Presenter: Name: Jordan Henry

Title: School Librarian
Organization/School: White Knoll Middle School

Program Description
This session focuses on the intersection between intellectual freedom, artistic expression, and the power of arts integration. This arts integrative project uses the American Library Association’s Banned Book Week, Redacted Poetry, and self portraits to raise awareness and investigate the issues that censorship, book bans, and access present in the modern world. Through this collaboration, students examined the text of the First Amendment, explored the history of Banned Books Week and the need to celebrate and uplift these stories, and investigated the why behind censorship and book banning efforts. After the learning in the library, students personalized this learning in the art studio through “Censorship Self Portraits” that allowed them to explore deeper into how censorship affects them with quotes, patterns, and monochromatic palettes.
Sharing their experience in this collaboration between the art studio and school library, Jordan Henry (school librarian) and Lauren Blakley (Visual Art Teacher) will provide encouragement and workshop deeper collaboration strategies for active arts integration in the school library program. Following a mini-lesson designed in the same style as the original project, participants will engage in a hands-on workshop creating their own redacted poems and reflective self portraits using discarded library materials and sharpies. Materials packets will be provided for all attendees.

Learning Objectives
Program participants will:

-Define intellectual freedom and its significance in educational and artistic contexts
-Explore the relationship between intellectual freedom and creativity through arts integration
-Analyze how arts integration supports critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity in the learners
-Discuss how intellectual freedom supports democratic citizenship, critical thinking, and the creative process through arts integrative instruction
-Describe and discuss challenges and dilemmas that arise when balancing intellectual freedom and artistic expression
-Discuss strategies for upholding intellectual freedom while respecting diverse viewpoints
-Discuss and develop strategies to foster collaboration between educators, artists, and community stakeholders
-Analyze and discuss the evaluation of effective collaboration between the school library and the art studio
-Identify and discuss how promoting intellectual freedom and arts integration can encourage lifelong curiosity, creativity, and learning among students

Program Outline
Participants will be greeted with a screen from Classroomscreens.com that will have session information on it, music, and links/QR codes to anything that will be needed for the day. In addition, participants will be given a bag with lesson plans and materials for art making toward the end of the session.

The session will start with introductions and a snapshot of our school community and current state climate to give participants an idea of where this collaboration happened and the rhetoric surrounding our why for collaboration. Through a Nearpod interactive presentation, participants will simulate the original project- all the way up until the redacted poetry creation, while engaging in conversations around their own communities and challenges that may arise for them. Participants will have time to create and share their own redacted poem, as well as, reflection on how their students may respond to a collaboration like this one. To wrap up the program session, participants will have an opportunity to reflect on the importance of intellectual freedom and ask any remaining questions to the presenters.
Silenced but Not Quiet: Intellectual Freedom through Arts Integration

Grade Level: 6-8, 9-12

Session Strand: Collaboration

Presenter
Jordan Henry

Jordan Henry is in his 12th year as a public educator and is the current school librarian at White Knoll Middle School. Before accepting the role of librarian, Mr. Henry served as the Chorus teacher and Visual Art teacher. Jordan was also voted the 2024-2025 Teacher of the Year at White Knoll Middle School. Jordan Henry graduated from Marshall University with a Bachelor’s in Secondary Education (Music and Art Education), Concordia University- Portland with a Master’s in Curriculum and Instruction (emphasis on Equity, Ethics, and Justice), and from East Central University with a Master’s in School Library Information Science. Currently he is pursuing a PhD in Communication and Information Science from the University of Alabama. In his free time, Jordan enjoys reading, gardening, and creating community art inspired by authentic cultural connections.

Lauren Blakely

Lauren Blakely is a practicing artist and middle school art teacher from Lexington, South Carolina. After graduating from Winthrop University in 2020, Lauren joined White Knoll Middle School as the art teacher, yearbook advisor, and head cheer coach! Lauren is currently serving as White Knoll Middle's Teacher of theYear for 2025-2026. She is a first year teacher mentor for her school and a practicum placement teacher for USC. When she is not at school, Lauren enjoys spending time with her husband, Austin, and her dogs, Finn and Boo. You can usually find Lauren and her husband at a concert or heading out on their next adventure!


Description: This session focuses on the intersection between intellectual freedom, artistic expression, and the power of arts integration. Participants will explore censorship and who is affected by it, as well as the power found in collaboration between the art studio and school library. This session will also allow participants to network and develop ideas for similar projects to be successful in their schools. Participants will create redacted poems from discarded materials.