Friday Reconnect: Week Two

Friday Reconnect: Week Two

By Chloe Grant, Read to Them staff

Hi there! Today marks the end of our second week reading Ban This Book. We’ve learned a lot from Amy Anne, as well as from our friend Kayla who wrote a blog post this week all about banned books. The tensions are rising and we’re feeling empowered by the characters in this book, and this week’s activity invite us all to take action on those feelings!

In our Flipgrid activity for the week, All for the Cause, we invite you to find a passion project. Something you’d like to see happen in your community. The idea is to find your cause, and then create some action items for it. Maybe you’ll even find a few friends or classmates to help you out! Here are a few examples:

• Finding the resources to create a community garden at your school

• Creating a speech and gathering signatures with your classmates to ask your teacher for no homework on the weekends

• Cleaning up the local community park

• Organizing a community-wide event to gather together and support one another

These are just a few examples, it can be anything you want. Follow your passions, and feel free to take to the Flipgrid to ask for ideas and collaborate with your fellow readers! Similarly, if you’re looking for some prompts to help you find your cause, here are a few:

• What do you wish your school or community had more of?

• Do you and your friends ever talk about dreams you have for your hometown? What are they? Is there anything you could do to help make those dreams a reality?

• Is there anywhere in your community that you like to spend your free time? Is that place getting enough support? How could you help lift up that place?

• If you could realistically change one thing to help make your daily life better, what would it be? Ask your friends the same question. Are there any similarities in your answers? Are there any possible actions you could take to create that change? Who would you need help from?

• How can you take that idea and turn it into action? (petitions, conversations, events, writing to representatives/principals/teachers, volunteer work, spreading the word, etc.)

We hope you draw some inspiration from these questions, and also from the courageous characters in our story. We’ll see you next week for our final chapters in Ban This Book. Until then, stay curious and keep dreaming!