6th Grade Vocabulary

1. permitted

2. volunteer

3. resettling

4. commute

5. hover

6. subtle

7. interfering

How Much Do Your Parents Know About Your Life Online?

by KATHERINE SCHULTEN

 

An article this week about Internet bullying describes the difficulties parents face in keeping their children safe online. Not only are they often scrambling to catch up with the technological sophistication of the next generation, but parents today must also wrestle with issues of how much online privacy is appropriate. What do you think? How aware are your parents or guardians of what you do online or via your cellphone? How much should parents in general know about their teenagers' life online? Why?

In "As Bullies Go Digital, Parents Play Catch-Up," Jan Hoffman writes:

It is difficult enough to support one's child through a siege of schoolyard bullying. But the lawlessness of the Internet, its potential for casual, breathtaking cruelty, and its capacity to cloak a bully's identity all present slippery new challenges to this transitional generation of analog parents.

Desperate to protect their children, parents are floundering even as they scramble to catch up with the technological sophistication of the next generation.

…online bullying can be more psychologically savage than schoolyard bullying. The Internet erases inhibitions, with adolescents often going further with slights online than in person.

"It's not the swear words," [cybercrimes specialist, Inspector Brian] Brunault said. "They all swear. It's how they gang up on one individual at a time. 'Go cut yourself.' Or 'you are sooo ugly' — but with 10 u's, 10 g's, 10 l's, like they're all screaming it at someone."

…"I'm not seeing signs that parents are getting more savvy with technology," said Russell A. Sabella, former president of the American School Counselor Association. "They're not taking the time and effort to educate themselves, and as a result, they've made it another responsibility for schools. But schools didn't give the kids their cellphones."

Eighth Grade Students: How aware are your parents or guardians of what you do online or via your cellphone? Do they monitor the sites you visit, the things you post to Facebook or the texts you send? Do you think they should? Where would you draw the line between appropriate monitoring and invasion of your privacy? Why? Have you experienced an incident online in which your parents intervened, or in which you wish they had? Do you agree with the expert in this article who reminds parents, "while children may be nimble with technology, they lack the maturity to understand its consequences"? Why or why not?

 

Are Your Tech Habits Hurting Your Grades?

By SHANNON DOYNE AND HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO

• See all Student Opinion »
  

Experts are examining how use of digital media, including incessant multitasking, affects kids' habits and learning. How much time do you spend using technology for socializing and entertainment, like texting and gaming? Does it hurt your grades?

In the article "Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction," Matt Richtel considers the effects of constant connectivity on teens' ability to focus and resist distraction, and on their experience of school:

Students have always faced distractions and time-wasters. But computers and cellphones, and the constant stream of stimuli they offer, pose a profound new challenge to focusing and learning.

Researchers say the lure of these technologies, while it affects adults too, is particularly powerful for young people. The risk, they say, is that developing brains can become more easily habituated than adult brains to constantly switching tasks — and less able to sustain attention.

"Their brains are rewarded not for staying on task but for jumping to the next thing," said Michael Rich, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and executive director of the Center on Media and Child Health in Boston. And the effects could linger: "The worry is we're raising a generation of kids in front of screens whose brains are going to be wired differently."

Students: Tell us about your digital media habits. How much time (and money) do you spend texting? Do you recognize yourself at all in these teens' stories? Do you often switch between doing homework and things like checking Facebook, watching videos or playing games? Do you find it hard to focus on and process your schoolwork? Are your grades affected? Do you – or your parents – try to set limits on your use of technology?

Teachers: Our companion question to you is How is Technology Affecting Teaching and Learning?

 

8th Grade Cerro Coso Trip

Reflect on your experiences from our trip last Friday. Mrs. Hampton would like you to make detailed responses to the following questions. When you've finished save them on your drive and then drag them to the folder marked Cerro Coso on the H Drive.

1. What must a student do in high school in order to get into college?

2. How does college fit into your life game plan? Is your plan for life to follow an academic track or a vocational track? Be sure to discuss both of these questions in your response.

3. How can a student afford college?

4. Tell how college can or will be fun and important.

Should Sarah Palin Run for President?

By HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO

A new Times Magazine profile takes a close look at Sarah Palin and at speculation over whether she will run for president. What do you think of Ms. Palin? Do you think she should run for president in 2012? Why or why not?

In his article "The Palin Network," Robert Draper considers Ms. Palin's status as "arguably the most captivating and influential Republican in America — and therefore a viable contender for the presidential nomination in 2012″:

So I asked her political adviser whether there would be a summoning of the troops in the coming days to discuss what the next moves will be. Davis laughed and replied, "That's not going to happen." Each of them, he said, would simply be doing the work that was in front of them that day, the way things always operated in Palin World. I brought up an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken three weeks before, which concluded that Palin's favorability rating among registered voters stood at 39 percent, while 54 percent viewed her unfavorably and a whopping 67 percent saw her as unqualified to be president. "On a staff level, we all think about ways we can improve her numbers," Davis said. "It's politics — that's our job." But, I pressed, had he discussed the subject with her? "I'm not going to sit around and ask her, 'What do you think of your approval rating?' " Davis said. "I'm just not." Then he added, "Maybe the family's talked about it."

"I am," Sarah Palin told me the next day when I asked her if she was already weighing a run for president. "I'm engaged in the internal deliberations candidly, and having that discussion with my family, because my family is the most important consideration here." Palin went on to say that there weren't meaningful differences in policy among the field of G.O.P. hopefuls "but that in fact there's more to the presidency than that" and that her decision would involve evaluating whether she could bring unique qualities to the table.

Students: What do you think about Sarah Palin as a possible candidate for president? Do you think she should seek the Republican presidential nomination in 2012? Do you think she would make a good president? How would you compare her with some of the other potential Republican contenders? How do you think Ms. Palin would fare in a general election against President Obama? ***Write three to five paragraphs explaining your position after you've read the background information and given it some thought.

12 Ways to Learn Vocabulary With The New York Times

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

Here are 12 quick, easy and engaging ways to learn and practice new words by reading, viewing or listening to NYTimes.com.

1. "SAT Words" and The Times: Reading just the front page of The New York Times every day can introduce you to scores of SAT-level words in context. For instance, in this article about Prince William's engagement alone you can find déclassé,
obsolete,
indifferently,
fevered,
naïve,
saturation,
virtually,
speculation and sought. Did you know you can double click on any word in a Times article to read its definition? Or that the Learning Network has a Word of the Day feature that examines each new word in a recent Times context? To keep track of the words you're learning, use our vocabulary log.

2. Times Fill-Ins:
Every week we choose a high-interest Times article (on, say, a pumpkin-smashing contest,
eating insects,
Snooki,
A-Rod or skateboarding) and take some key words out of it. You can fill in the blanks with your own words, or choose from a scrambled list of the words that were removed.

3. Student Writing About Language: Not only does our Student Opinion question invite students to practice writing and vocabulary usage daily, we also occasionally ask vocabulary-focused questions. Read the entertaining student comments on the following, for instance, then invite your students to add their thoughts as well:

• "When Do You Remember Learning a New Word?"
  
• "What Are Your Favorite and Least Favorite Words?"
  
• "What Words or Phrases Were Overused This Year?"
  

For more student wordplay, you might also look at the results of the Found Poem Student Challenge we ran last April.

4. Times Language Contests: What "family phrases" do you and your family or friends use that would be meaningful only to you? What modern similes ("as generous as a stimulus package") can you invent? Visit the Times blog Schott's Vocab to submit ideas for the weekend competitions. Past competitions have included words you loathe,
Tom Swifties,
novel analogies, favorite slogans, and both the saddest words in the English language and the happiest.

5. Word Infographics: Create a Words They Used graphic or illustration like this one that charts and compares the words used most often at the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions. Paste text from an article, novel, story or even an essay of your own into Wordle to create and customize instant word clouds. What words in the text you chose are used most often? What patterns do you see?

6. Greek and Latin Roots: What Greek and Latin roots do you know? Challenge a partner to a contest, and find as many words with Greek or Latin roots on the front page of The Times as you can. You might also try our student crosswords on "borrowed" words and the building blocks of vocabulary.

7. Test Yourself Daily Quizzes: Every day we pose a Test Yourself question that uses Times content to strengthen literacy and numeracy skills. On Tuesdays and Thursdays we ask English language arts-related questions that test vocabulary, grammar, punctuation and usage skills. Or, use our Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling and Usage Bingo with any day's edition of The Times.

8. Investigating Etymology: In Ben Zimmer's weekly On Language column, he takes readers into the etymology of currently popular words and phrases, whether student slang,
words from rap music, insults for beach tourists or science fiction languages. Read a few, then try your own: find a word or phrase you're curious about, read up on its history, then write an essay using On Language as a model.

9. Battling Cliché: What do you think are the most overused sports clichés? How do sports reporters keep descriptions of games, teams and athletes fresh? For instance, hunt through the Sports section to compile a list of the different verbs or phrases writers have used to mean "to win" or "to lose." Or, challenge yourself to create an all-cliché description of an athletic performance, like this one from the Laugh Lines blog.

If you're curious about what phrases even seasoned editors and reporters overuse, visit the After Deadline feature. And to avoid clichés in a college essay, consult our lesson plan on the topic.

10. Learning by Listening: Some people learn more easily by listening than by reading. Try improving your vocabulary by tuning in to Times podcasts on topics like front-page news, music, science and stories that could happen "only in New York." Then make your own podcast about something you're an expert in, whether comic books, cooking or baseball, using some of the specialized vocabulary associated with that field.

11. Words and Images: Visit the Times photojournalism blog Lens or our 6 Q's About the News to find a photo that interests you. Write your own caption by trying to describe succinctly and elegantly what you see and what it might mean. Or give it a funny caption, as readers did in this Laugh Lines blog contest. You might try the ideas in this lesson plan for other photo-based writing prompts.

Or, flip the idea and instead of using words to describe images, illustrate a word or concept to help you remember what it means. You might use the illustrations that accompany the weekly Science Times Science Q & A column as inspiration. For instance, how would you illustrate the phrase "status quo" to help you remember its meaning? The word "neologism"?

12. Subject-Area Vocabulary: Many teachers teach difficult vocabulary before having students read an article, especially one that is heavy with technical terms. In several lessons, we've used the List/Group/Label game to make this process more fun. For example, here is a lesson on the debt crisis in Europe, one on the Large Hadron Collider and one on Edgar Allan Poe, all of which start with the technique.

To choose the words for the game, you might enter the text of the Times article you choose into the Visual Thesaurus's VocabGrabberto see which words of different kinds are used most often, or to find the best vocabulary words. (Or try a sample VocabGrabber lesson using a Times article about the ethics of online homework help.)

 

Should schools act as the fat police?

Some school districts are sending overweight kids home with letters alerting their parents of obesity risks. Is this a good way to fight the fat epidemic?

A school district in Flagstaff, Arizona, announced that, this fall, it would begin measuring elementary-school students' BMI (body mass index) and sending overweight students home with a letter explaining where they fall on the obesity scale. Flagstaff is not the country's first school district to employ the tactic, which has sparked a nationwide debate between those who consider it suitably aggressive and those who find it intrusive and counterproductive. Are "fat letters" an appropriate way to promote student health? (Watch a local report about "fat letters")

 There are multiple problems here: The central issue, says Katherine Lee at About.com, is that "the reports are being issued with little or no guidance to help parents understand that BMI evaluations" aren't necessarily accurate measurements of child obesity. There are much better ways of handling the obesity epidemic, such as ensuring that "kids have enough breaks for exercise and lessons about healthy eating and fitness," and that "school lunches are nutritious."
"Should schools send out BMI letters?"

Teachers should be able to make an impact: Some people think that giving schools power to combat obesity places them in a "nanny role," says Kristina Bui at The Arizona Daily Wildcat. But the fact is that teachers are "more than unfeeling robots reciting math formulas." They're human beings who are invested in the health and well-being of their students — and these letters are an extension of that.
"Pro: Teacher/student relationships go beyond the basics"

Parents should be grateful: Many parents don't understand the full impact of obesity on their children, says The Arizona Daily Star, so they "should be grateful if others, especially those with expertise on the subject of weight, health and nutrition, step in." This problem is only getting worse as "childhood obesity rates have tripled in the last three decades." To combat this, we must "open our eyes, suck down our false pride and do what we can."
"Child obesity has real health consequences"

From: http://theweek.com/article/index/209479/is-facebook-a-homewrecker

Old School Notes Review Assignment

1. The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy red dog.

2. Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their party.

3. Why would grandma put her wig in the dishwasher?

4. Fighting over the keys to the bus.

5. The beautiful curly haired girl.

6. Grandma decided to walk her dog Zoey during the raging thunderstorm and to fix grandpa's dentures using Aunt Bonnie's favorite screwdriver and cook Uncle Charlie's favorite dinner he loves pork chops and applesauce with a dessert of pecan pie he doesn't really like chocolate pudding even though Aunt Bonnie and grandma love to eat peaches and watermelon in the summer.

Chapter 5 – Section 1 (pages 132 – 137)

1. What is the worship of one god?

2. How did beliefs of the Hebrews differ from those of other cultures?

3. Who were the wandering people?

4. According to the ____________________________, the Israelites were descendants of one family that moved from Mesopotamia to Canaan.

5. Who were the Patriarchs?

6. The religious ideas of the __________________________ developed into the religion known as _______________.

7. Tell about Abraham's Journey.

8. What is a covenant?

9. Tell about the Exodus.

10. After the Israelites ____________________________ to Egypt to escape a famine, ______________________ Moses led their descendants out of slavery.

11. What is a famine?

12. What are descendants?

13. Who was Moses?

14. What are the Ten Commandments?

15. Discuss the Wilderness Experience.

16. What was the Conquest of Canaan?

17. What is a conquest?

18. According to the Torah, who led the Israelites out of Egypt?

How Do You Use Wikipedia?

By HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO

According to Virginia Heffernan, who writes the column the Medium in The New York Times Magazine, Wikipedia has become an essential catalog, especially when it comes to "digital artifacts" and the Internet itself. Do you use Wikipedia? If so, what for, and why?

In her column "Prize Descriptions," Virginia Heffernan sings Wikipedia's praises:

I visit Wikipedia every day. I study the evolving entries for Internet-specific entities like World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Foursquare and Picasa, often savoring the lucid exposition that Wikipedia brings to technical subjects that might not be expected to inspire poetry and for which no vocabulary has yet been set.

Wikipedia is a perfectly serviceable guide to non-Internet life. But as a companion to the stuff that was born on the Internet, Wikipedia — itself an Internet artifact — will never be surpassed.

She continues:

Wikipedia is vitally important to the culture. Digital artifacts like video games are our answer to the album covers and romance novels, the saxophone solos and cigarette cases, that previously defined culture. Today an "object" that gives meaning might be an e-book. An MP3. A Flash animation. An HTML5 animation. A video, an e-mail, a text message, a blog. A Tumblr blog. A Foursquare badge. Around these artifacts we now form our identities.

Students: Tell us how you use Wikipedia and why. Do you use it more for school, or for personal reasons? Do you agree or disagree with Ms. Heffernan that "Wikipedia is vitally important to the culture"? Why? Why do you think people choose to contribute to it? Have you ever considered contributing to Wikipedia?

What is Your Favorite Place in Your House?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

For will.i.am of the Black Peas, it's his recording studio, while for skateboarder Tony Hawk, it's the custom skate park he built behind his house. Though few teenagers have spaces custom-built to suit their talents, everyone has a place in their home where they feel most comfortable. Where is yours, and why? You might browse this slide show for inspiration first.

In this weekend's Key Magazine, The Times asks various well-known people about their favorite spaces in their houses. Visit this slide show to see will.i.am, Tony Hawk, Judy Chicago, Todd Oldham, Gish Jen and others in their favorite spaces. Here's what will.i.am says about his:

"This is my brain, my factory, my laboratory, my sanctuary where I can go to be creative," says will.i.am of the recording studio in the Spanish-style 1920s house he has owned since 2005.

"The place is a haunted house," he adds. "Not a bad spirit, but there is an energy in the house. All the emotions that happen in a place are stored in the wood and the stone. They are sponges. New buildings don't feel like anything because they are made of dust, of plywood and things like that, which have no absorption. The emotions get sucked in and disappear. But older buildings absorb energy."

Students: Tell us where you feel most comfortable and happy in your house or yard and why. What about it suits you? What do you do there? If, like some of these celebrities, you could design a perfect "favorite space" in your house or yard to your specifications, what would it be like?

San Francisco bans Happy Meals

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

San Francisco lawmakers have given preliminary approval to a law that would prohibit fast-food restaurants from putting toys in children's meals unless they include fruits and vegetables and don't have too many unhealthy calories.

To see the rest of this story and to read students' comments about it, click the headline (above) or use this link:

http://tweentribune.com/content/san-francisco-bans-happy-meals

Responses to: School Sued Over Nose Piercing

"I teach, and my nose is pierced. It doesn't make any difference in the way I've been teaching for 18 years." – Cathy Dicenza

"Schools and teachers are blamed for everything. Why was the child not fined for distracting other students from learning?" – Julie Allen

"I am an educator. I have 5 tattoos. I once had 4 facial piercings. If I could wear my eyebrow rings, tongue ring and earrings I would. But I respect my school board that prohibits them." –Trever Forbes

"There is more at stake here than a nose piercing. In this case it is religion." – Rosemary Crouser

To see more and to share your opinion, click this link: http://tweentribune.com/sound_off

School Sued Over Nose Piercing

The American Civil Liberties Union claims in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that a North Carolina school violated the constitutional rights of a 14-year-old student by suspending her for wearing a nose piercing.

To see the rest of this story and to read students' comments about it, use this link:
http://tweentribune.com/content/school-sued-over-nose-piercing

How Would You Do in a ‘Free School’?

By HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO AND KATHERINE SCHULTEN

 

At the Manhattan Free School, students "do not receive grades, take tests or have to do anything, really, that they do not feel like doing." Teachers there believe that students learn best when they direct their own education, so though there are classes, students can play video games all day if they like. Would you want to attend a school like this? If not, why not? If so, what do you think you would do with your time? Do you agree that you learn best when you direct your own education? Why or why not?

In the column  "Play-Doh? Calculus? At the Manhattan Free School, Anything Goes," Susan Dominus writes:

At the Manhattan Free School, which opened in 2008 and follows a model that first gained fame at A. S. Neill's Summerhill School in England, educators believe that students learn best when they direct their own education. Classes are held, but if a student wants to play video games or model with Play-Doh all day, so be it — even if that student is, say, 17.

… "It comes down to trust," Ms. Werner said, "the trust that given time, they'll find their passions, and when they do, they'll be eager to learn."

Students and faculty members debate and vote on all matters of school policy, but the grown-ups are outnumbered: The school has two full-time teachers, and relies on parents and other volunteers who believe in the program to fill the gaps (including calculus, if a student were to want to learn it).

Students: Tell us how you think you would do in a school like this. What would you do all day? Are you self-motivated? Do you agree that "the flip side of freedom is responsibility"? What balance of freedom and structure do you think would benefit you best for the purposes of learning?

What Should the Punishment Be for Acts of Cyberbullying?

What Should the Punishment Be for Acts of Cyberbullying?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

 

This is the question an article in the Week in Review asks about the Tyler Clementi case. "Just how culpable is an online bully in someone's decision to end a life?" the article asks. Do you know about this case, and the Phoebe Prince case earlier this year? How tough should the punishment be for those who cyberbullied these students? Why? How do you think incidents like these could be prevented in the first place?

In "Bullying, Suicide, Punishment," John Schwartz discusses the complexities of the case and concludes:

Finding the right level of prosecution, then, can be a challenge. On the one hand, he said, "it's college — everybody is playing pranks on everybody else." On the other, "invading somebody's privacy can inflict such great distress that invasions of privacy should be punished, and punished significantly."

There is also the question of society's role. Students are encouraged by Facebook and Twitter to put their every thought and moment online, and as they sacrifice their own privacy to the altar of connectedness, they worry less about the privacy of others.

Teenagers "think that because they can do it, that makes it right," said Nancy E. Willard, a lawyer and founder of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use.

Impulsiveness, immaturity and immense publishing power can be a dangerous mix, she said. "With increased power to do things comes increased responsibility to make sure that what you're doing is O.K.," she said.

…That is why Daniel J. Solove, author of "The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet," said society needed to work on education.

"We teach people a lot of the consequences" of things like unsafe driving, he said, "but not that what we do online could have serious consequences."

Students: Tell us what you think about how punishment in this case and others like it should be handled. How much is the bully to blame, and how much responsibility should he or she bear for the consequences? Why? How do you think cyberbullying like this can be prevented in the first place? Do you think education, as Mr. Solove suggests above, is enough?

What Advice Would You Give Younger Kids About Middle or High School?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

In an Op-Ed called "Ditch Your Laptop, Dump Your Boyfriend," several young adults give pithy advice to those just starting college as freshmen. Looking back on your own experiences, what advice would you give kids just starting either middle school or high school?

One of the Op-Ed contributors, Tim Novikoff, a Ph.D. students in applied mathematics at Cornell, writes :

College is your chance to see what you've been missing, both in the outside world and within yourself. Use this time to explore as much as you can.

[...]Somewhere in your childhood is a gaping hole. Fill this hole. Don't know what classical music is all about? That's bad. Don't know who Lady Gaga is? That's worse. If you were raised in a protected cocoon, this is the time to experience the world beyond.

College is also a chance to learn new things about yourself. Never been much of a leader? Try forming a club or a band.

Students: Tell us what advice you'd give younger students for making the most of middle or high school. Does Mr. Novikoff's advice apply to those levels too? What would you tell them that is based on what worked for you? What might you advise based on what didn't work for you? Why?

Obituaries

What Do You Want Your Obituary to Say?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

 

Do you ever read Times obituaries or look through the annual "Lives They Lived" issue of The Times Magazine? Recently, there have been obituaries about a female spy in World War II, the man whose name inspired the rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd and the inventor of the Club antitheft device. If The Times were to write your obituary someday, what would you want it to say?

In a 2008 edition of Talk to the Newsroom, Bruce Weber, an obituary writer, answered questions from readers. Here are some excerpts that might help you shape your answer:

Q. Occasionally an obit is really funny, reflecting, I suppose, the life that's been lived. How much leeway do you have in reporting some of the wackier aspects of a person's life?

A. The general outlook of the obituary department is that our articles are about lives that have been lived, not deaths that have occurred. The idea is to appreciate the character of the subject to the degree that that's possible, usually based on what we know that person has accomplished and on what we can glean from interviews with family members and others. You never want to make fun of anyone, but you do want to appreciate eccentricities, record unusual events and relay humorous incidents or comments. In that way, a good obituary can be like a good eulogy.

Q. How do you choose [whom to write about]?

A. … Sometimes the details of a person's life may not add up to "important," but they add up to interesting. Case in point: The typewriter man, Martin Tytell, whose vocation was so eccentric and he was so good at it that the details of his craft and life were reader candy.

Students: Given that The Times writes obituaries only about people who are important or interesting for some reason, what would you like a Times obit about you to say? For example, you might try writing just a single paragraph of an obituary that might appear when you're 98 years old. What would it say about your life and accomplishments?

 

Should Books Be Banned?

Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library?

By KATHERINE SCHULTEN

Do you think there are books that you and your friends are not mature enough to read? Are there books that contain sexual or violent content, profanity, racial slurs, or religious or political messages that should not be available at your school? If so, how should that be decided? The last week of September is Banned Books Week, and we invite you to scan this list of Top 100 Banned/Challenged Books for 2000-2009 and think about the questions we pose here. Please post your responses below.

In our "10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week," you can learn about why everything from classics like "The Catcher in the Rye" and "Huckleberry Finn" to current favorites like the "Harry Potter" and "Twilight" series have been banned by schools and districts. Here is what we write about a recent challenge:

This week, a university professor, Wesley Scroggins, attacked Laurie Halse Anderson's "Speak" as "soft pornography" in The Springfield News-Leader of Missouri. Ms. Halse Anderson responded on her blog, as did the teacher and blogger Donalyn Miller on The Book Whisperer Blog. Read the blog posts and discuss both positions. What is "soft pornography"? Should teenagers, as novelist and Harvard student Isabel Kaplan argues in her Huffington Post post, read books with such content?

Students: Tell us what you think about this issue. Are there books that should be banned from your school library? If so, who should decide? How? Of the books on this banned books list, how many have you read? How did they affect you?