2001: Burning Harry Potter books, Alamogordo, New Mexico, Lewis Jacobs, Still Photographer, www.photostills.com. Used by permission.

"There is more than one way to burn a book":
Fahrenheit 451 and the First Amendment

A Professional Development Day for grades 7-12 history and language arts Teachers and School Librarians
At the
Deerfield Teachers' Center, Deerfield, Massachusetts

Friday, October 5, 2007 from 8:30 am-3:30 pm, $15 fee.

Book Burning Through History

1651: William Pynchon's The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption, Justification, Etc is burned on the Boston Common. Illustration from A History of Springfield in Massachusetts for the Young, Springfield, Mass.: Connecticut Valley Historical Society, 1921.

"New York Society for the Suppression of Vice" symbol. Public Domain.

1933: Nazi Students burning banned books in Berlin, Germany, National Archives, photo #01622


Houses are fireproof and firemen burn books in Ray Bradbury's science fiction novel (first published in 1953) about an America in which it is illegal to own and to read books. Fireman Guy Montag learns that censorship began from the bottom up, instituted by a citizenry that did not want to challenge or to be challenged, to offend or to be offended, to make others feel uncomfortable, or to be made to feel discomfort. Click here to read more.

 

 

Teaching Ray Bradbury's dystopian novel in historical context

Teacher Professional Development Day Schedule will include:
• Keynote-- Dr. Barbara Mathews, "Trash of the Veriest Sort": Book Banning, Book Burning, and the First Amendment
• "Ray Bradbury in History--a Multimedia Timeline"
• Educator Panel Discussion: Fahrenheit 451 and the Classroom
Panelists will include:
John Warchol, retired Smith Academy English Teacher
Tim Merritt, Frontier Regional High School Teacher, and others.
• Classroom Theatre project: Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School students and their teacher, Danika Tyminski, consider the 'book people' who bring a sense of hope to the end of Bradbury's novel.
• Teaching the Holocaust with presenter Robert Smith, Frontier Middle School English teacher and holocaust expert
• Breakout sessions on historically related topics such as Book Burning in America or 'To Read or Not to Read': The American Public and First Amendment Rights, led by Deerfield Teachers' Center staff.

 

 

Participants will receive:

• 6 PDPs
• a copy of Fahrenheit 451
• Fahrenheit 451 curriculum materials created by The Big Read including a teacher's guide, an audio guide and reader's guides.
• Lunch and refreshments

 

 

A nonrefundable $15.00 fee, to help defray the cost of lunch and of mailing a copy of Fahrenheit 451 and other materials to you prior to October 5th, is required to complete your registration. Please mail your $15.00 check, payable to PVMA, to:

The Deerfield Teachers' Center, P.O. Box 428, Deerfield, MA 01342-0428

Attention: Beth


This event is part of The Big Read, an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.

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