Currently enrolled Compton College students are eligible to participate.
Students who are also employed as classified/certificated employees of Compton College are NOT eligible. However, Federal Work Study students are excluded from this and may enter the contest.
Follow these instructions carefully to prevent disqualification!
Step 1. READ a banned or challenged book.
A banned book is a book that has been removed, excluded, destroyed, challenged, or otherwise restricted from access.
A challenged book is a book that a person/group has attempted to prohibit access through its removal or restriction.
Many banned and challenged books are available through Compton College's Emily B. Hart-Holifield Library.
For help selecting a banned or challenged book, Ask a Librarian for assistance!
Step 2. WRITE a 500-750-word essay that answers ONE of the prompts below, using supporting ideas from your banned or challenged book:
Prompt #1: When a Book Becomes Dangerous
Choose a banned or challenged book that has made you think differently about a person, issue, community, or aspect of your own life.
Explain why someone might consider this book dangerous or inappropriate, and what might be lost if readers are prevented from encountering it.
Include passages, characters, ideas, or themes from the book to support your argument.
Connect the book to your own experience in which access to information, literature, or a different perspective changed your understanding of yourself or the world.
Prompt #2: Reading Beyond Ourselves
Select a banned or challenged book and:
Examine how it asks readers to encounter a perspective, identity, experience, or idea they might otherwise never know.
Discuss the value of having access to perspectives that may be uncomfortable, controversial, or unfamiliar.
Connect your analysis to your own experience as a student, reader, family member, community member, or citizen.
How has encountering an unfamiliar idea through reading challenged, expanded, or complicated the way you see the world?
Prompt #3: What If This Book Disappeared?
Imagine that a banned or challenged book you've read is no longer available at our college, public library, local bookstore, or in the community. What would disappear along with it?
Explore what censorship can take away—not only from individual readers, but from our communities.
Address the book's ability to inspire empathy, provoke disagreement, preserve a particular experience, expose injustice, or help readers recognize something about themselves.
Connect the issue to your own experience: what book, story, piece of information, or perspective has mattered to you, and what would it mean if someone else could decide that you weren't allowed to encounter it?
Step 3. FORMAT your essay using MLA 9th style (preferred) or APA 7th.
Essay formatting, including presentation of citations and Works Cited page, should follow the rules of your selected citation style.
Step 4. SAVE your document in file type .doc or .docx ONLY.
Step 5. REVIEW your essay using the evaluation rubric.
Faculty judges will use the criteria outlined in the rubric to evaluate your essay. Refer to this rubric to guide your proofreading and composition!
Step 1. INCLUDE your First and Last Name and Student ID Number in your essay.
This information is required for confirming the identity of contest winners when claiming prizes.
Step 2. SUBMIT your essay by 11:59 PM, October 30 by clicking on *Submit Essay* to upload your document.
Essays that do not meet the requirements outlined on this page are not eligible for consideration.
Using generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Grammarly, etc. can be done ethically and productively. However, it's easy to mistakenly use AI to replace your own writing and thinking.
Informed, critical use of AI tools will support rather than replace your unique voice and intellect.
Permitted AI Use
Use of AI tools to brainstorm theses, generate research questions, or come up with effective search terms for research tools.
Not-permitted AI Use
AI may not be used to draft your essay or rewrite your sentences.
The actual drafting, phrasing, and structuring of your ideas must be your own.
Tools such as Grammarly, ProWritingAid, WordTune or any “word revision” tools may not be used and are considered AI.
If it changes your words, it’s using AI. We want to read your genuine thoughts and original writing, not a polished computer version.
Found or suspected use of AI to partially or entirely create written work will disqualify your essay from consideration.
We want this contest to be a celebration of your unique voice, ideas, and experiences. To ensure fairness for everyone, all entries must follow the Compton College policy on academic honesty.
Your essay must be your own original work.
Plagiarism and other forms of academic dishonesty are not permitted. Plagiarism includes presenting someone else’s work as your own, failing to properly cite sources, omitting a works cited page, using content prepared by another student, or including fictitious sources.
Participating students are responsible for submitting completely original, academically honest work.
Essays found or suspected to contain plagiarized material will be disqualified.
Essays found or suspected to have been partially or entirely created using AI tools (such as ChatGPT, Grammarly, etc.) will be disqualified.
For more information about academic honesty at Compton College, please review Compton Community College District Board Policy 5500.