Lesson Plan: Free Speech, Censorship and Trigger Warnings
Grades 6-12
The question of whether ideas expressed in popular culture can be harmful to children has a history stretching back to Plato and Aristotle. In the 1950s, concern about crime, sex and horror in comic books led to strict limits under the Comics Code Authority. Then in the 1980s, a well-connected group of parents raised alarms over sex, drugs and violence in rock lyrics, and the music industry responded with warning labels. This lesson explores meanings and forms of censorship and the beliefs that drive them, up to and including recent “trigger warning” initiatives, and what it all means for free expression and academic freedom.
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