1. The Topic: Censorship in Music
Oct 19, 2016
Goal: Conduct a Town Meeting
The Topic: Censorship in Music
QOD: Nameplate
Agenda: Create your nameplate. Sit near your allies, across from those you oppose.
Town Meeting

2. The Town Meeting
This town meeting is designed to expose you to a community debate that occurred in Mt. Holly on this very site about censorship of music during the 1980s and 1990s. This lesson is designed to expose you to the various dimensions involved in one particular form of protest, a boycott. The point of the exercise is not the vote that takes place at the end, but the critical thinking and communication that happen along the way.

3. Making your namecards
Make name cards and place them on the desks in front of you. Nameplate should include:
Your name real or fictitious, your group, and a picture that represents your group

4. The Groups Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC)
First Amendment Rights Advocates
Parents
Students
Musicians

5. The reason for this meeting is so your groups can discuss and debate this important, complex question about the potential censorship taking place in the music industry.
At the end of our meeting we will vote on whether to support this or to reject it this idea.
Your ability to faithfully represent your assigned roles will allow the whole class to understand the many sides of the issue.

6. To begin, a person from each group will present an opening statement without any discussion or response to it. After all of the opening statements are made, anyone at the meeting can speak.
Statements or questions may be addressed to particular individuals in the class in response to either their opening statements or comments made during discussion (Example: “You said that you are in favor of the boycott, but what about...”). It is acceptable to disagree with ideas expressed but it is not acceptable to attack the person who makes the statement or expresses the idea.

7. Taking the Vote
Is the censorship the only way to end explicit lyrics in music in Mt. Holly?
Reflection:
a. What were the strongest arguments you heard in the town meeting? What were the most compelling or effective reasons for voting one way or another?
b. Which arguments made you reconsider their own positions (not the one they were representing, but their own positions)? What did they hear that made you question it?
c. How does this effect you today? Think about other things that are now censored (Video Games, Movies)
Does the government have the right to make laws abridging your freedom of speech?