Today, we're revisiting the issue of whether or not Laurie Halse Anderson's book Speak is appropriate reading material for high school students. Now, you have read the book and have an understanding of the scenes, language, and characters with which Mr. Scroggins took issue.
Now that you have enough information to form an opinion about whether or not this book should be taught in schools, you're going to write a letter in support of this book or in support of Mr. Scroggins's efforts to ban it. In your letter, you need to speak to his claim that this book contains "soft pornography".
To do this, you are going to give information about the main character's experience with sexual assault and a fact about sexual assault. Here are some websites from which you can find statistics and facts about rape and sexual assault:
http://www.rainn.org/
http://www.pcar.org/
http://www.teenpcar.com/
http://www.mecasa.org/
http://www.savesrapecrisis.org/
http://calcasa.org/
Please start your letter with "To Whom It May Concern" and close with "Sincerely".
Your letters will be posted on your blog to add to the online conversation about this controversial topic.
