By: Kaley Muse
At 6 p.m. on Sept. 27 in the Bentley Garden’s gazebo Sigma Tau Delta hosted the second annual
Banned Books and S’mores. This is the second time Sigma Tau Delta has held this event and
even though they are an English honors society, the organization tries to hold events that are not
completely English or literature centered due to student interest.
Students and attendees had the option of taking a s’more kit to-go or have a fresh one made for
them. This gave students a choice to stop by for a few quick minutes or they could stay for
longer to hang out, eat their s’more, learn about banned books and make some found poetry.
Senior English Education major and President of Cameron’s chapter of Sigma Tau Delta Scotlyn
Koehler said Sigma Tau Delta hosted the event the previous year with a good turnout.
“We try to find a fun element to bring in to kind of attract everyone’s attention whether they
enjoy English or not and so this was just our idea last year and it turned out really well,” she said.
Students who attended the event could make found poetry out of the pages of banned books like
Toni Morrison’s “Beloved”, Angie Thomas’s “The Hate U Give”, John Green’s “Looking for
Alaska”, Laurie Halse Anderson’s “Speak” and Lois Lowry’s “The Giver”.
To create found poetry, attendees took words and phrases from a book excerpt covering the non-
selected or unwanted words with black ink or art to hide them. In doing this, a poem emerges
from the uncovered words.
Sigma Tau Delta hosted this event in order to bring awareness to the book bans sweeping across
the United States.
Koehler explained that banned books are books that are prohibited to be in school and public
libraries which then blocks students from reading them and teachers from teaching or
incorporating them into their curriculums and classrooms.
“They’re typically [banned] at the secondary level, middle and high school and sometimes even
elementary, if the books kind of promote ideas outside of the norm,” Koehler said.
Koehler said that many of the banned books surprised attendees.
“When they (attendees) got here they were very surprised by the book selections that were
banned because a lot of them were ones they read in high school, middle school or even on their
own and that’s kind of the point exactly,” Koehler said. “Just kind of the ludicracy of the banning
of books.”
Though there was poetry and music playing, the s’mores were what drew people to come and
participate.
Junior English major Marty Hoyte said, “I came because I like s’mores and I like poetry.”
Though this event was held in September, national banned books week is Oct. 1- Oct. 7.
For more information about Sigma Tau Delta or how to join, email Scotlyn Koehler at
scotlyn.koehler@cameron.edu or Dr. William Carney at wcarney@cameron.edu.