This week Cara and I have been adding the last tweaks and fixes to the website before the peer reviewing starts this coming week. This has mostly consisted of re formatting things, reviewing and editing what has already been written, as well as writing a couple last pages, including the Lisa Baldwin interview  page, as she finally got back with us this week. On page in particular that I was putting off to the last minute was the “Why does this happen?” page. I save this page to last because I hoped to have the best possible picture of what happened before I started conjecturing and describing why I thought people challenged books in general and why this book was challenged.

I am very proud of our website. Given the fact that we only started learning how to use this program at the beginning of the semester, I am impressed with how the website looks and flows and am excited to see how we can improve it in the coming weeks.

The only thing I wish we had more of on our website is primary documentation and fact. Though we were able to interview a fair amount of people, we were not able to obtain the formal complaint or the final MTAC decision, nor were we able to talk to the teacher or the complaining parent. This means that all of the content on our website comes from an outside source, such as the news articles, or from someone we interviewed. While these sources are very helpful in understanding the challenge from different perspectives, I would have been much happier if we could have provided primary documents on our website and also shown the interpretations different people had. Because of the nature of a website, I think it is better to present the facts and the documents available in an organized manner so that people can find in and use it as a resource to form their own opinions on the topic. Though this can still be done on a website that provides more description of possible scenarios and interpretation of events, I would much rather also provide the primary documents in as value free of a way as possible. I’m not opposed to giving my opinion, I just wish we could have also given a more detailed factual account. Though truly value neutral educations is impossible (as we have learned in this class), I wish we could have given a more well rounded account of what happened, so that our site was more neutral and fact based.

However, at this point, all we can do is make our readers aware of this fact. Because we were unable to provide some of these documents and an exact account of what happened, all we can do is provide a description of what we think happened and make sure the those who visit our site know that much of what is on our site is interpretive.

This week, I revisited the essay “Politics on Children’s Literature” by Belinda Louie. This was interesting to go back to as we near the end of the semester because we have talked more about the different ways that books could be censored. In the essay, she talks about what goes into children’s literature and all of the people who interact with it. There are the authors, parents, kids, teachers, publishers, and the general public. Every person who fits into one of these categories has a different perspective as to what is appropriate and how to properly deal with books that aren’t. The thing that had surprised me the most was how often kids self-regulate when it comes to the content they intake. Louie claims that kids “choose books that are pleasant.” Young children don’t like to read or hear things that are upsetting so they make sure to avoid any possible run-ins with uncomfortable topics. When a teacher picks out a required reading with these situations, kids are taken out of their comfort zone, which in turn makes the parents upset.

Looking back on all the books that I have read, there is one book that probably would have had a more negative reaction had I been in a larger school. In fifth grade, my class read Call it Courage  by Armstrong Sperry. Reflecting on it now, the book was riddled with problems that I can’t wait to discuss. Firstly, the book had some scary themes for it being a children’s book. The main character was bullied by his whole island for being traumatized after seeing his mom die. He runs away to an island where he is being chased by cannibals. I remember when I was reading this, most of my class didn’t exactly know what cannibals were. I knew though, and reading the book was kind of frightening. I know that my parents didn’t know what the book was about even though I don’t think they would have objected had they known. I’m assuming that most of the parents didn’t know the themes of the book because I don’t remember anyone ever complaining other than a few of the kids who understood what cannibalism was.

Another problem with the book, that as kids we had no way of grasping, was the cultural issues brought up in the book. The book is set on a real island in the pacific ocean. I know that a lot of students in the class had assumed that the real island had cannibals on it. Also, the author was a white male born in the United States. Because the book was written in 1940, I can’t expect it to have kept up with modern ideas of cultural awareness. It does show a lot about those who chose to have the book read to ten-year-olds.

There are a lot of people who interact with the books that are given to children to read. I think that because kids are known to self regulate, I think that it would be better to allow them to choose what they want to read, not just at home, but have some more input at school as well.

I do apologize for the tardiness of this post and of how short it will be, for future note, I do plan for the Defense of Contract post to be quite lengthy. A progress report for these last couple of weeks. Max and I have completed our series of interviews, electing not to go forward with our last interview. The project site is pretty much completed, the last of it is sitting and waiting to be uploaded to WordPress. Although, we have decided on a new aspect of the site that will be needed to be worked on after the rough draft has been presented. Max and I have elected type out each article we have collected, that way when we the newspaper clippings are posted onto the site, the content of the clippings will be searchable. I believe the plan is to have the site ready for review by Friday evening.

The foreseeable problems that I see upcoming is mainly time, this is due to next week is the final week of classes at USAO, and thus as the semester is coming to a close, many of the course projects or research projects I have been conducting are also due. Hence, there will be a lot of late nights for this week and the next. However, I have created a tentative schedule down to the minute, that should keep me on track and have all projects completed.

As I come to the end of the semester, I look back on the case and what I originally thought. The initial research into this case was marred with uncertainty and hesitation. Will I be able to find everything I need? How will the website come together, what is WordPress? What was the public opinion about this book and it’s author? These questions and more clouded my original thoughts of the case, and made me very hesitant to even continue through the course. Fear of failure is a motivator, but it is also a terrible feeling to have before starting a new online course.

Progress on my case and website has been tremendous. I can see my shy and timidness shedding away as I call up the Superintendent’s office, schedule interviews with professors, librarians, and the teacher who sparked the controversy. These interviews and phone calls have become so much easier to do, I know I have the support of my professors, classmates, and partner to complete these tasks.

Last week was an incredible week for progress on the case, I had set up an interview with the teacher who assigned Song of Solomon as the summer reading list, and the interview was incredible. He called me to see where I would be at in the library, I reserved a quiet, semi-secluded, study room at the East end of the Library and set up the recording equipment, ran a few tests, checked the battery levels and set lined up the perfect angle for the interview. I went to the lobby and waited for David Flood, after a brief period I saw a very tall man with long gray hair and sunglasses. I went over to speak with him and take him to the interview room, it wasn’t him. Embarrassment has never killed anyone, yet, I sure felt close to death. A few more moments pass by and then I see another tall man following a student who had resembled me, it appears that I am not the only one who mistook an identity today. We proceeded to go upstairs to the East end of the library, and already it felt like David was about to jump out of his skin with his excitement.

The interview. WOW. It was amazing. We get into the room and he begins to open a giant old briefcase with a ton of newspapers, clippings, photos, and files. I briefly look back down at my notes and questions that I had for him, and thought for a second that I should just let him go. As soon as I started recording David started talking about what happened. I heard every detail from the man who lived it all, from over 20 years ago his memory and expression of detail were exact. More time passed and I sat there listening, just in awe, from what was being said. The passion that came from the interview will be shown on the website, the next step is to edit and publish.

I’m very happy with the progress Sean and I have made on our website so far—though there’s still work to be done. I know that part of the progress was held up because we were struggling to find all the major players in the Webster case due to confidentiality issues and the amount of time that had passed since it was challenged. Unfortunately, Carole Barnabas—our teacher who had agreed to an Q & A over email—has not gotten back to me, and I fear we will not be able to incorporate her perspective into the website. However, now that we probably have the name of the alleged challenger, that does make up for it a bit. We’re trying to find out more about the challenger—who, based on evidence, we believe to Reverend Ronald Morse from Victory Baptist Church in Rochester, NY.

Earlier tonight when Sean and I were at work, we were discussing our plan for finishing the website this week. He mentioned that when he messaged the Reverend on Facebook, there was an indication that Morse had seen Sean’s message, but Sean did not get a response. I’m worried that Morse might’ve just decided to ignore our reaching out to him. Sometimes Facebook can be weird and it is not the most reliable way of communication, so I’m not completely hopeless, but I’m just being realistic. If that’s the case, I will understand, but I’ll be disappointed. I wanted to be able to portray both sides, but I definitely think we tried to find out as much as we could. Furthermore, we’re going to construct a background based on what we are able to learn about the Reverend and his church, the Victory Baptist Church.

When looking for articles about Morse on Newspapers.com (s/o to Cathy, Thanks!) I found an article from 2005 where Reverend Morse and numerous other Rochester area religious leaders signed a statement affirming their belief that marriage was between a man and a woman.

This is great because it helps provide historical context. Of course, there are still challenges to gay marriage in the US even though it is legal now, but I feel like in the early-mid 2000s tensions were much more heightened. Different states were passing laws to legalize and illegalize gay marriage. I’m going to look into the Reverend’s church a little more to try and find more historical context this week.

For next week, I’m also going to finish up the StoryMap; provided it doesn’t give me any more trouble. Then, I have to polish up and proofread all our content so that it reads well and is grammatically correct. Similarly, I’m trying to figure out the best way to present our newspaper clippings and images on the website so that they are with the content they relate to, but then I think maybe it’s good to keep them together. Sean and I are navigating that and we created a game plan to put the finishing touches on the website for next Monday.

The Finish Line

Our draft website is due next week. I have a formidable but not unattainable workload in front of me. I still need to write a reflective blog style post about my own opinion on this case and that opinion is still developing day by day. My initial search for information led me to a debate in The Enterprise that was one or two people against many. I initially thought that the lack of supports of the ban meant that people must not agree with this “minority.” The more I reflected I realized that the “minority” had already won, why would they need to continue to argue their point? I also realized I was looking at this case with too much presentism. The challenge was presented in 1997 when the internet was less readily available and these people who challenged the book may have had the best intentions.

The opposition to the ban argue that this must have been racial motivated, but the people in favor of the ban never bring up anything racial. They criticize the books usage of recreational drugs, necrophilia, and casual sex. The people who are against the ban criticize supporters of it for not reading the actual book, but Joie Brunger claims to have read the book and still thought it was “trash” The people who made decisions about the book did not actually read it and the scene regarding necrophilia, when taken out of context, would be troublesome to read.

While exploring 1997 and other nearby years I realized that racial tensions were boiling in St. Mary’s County as a whole. A black church was burned down, and the leader of the church believed it to be a hate crime, but the sheriff’s office and the local community said there was no evidence of any hatred. Most of the racial tension is speculated but other instances are more obvious. A group existed to advocate for victims of discriminatory actions in the work place or elsewhere. The county worked hard to force them to make public information that was taken in confidence because they did not have legal authority to keep client information confidential. The group almost had to shut down their efforts, but some legal work afforded them protections.

Political leaders frequently sighted opposition to their efforts as racism. A local park was being developed and opposition tried to shut it down for environmental concerns, but it was argued that they did not want more Asian fisherman or for black people to have access to the piers.  Whether or not race motivated the removal of Song of Solomon from AP reading lists, people believed it did and that is important for the historical context of the area.

This week Liz and I made our final efforts to recruit information for our project, with the deadline for doing so inevitably nearing as our projects are due next week. Liz scored some answers from Alex Sanchez and posted them on the website. Additionally, Liz and I were impressed with Cathy’s abilities to recruit information on Reverend Morse, and I took her leads and dug a bit further, confirming that Ron Morse’s daughter went to Webster schools and would have been the right age at the time of the challenge. Through Brittany (the daughter) on Facebook, I found Ron’s (Reverend Morse’s) Facebook. While we’re operating under the assumption this is the man who challenged Rainbow Boys, we cannot be certain. Though it was still very interesting to look around his Facebook: lots of preaching on what he thinks God wants in certain situations, a few posts bashing President Obama, and a bizarre amount of Facebook “fortune cookies” for a devout Christian. His Facebook also indicated he worked at the Victory Baptist Church in downtown Rochester after studying at Louisiana Baptist University. The Victory Church’s website is polished and straightforward but surely intense, stating its belief in “The literal existence of Satan, as an evil and powerful adversary, who acts as personal tempter and accuser.” Since Baptists don’t have a hierarchical structure to their denomination, the thoughts of Morse and other leaders of Victory Church are somewhat unfiltered in comparison to other churches. On his Facebook, Morse quipped, “My only problem with Christianity today is Christians. The desire for the church today is to present Jesus as a hip, loving, best-friend -you -could -ever – have, guy who took a bullet for you.” All this interesting information that I think could drive the challenger perspective of our site inspired me to reach out to Ron Morse through a Facebook message and ask him about the challenge to Rainbow Boys. I was careful to slightly alter my pitch from “a project on censorship” to “a project on what the right circumstances are for banning a book from schools.” While both are true, the latter, I hope, will be more appealing to Morse in terms of giving his honest impression of his issues with the book. I sent the message this morning (4/2) around 9am, and fingers crossed for a response. If he doesn’t respond, can we still craft some of our challenger’s perspective based on the strong probability that this man was the challenger, obviously being careful to indicate we are not entirely sure?

Looking forward, we can surely fill in our student perspective for Carly Maldonado, and I still need to look into separating some of the fact from analysis on the Trish Warren page, with the intention of building a seperate reflection page for all of research and interviews. Would such a page be done collectively or offer reflections from each students?

We’ve gotten an interview response! Sadye responded to our emailed interview questions and gave us some unique insight as to what actually happened in the school. She told us about how To Kill A Mockingbird was taught in the school and what students reactions were to it. Based on her account, students knew the school’s reason for making the book required and understood the themes that were being taught. She said that some of the themes were racism, greed, and they looked at how children were portrayed in historical contexts.

She explained how she started the petition, which was just a word document. I had always thought there were steps you had to go through to make a petition, but it’s a lot easier than I thought. She told us how many people signed it and the general response to her going around school asking for signatures.

We also asked her about the petition getting taken away because we found differing news reports. Most of the articles said that the principal took it away while one said that the principal asked her not to do it during school. I had expected the version with the most news coverage to be correct but it wasn’t. She said that the principal took it away during school hours and told her to get signatures in another place. He had actually informed her that there was a protest going on where she could get more people to sign. While the version that multiple news told wasn’t technically wrong, they left out a lot of information that could affect how a person views the principal.

Sadye told us all about the protest and how she felt being there. She mentioned that the atmosphere wasn’t exactly what she had thought it would be. People were angrier than she expected and “it was a little more aggressive than I had hoped.” She had wanted to have more conversation and didn’t feel anger was conducive to that.

Her answers were really well written, which is always nice. She gave us a lot of information that we wouldn’t have gotten by just reading news articles because as I have found, they aren’t always accurate. I think that after this interview, I would like to push a bit harder to get Charles Knitter’s response. He said he would work on it last week but we have no yet received his answers. I think that because he is an adult, his perspective would be different than Sadye’s, which would round out our website a bit more.

I had originally hoped to do this post as a reflection of the Lisa Baldwin Interview, however we were never able to get her responses to our questions so it will instead be on the Eric Grant interview. Eric Grant was not closely involved in this case, so he was mostly only able to give us information on the general process. He was also interviewed about this case before the MTAC decision was made along with the complaining parent, Tim Coley by WLOS. Eric Grant is the Head of 6-12 English Language Arts for Buncombe County Schools and is only directly involved with book challenges if the parent challenges the initial school level MTAC decision. He provided us with the Board Policy regarding book challenges and had this to say regarding The Bluest Eye case and his role:

“In the case of The Bluest Eye, the school MTAC Committee met and reviewed the complaint and the materials. They decided to leave the text intact for classroom use for a 12th grade English Advanced Placement course only. That decision was supported by the complainant so the challenge stopped at the school level.

“My role proved to be fairly limited. I met with the school to outline the process prior to the school MTAC committee and to answer any questions that they had. Because the first step is for the school-based committee to meet, I did not participate in that meeting. Since it did not reach the county level, I did not need to get further involved.”

And, of The Bluest Eye he had this to say:

It’s themes around power and around how society defines beauty are very powerful.

When we asked him his opinion of the book more specifically he described it as “great literature” and said that it gave students “opportunity to understand a culture and an experience different from what most of them have experienced.” He also said that he found the process currently used by Buncombe County Schools held a fair balance between allowing “parents to have their voices heard” and also allowing the school committee to “apply their educational expertise.” He did not specifically say if he agreed with the schools decision, but he implied that he trusted the process to find a balance between parental concerns and opinions and the educational benefits of a text.