What is Censorship?

Censorship Lesson Plan

Day One:

Present information about the first amendment.

Class Discussion: What is censorship?

• Have the students define the word both my creating a definition and by looking it up in the dictionary.
• Pose the following discussion questions (if needed)

Have you ever been censored? Describe.
Give examples of censorship that has occurred in our society (Hopefully they will bring up the topic of censorship and music).

Let them know our overarching question for this unit will be: Is censorship ever okay?

Day Two:

Start the day by playing some music that has either been censored (lyrics/playtime) or that has a parental advisory sticker.

Disseminate information about the PMRC and their issues with and goals for music.

Pass out song lyrics. Have a discussion that includes the following:

• What is your reaction to the song?
• What does it mean to you?
• What is the message of the song?
• Does the artist want to motivate you to do something or persuade you to think a certain way?
• How compelled are you to follow the artist’s direction?

Talk about specific cases where artist’s have been sued.

Day Three:

Explain their assignment.

• The students will be participating in a debate. This debate will center around the 1985 hearings where the decision was made to use parental advisory stickers.
• Each student will be assigned a character they will have to play in the debate. They will have to research their assigned character and formulate an idea of what their character would believe about the issue of the parental advisory sticker.

Assign them characters:

• Tipper Gore
• Sally Nevius
• Pam Howar
• Susan Baker
• Mike Love
• Stan Gortikov
• Frank Zappa
• Dee Snider
• John Denver
• Prince
• Madonna
• Garth Brooks
• Ozzy Osbourne
• Mr. McCullom
• Mrs. McCollumn
• Charles M. Young
• Jason Newsted

Give them the rest of the hour to research

Day Four:

Final research day

Day Five:

The students will have the hour to debate.

Day Six:

For the first half of the class, we will debrief about what happened the previous day during the debate.

Using what they learned during the debate, the students must now write a paper that answers the following question:

• Should CDs that may be considered offensive contain warning labels?

They must take a stand on this issue and provide evidence for their decision. Their paper must be one page in length.

Day Seven:

The students will complete their papers.