After looking at other Honors Theses in the field of Education, I started to figure out exactly where I want to go with my project.
I am studying challenged novels and the reasons they are/were being censored
because I want to find out how teachers can choose novels for their classroom library/discssions, and also be aware of the implications that the novels may come with
in order to help my readers understand the severity/importance of censorship challenges, and how teachers can prevent and deal with them
I have also realized a number of things that I would like to "do" or "research" within my project:
-research banned/challenged books and their reasons for censorship
-try to justify why these books should NOT be banned or censored
-observe how censorship effects teachers and students
-understand the consequences of a censorship challenge
-find out how teachers can deal with censorship challenges
-share how parents can approach a teacher about specific novels, without immediately jumping to a censorship challenge
Jessica: I like how you've jumped right in to tackle the important questions. And, I want to caution you, too, to try and avoid any kind of research that attempts to prove or argue anything, especially around schooling (because you have never worked in a school, so rhetorically, credibility-wise, it gets dicey).
ReplyDeleteIf you are doing educational research as a teacher candidate, and if you want people to regard your research as credible and valid, I suggest aiming your research toward investigating the experience of teachers and/or students with censorship.
Do you know, through anecdotes and personal accounts, that censorship in schools is a problem in Rhode Island? Where have books been censored in Rhode Island and why? Localize the topic. Be specific. Interview people who work in schools and who check books out of libraries in schools. The power of research is in the local, the specific, especially in education. So, in many ways, I'm asking you to shrink your topic. Yes, it's about censorship. But, shrink the scope of it and the mass of the questions you're pursuing. Leave them more open ended. What is it like? That's the question to be asking...