Every October, the country argues about who decides what students read. This year, don't just tell your class about book challenges - put them on the review committee and make them apply the standard themselves.
Banned Books Week 2026 runs October 4-10 - the annual national spotlight on book challenges and the freedom to read. Most classroom treatments stop at a poster and a list of frequently challenged titles. The harder, better lesson is procedural: who gets to decide, by what written standard, and what happens when the standard and your gut disagree.
Banned Books Council makes that lesson playable. A district book-review committee holds a public hearing on a challenged middle-grade novel and must rule REMOVE, RESTRICT, or RETAIN. Every vote has to cite a criterion from the shared removal standard - the form literally rejects a rationale that names no criterion - so students are forced to separate "I disliked this passage" from "this meets the standard for removal." All three verdicts are honestly reachable.
Banned Books Council is the exact-week fit. Dead Air and The Feed extend the same question - who controls what a community reads and hears - into a full media-literacy arc for the rest of October.
You are the board. Apply the standard, not your gut, and decide whether the book stays.
Six seats - a Chair, four voting members, and a Student Rep - each holding a different excerpt and a hidden stake. Context cards, opposed fact cards, a public hearing, and a four-beat reveal that unmasks what each seat was carrying.
Examine media ownership and bias as a local radio station faces corporate buyout.
The companion for grades 9-12: students run the last independent broadcasts of a small-town station and discover how editorial choices shape what a community believes - without anyone ever lying.
Practice source verification and accuracy in a breaking news simulation.
The companion for grades 6-8: six news networks race a breaking story as tips drop every round - some reliable, some misleading, some deliberately spun. Publish fast for reach, or verify and protect your credibility.
Everything is free - there is no paid tier, no license code, and no student account anywhere in the flow.
Fill out a quick educator form - it takes about 30 seconds and you receive your access code immediately. That one code unlocks the entire library.
Each simulation ships with a step-by-step teacher guide with timing and facilitation scripts, plus printable role dossiers, source packets, and vocab sheets.
Project the room code. Students join on any device - no logins, no installs, no app. You assign roles in one click, and no student data is stored on any server.
Get your free access code now and have the hearing room ready before the week starts.
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