The results were overwhelmingly in favor of banning the books of Palin, Beck and Coulter, though the math of the survey is a little confusing since the results don’t add up to 100%. That said, what’s going on here?

Rebel Pundit’s reporter set up on the street in Chicago, during the Printers Row Literary Festival. As these alleged book lovers passed by the reporter, he asked them which books they’d like banned, telling them they could ban up to three, and handing them a Sharpie so they could make tick marks under their choices. Before I go on, watch the Rebel Pundit video of folks participating in the survey:

Sadly, people take the marker and willingly step up to the poster. The editing of the video suggests the participants aren’t really thinking much. They don’t even interact much with the reporter, other than taking the Sharpie from his hand.

In fairness, Rebel Pundit does explain that there were naysayers:

Nine people explicitly stated to us they thought banning books was wrong, including two individuals who voted on the board but later approached us to say, (paraphrasing) “I think I made a mistake, and wanted to take my votes back if I could, because after further reflection, I think banning any book is wrong.”

Only nine people of 147 protested the idea of banning books. Of course, the point of the survey isn’t really book banning. It’s to demonstrate that people make choices without thinking.

My hunch is that the reporter expected people to vote unthinkingly. Rebel Pundit is a conservative blog. According to their About page, they are “a beacon of truth, showing the unholy alliance of the local mainstream media and the progressive Democratic Party.” Since Chicago is a traditionally liberal town, the video and related article depict the people of Chicago as foolish lemmings:

While there were in fact less than two handfuls of individuals who did tell us they don’t think any books should be banned, unfortunately there were a shocking amount of guests at this book fair who were quite open to the idea, and in fact lined up quite excited for the opportunity to voice their opinion.

Given the audience of the Rebel Pundit site, the site likely guessed that their readers would draw the connections that the liberal democrats at the book festival were actually interested in limiting individual freedoms by stepping up happily to ban books. You don’t need to read many of the comments to see that it worked.

How to Use the Video in the Classroom

Because of the way that people blindly choose to ban books, the video can be a useful part of class discussion of censorship and book banning. Though it’s a tempting idea, I would not set up a classroom or school survey to trap students into similar behavior. I want students to think critically about censorship, and I don’t think labeling them as unthinking is a good way to do that.

Instead, I want to play the video for students and ask them what they think is happening. Why are the participants so willing to participate in this book banning activity? I want them to identify how much thought is going into the participants’ decisions and how much peer pressure and the public nature of the survey contribute to participation. I’ll also ask students to look at the setup of the survey. It’s just a simple tick mark on a piece of poster paper. Does that simplicity or the presence of the reporter influence them to participate?

I don’t think the decision to add a vote to the poster is part of some great political agenda, so I will downplay those connections at the beginning of the discussion. When the political aspect of the survey does come up, and I’m sure it will, I’ll ask students to think about how the choice of books and the setting for the survey were part of the reason people were eager to ban the books on the poster. What would happen if the same survey were set up in a conservative town or event?

There are also questions of graphic design to consider: does the layout of book covers on the poster play a part in the response? What would happen if the books are arranged differently on the poster or if the choices were shared only with words (without those very identifiable faces on the book covers)? If the survey itself were presented some other way, would the decision to participate be different?

After all this discussion, I’m thinking of introducing a research project on book banning. Students can research censorship events, like Nazi book burning to more recent censorship of bloggers in countries like China and Egypt. The focus can be widened to include films, songs, and other texts as well. Research questions like these could inspire papers or presentations:

• How does peer pressure contribute to participation in book burnings?
• What other persuasive devices were involved?
• Are there political agendas at play in the choice of what has been banned?
• Does the fact that just one book is banned simplify participation?
• Who decided what was banned? What motives were at play?
• How did people involved respond to censorship?

Supplement your discussion with resources on censorship on the American Library Association website.

If I decide not to go with a research activity, I may stick with the survey itself and ask students to write short responses that they’d give if they were asked, “Which books would you ban?” Answers can be anything from a 140-character Twitter posts to a video response or PowerPoint presentation. The resulting pieces can be part of public service announcement campaign during Banned Books Week.

[Photo: polaroid_banned books by karen horton, on Flickr]

Last week, Edutopia shared some ideas for using Wordle in the classroom, as part of their New Teacher Boot Camp. In addition to checking out the Edutopia resources, take a look at these blog posts for more ideas on using word clouds for reading and writing activities in the classroom:

• Wordle: Word Maps for Fun and Analysis
• Wordle and the Inauguration
• Using Wordle Images to Hear What’s Said
• Text + Image = Tagxedo: The Next Generation of Word Cloud Fun

This post is the introduction from “July 11 to 16 on ReadWriteThink.” Read the rest of the post on Facebook.

We’re springing ahead with a brand-new website for Bedford/St. Martin’s. It has a cleaner look and feel, new navigation elements, and helpful resources that make your search for course materials quick and easy. Check it out, and let us know what you think!

You probably noticed that we’ve been busy at Bedford Bits this past week too, with posts on posts on plagiarism, class discussion, video games, and more. Here’s a look back before you spring ahead into a new week:

• High School Bits blogger Dan McDonough discusses Teaching the Evils of Plagiarism and points to current events as a strategy.
   
• Holly Pappas invites colleagues to discuss ways to encourage literature students to do more Talking in Class.
   
• Andrea Lunsford asks whether students are really "Academically Adrift" and discusses The Value of Writing Classes.
   
• Jack Solomon considers Why Historical Accuracy Matters in the Movies as he reflects on The King’s Speech and other films.
   
• Barclay Barrios shares essays from Emerging that are perfect for Teaching the Protests in Wisconsin.
   
• Steve Bernhardt explores whether classroom desks are conducive to collaboration and laptop use by looking at what happens when teachers ask students to Have a Seat.
   
• Traci Gardner explains the benefits of using her flaws to open up student conversations in What I Gain By Sharing My Mistakes.
   
• Jay Dolmage proposes some creative writing assignments that connect gaming to literature and narrative in his Masterpiece Video Games?
   
• Writer’s Help, a complete online reference from Bedford/St. Martin’s, now has a Facebook page! Become a fan!
  

—Traci Gardner

[Photo: spring by Aunt Owwee, on Flickr]

Reflection. What do you see in the glass? This image (click to see enlarged version) shows the reflection of visitors to a Memorial built in the Bebelplatz, the square where Nazi followers burned about 20,000 books found to be “Un-German” on May 10, 1933.

The memorial itself is a sheet of glass inserted into the cobblestone plaza. Visitors can look through the glass to see a lighted, underground room lined with enough empty bookshelves to hold approximately 20,000 books.

Imagine yourself as one of the visitors to the memorial. Write a diary entry, blog entry, or short personal essay from the perspective of that visitor. Your goal is to capture what one of the people reflected on the glass is thinking.

Try freewriting on one of these questions to get started:

• What emotions did the empty bookcases stir for you when you looked through the glass? Why?
• Who else is reflected in the glass? Describe how someone else reacted to the memorial and how their response compared to yours.
• Why did you come to the memorial? Did it meet your expectations?
• How does the underground placement of the memorial affect its impact?
• Describe the conversation you had with someone else reflected in the glass. What did you say to each other?
• If you could create a memorial that peered through a window to another moment, what moment would you choose and how would you represent it?

[Memorial to Nazi book-burning by Lukas, on Flickr, Creative Commons licensed]

The March of Time, perhaps the most well-known producer of these videos, distributed documentaries that covered everything from American culture and lifestyles, to business and industry, to the nation at war.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of this precursor to breaking news videos on YouTube, the Museum of Modern Art has a special film exhibition, running September 1 through September 10. Turner Classic Movies has posted background information on The March of Time and will show five of the newsreels on September 5th.

Luckily, highlights from the collection of historical videos are also available online from HBO Archives. Note that a free site login is required to view the videos. Additional materials are also available from the March of Time’s Facebook page.

The newsreels and documentaries on the HBO site include historical events, cultural happenings, and biographical profiles. The videos provide a wonderful snapshot of life in America and around the world.

I first wrote about the March of Time collection on Bedford Bits last summer. You can check my blog entry Use Newsreel Videos for Background and Analysis there for specific ideas.

One of my favorite possibilities for class discussion this fall is the Oil and Men video, which offers a profile of Standard Oil of Indiana from 1951. What a great pairing that 30 minute video would make for videos and news stories on BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

Here are some others you may want to spend some time with:

• Basic English 1, with text by I. A. Richards, is quite odd, though perhaps not the best “teaching picture.” There’s also a Basic English 2 if you survive the first video.
   
• Tobaccoland, USA might pair nicely with an analysis of cigarette advertisements and anti-smoking commercials.
   
• Leadbelly is a short biopic on the famous musician, which might be compared to profiles on celebrities shown on TV or in magazines like People.
   
• Wit and Humor is a dramatization of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story “Dr. Heidegger’s Experiment.”

It’s unfortunate that HBO has left the running clock on the videos, but it’s still a handy collection with limitless possibilities for the classroom.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by Mr. T in DC]

First, BP America digitally enhanced some of their oil spill clean-up photos. The images are great for pointing out the sloppiness of the Photoshop work and, more importantly, discussing the ethical issues related to tampering with the images. Be sure to look at the face-saving explanation BP has posted with the BP Altered Images Flickr set. Any class exploring visual rhetoric should spend time with these photos. So a big thank you to BP for classroom material.

But that’s not all. Next, the folks over at Wired took the faked BP images and challenged readers to create their own digitally altered photos. The results are marvelous. Everything from Godzilla to Rick Astley is out there in the Gulf causing mayhem.

The submission showing pop culture images on the different monitors is probably my favorite:

How could you NOT like an image that includes Max Headroom, War Games, Star Trek, Poltergeist, and The Matrix?

As part of a visual rhetoric lesson plan, the Wired challenge images open up the topic of satire and parody. Students can discuss how the different images critique the way BP has handled the oil spill—both in its actual clean-up and in the images they have shared with the public.

So politically correct or not, I’m a little thankful to BP America for providing me with the materials for a timely lesson on an important topic.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by BP America]

The same advice applies to résumés. When I talk about résumés with students, I do encourage them to do things that will make themselves stand out a little.

Traditional résumés can get very boring when you’re reading through a stack of 20 or 30 of them. If students can make themselves stand out, they have a better chance of being noticed—and we all know that being noticed can lead to getting that job.

It’s just as important, though, to talk about how audience comes into play in preparing résumés. You can teach this lesson quickly and clearly with the Dzine blog collection of “27 Examples of Impressive Resume(CV) Designs,” which my friend @Alliegator8u found and shared.

• Go over résumés as you normally would, exploring more traditional examples in your text or online.
• Share the DZine collection of résumés with students and encourage general feedback and discussion. You can click on the résumés to see larger versions.
• Once general discussion dies down, ask students to think about the jobs that they would apply for themselves. You might group students with like career goals for this project. Have students brainstorm some details about the positions and companies they will send resumes to. Emphasize that students are effectively completing an audience analysis for these companies.
• Return to the DZine collection of résumés. With their audience analysis in mind, ask students to identify which of the résumés might stand out and still fit with the needs and expectations of the audience companies. Encourage students to read through the comments on the page for some interesting discussion as well.

It’s likely that some of the more intriguing DZine résumés will be inappropriate. While they are clever and eye-catching, most of the résumés are suited only for edgier graphic design positions and companies.

I don’t think I’d encourage MrSunnyBlack or Sofiane42 to send those résumés to a conservative company. But Kenji2030 and Kamilmytnik might have a reasonable mix of traditional elements and “wow” design that would let their résumés stand out without ending up in the decline pile. As the résumés should make clear to students, it’s all a matter of the audience the résumés are presented to.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by Alaskan Dude]

When Obama was sworn in, Wordle addicts like me used the tool to analyze the inaugural address and to look back at the speeches of previous presidents. I even used Wordle to explore Elizabeth Alexander’s inaugural poem.

Now this word cloud-driven analysis is ready to move to the next level with Tagxedo. Highlighted Friday as Jane‘s Pick of the Day, Tagxedo shapes your cloud of words into an image. To demonstrate, I used the text of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 18 and had Tagxedo arrange the words into a heart. Cute, no?

Tagxedo allows you to choose one of 42 included image shapes or upload your own image. Settings allow you to customize the colors, contrast, and other features of the resulting word cloud.

You an also exclude words, and customize the way that the text is handled (e.g., include or exclude numbers or punctuation). Like Wordle, Tagxedo allows you to save the resulting word clouds. You can place the image in the Tagxedo Gallery, create an embedded version you can use elsewhere, or simply save the image as a JPG or PNG.

The possible downside: The tool uses Microsoft’s Silverlight. I didn’t have Silverlight installed, and it managed to crash my machine once the installation completed and I tried to refresh the Tagxedo page. If you allow for that possible bump and can get Silverlight installed, however, you’ll have another option for playing with word clouds in the classroom.

The benefit of Tagxedo in the classroom is its stronger connection to visual rhetoric. Word clouds emphasize the words that are used most frequently in a text. Taken out of their context, key words stand out and readers can think about how they may work as symbols, establish a mood, or build an image.

Tagxedo word clouds allow students to pair that kind of textual analysis with an image that extends the emphasis the words communicate. Consider the image on the left. I took the text of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Black Cat.” Click on the cat image to see a larger version. If you have Silverlight installed, you can go to the Tagxedo site to see the Silverlight version, which enlarges the words in the image when you mouse over them.

To make the image, I had Tagxedo focus on the top 150 words. I chose the cat shape, which is one of Tagxedo’s included images, and then I changed the colors to get the strong contrast I wanted. I love the way this cat image includes the words cat, wall, myself, and animal in the center of the image, and the stark black and white contrast makes the cat image really stand out.

Now imagine students applying this same tool to texts you explore in class. The process is fairly simple:

1. Choose a text. You might have students analyze a full chapter of a work, a short story, several poems by a single poet, or an essay. The text might come from an author in their textbooks or it could be their own work. Project Gutenberg can make the process for many out of copyright text as simple as copy and paste.
   The Tagxedo developers also have the ability to point to an HTML page and are working on the capability to use a Twitter feed or search results.
    
2. Choose an image. There are 42 images included in Tagxedo. Students can also use their own images. Designs with a clear two-color appearance will work best. Simpler designs probably work best. A detailed image of a colorful garden is not going to work as well picture of a single flower.
    
3. Enter the information in Tagxedo. Use the various tools in the left panel to customize the results. Make sure students know how to save the image so that they can share it with the class or turn it in.

Simple and fun, Tagxedo takes word clouds beyond simple rectangles and asks students to do a bit more critical thinking than Wordle word clouds do. There’s still a place for Wordle in the classroom, but Tagxedo adds another level to the designs that deepen students’ critical thinking—and can create some nice posters for the class bulletin boards and websites!

I’ve posted links to 15 sites on copyright and fair use that will help you move from scattered pieces to a full picture in this week’s NCTE Inbox Blog.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo of copyright symbol by Horia Varlan]

Just after I published this week’s Inbox blog on
10 Things You’ll Want To Read This Summer, Risa Gorelick-Ollom announced that the Research Network Forum (RNF) eLectures from CCCC 2010 are online. Once you click the eLectures link, scroll down toward the end of the page for access to all of these great audio texts:

• “Research in Composition is practical…” by Beth Hewett
• “Research in Composition is collaborative…” by Frank P. Gaughan
• “Research in Composition is plastic, moveable, and fluid…” by Ethna D. Lay
• “Research in Composition…and the larger universe of research.” by Norbert Elliott
• “Research in Composition pushes the envelope…” by Risa Gorelick and Lisa DeTora
• “Connecting Composition Research to Community Politics….and still getting tenure.” by Stephen J. Parks
• “Research in Composition…and Writing Centers.” by Michael A. Pemberton
• “Research in Composition is rigorous and rhetorical…” by Rebecca J. Rickly
• “Research in Composition…and computers.” by Janice Walker

Why do you have to scroll down to get to these important recordings? The page Gorelick-Ollom shared is more than just the RNF eLectures. In fact, there are currently 34 eLectures, beginning with Lester Faigley on “Rethinking Writing” from 2007. You’ll find recordings on inquiry, ePortfolios, assessment, service learning, revision, webzines, pop culture, and much more.

If you have some spare time this summer, you definitely want to spend part of it with the RNF eLectures and these other resources presented courtesy of Pearson Composition Professional Development. Oh, and if that’s not incentive enough, Gorelick-Ollom promises us that that the plenary videos from RNF 2010 will be online later next month.

[Creative Commons licensed Flickr photo by dbdbrobot]