Wiggling

Wiggling

I’ve read several times that wiggling is often the most difficult phase in the 8Ws, and I would tend to agree.  In the Research Cycle, the researcher gathers information and, after synthesizing and evaluating findings, the questions are revised.  This is what Callison refers to as “question evolution.” 

My research began as a broad overview of censorship.  My questions lead me to censorship of books in schools (I did do a concept map for this, but it was deleted).  I started doing some researching (which I referred to in previous posts). Wiggling is difficult for students because they often are overwhelmed with information and are not sure where they’re going.  I felt the same way when I started skimming through the books I checked out at the library.  I referred to these books in previous posts…but after seeing all the different avenues that I could take when researching school censorship, I decided that I wanted to focus specifically on specific incidents. 

What are some specific instances of censorship? What happened and why? What specific books were challenged?  What was the outcome and justification? 

After reading the article on The Golden Compass, I began doing searches on the Internet for sources dealing with the trilogy His Dark Materials.  I looked at some news sources that covered the controversy.  I also looked at a few blogs which were definitely one sided.  I also looked at the website sponsored by the Baptist Church.  The tone of the article was pretty neutral but, as expected, was one sided.  I decided to check Pullman’s website, which gave some interesting quotes.  Pullman himself says, "As a passionate believer in the democracy of reading, I don't think it's the task of the author of a book to tell the reader what it means."  This kind of gives another perspective on the controversy. 

I got a little off track and did a little more research about the book.  I came across some blogs that discussed controversy in literature…but literature shouldn’t tell us what to think.  It tells us to think.  After this research on The Golden Compass, I decided to look at other causes for books being banned that I first read about in Censorship and Selection: Issue and Awareness for Schools.