This is the gist of my life right now…

“I have forwarded your email to ‘such-and-such’. We are [blank] and don’t have information on [blank] here for you. However, we can tell you [blank]. But you can contact [name of entity that will send us a similar response later].”

This makes me so glad that Rosanna and I started reaching out to organizations early. Round and round and round we go. Where we stop? Who knows?

However, we have come across some gems of information.

We met Amanda Glenn-Bradley next week to see what she could help us dig up on the challenge against The Bluest Eye. We found some useful information, but it was limited in comparison to what was found on a challenge against The Kite Runner in Buncombe County. I asked Rosanna if she could share the list of resources Amanda found for us so we can compile them into a “master” document of sorts so we can keep everything we find throughout the semester in one place.

And I got an email back from Susanne Swanger, the Associate Superintendent of Buncombe County Schools in response to my request for information:

“Good morning.

BCS follows our policy 3200 and 3210 in terms of supplementary reading materials. This process is critically important as the policy outlines each step during a challenge. When book challenges occur, the local school Media Technology Advisory Committee (which consists of school staff and parent representatives) reviews the book, the purposes of instruction and the parental concerns per policy. That committee makes their recommendation of keeping the book for their school or eliminating the book. The committee removed the book from the 11th grade reading list but kept the book as a possible material for a 12th grade Advanced Placement Lit course. This selection did not come to the county level MTAC committee nor to the Board due to the fact that an agreeable decision was made at the school level.

It would be important to note that the process was followed per policy. This selection was included on a Honors English syllabus that was provided to parents. It is best practice for parents and students to be able to review the syllabus and notify the teacher when there are concerns so that alternative texts can be assigned. Our ELA specialist Eric Grant as well as our lead media specialist, Jennifer Hand work collaboratively to make sure our reading selections are instructionally appropriate for the level of reader.

If you are asking for a public records request for the written complaint, please direct that request to Stacia Harris in our BCS Communications office. Good luck with your project.

Sincerely,

Susanne Swanger”

I also heard back from Ken Miller, the head of adult services at Pack Memorial Library. He’s willing to help us, but he wants more specific questions. I’ll be responding to him once Rosanna and I articulate what exactly we want to look for from the public library’s end.

Rosanna and I met last Friday to discuss the layout of our case study website. She had some really great ideas about how we could organize the webpages. We discussed our writing styles and found that, because of our differences in field, we tend to write differently. So we decided to do what she calls “cross-writing” where we’ll both edit each other’s work until we feel like our overall product sounds like it has some unity. We also went over website theme options and nailed down which one we want to go forward with.

I’m also still trying to get a hold of Dr. James from UNC Asheville to schedule an interview about Toni Morrison.

I still need to set up check lists for Rosanna and I on Trello. That’ll help us get more organized.

In addition, I will begin doing some research on Toni Morrison’s life as an author so I can write up a literary biography to post on our website.