Reply to Why, oh why, do the schools still ask students to read so much fiction?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think it's fair to ask whether  the specific books being assigned are the best choices.  I, for one, would be happy to see the Catcher in the Rye and the Scarlet Letter off the lists and replaced with other great books.  But I think teaching children to effectively read literature is valuable--in terms of vocabulary, writing skills, comprehension, imagination and empathy, critical thinking skills, cultural literacy, etc.  [/quote]
I'm the person who posted at the top of page 5 about wanting to dial down the "lesser great" works of fiction, and replace some of them with other non-fiction works.  I agree with you about the value-add of all those skills -- "vocabulary, writing skills, comprehension, imagination and empathy, critical thinking skills, cultural literacy, etc" -- but I just think they could be accomplished just as well (or better!) if English classes expanded their reading lists beyond just the basic canon of fiction literature.  I'm sure some teachers do this.  I'm not suggesting all non-fiction, but rather a shifting from all-fiction to something more varied.  How can it be wrong to acknowledge and teach great non-fiction writing?  Whether the text is fiction or non-fiction, the students can still get the same valuable lessons.  And with non-fiction, I feel there can be some additional lessons.[/quote]

I am actually okay with this. And I think growing up our language arts always included a fair amount of nonfiction sources. Philosophy, history, etc, even science. But the emphasis was on the language and not just reading them to learn those other things.  [/quote]

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