrators may fear more book challenges as a result of drawing attention to a controversial title. I respect those fears, but feel strongly that the liberties to debate and make available controversial books, such as Hitler's book to those studying the Holocaust, are worth fighting for today and in the future. These differences of outlooks, I believe, demonstrate the value of our intellectual freedom exercise.
REFERENCES
American Library Association. "Censorship Dateline, Foreign: Munich, Germany." Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom 58.5 (Sep 2009) 22 Jan 2011. https://members.ala.org/nif/v58n5/dateline.html#munich
Doyle, Robert P. Banned and/or Challenged Books from the Radcliffe Publishing Course Top 100 Novels of the 20th Century. American Library Association, 2010. 20 Sep 2010. http://www.ala.org/Template. cfm?Section=bbwlinks&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay. cfm&ContentID=136590
--. Think for Yourself and Let Others Do the Same: Books Challenged or Banned in 2009-2010. American Library Association, 2010.20 Sep 2010. http://www.ila.org/pdf/2010banned.pdf
Goldberg, Jonah. "The Exploitive Rhetoric of Tragedy." Los Angeles Times. (11 Jan 2011) 22 Jan 2011. http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/11/opinion/ la-oegoldberg-shooting-20110111
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. Trans. Ralph Manheim. 1st Mariner Books ed. Houghton Mifflin, 1999, c1943.
Kellerman, Daniel, and Ralph Morris. "Mein Kampf Censorship Skit." High School, Sept 2010.
Miller, Laura. "The Real Message of Loughner's Book List." Salon. (9 Jan 2011) 22 Jan 2011. http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2011/01/09/ loughner_book_list
* Note: Names involved in this article, including the author's, have been changed to protect privacy.
Daniel Kellerman* has been a high school librarian since 2008. He holds masters degrees in library and information science and journalism. This is his first article for VOYA.
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| Author: | Kellerman, Daniel |
|---|---|
| Publication: | Voice of Youth Advocates |
| Geographic Code: | 1USA |
| Date: | Jun 1, 2011 |
| Words: | 1807 |
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