Read This Now - An Impassioned Plea For Teaching Literature

Claire Needell Hollander made a great point, probably several of them actually, when she wrote about the importance of reading to middle school students and how our increasingly test and data driven education system is depriving kids of books...

We cannot enrich the minds of our students by testing them on texts that purposely ignore their hearts. By doing so, we are withholding from our neediest students any reason to read at all. We are teaching them that words do not dazzle but confound. We may succeed in raising test scores by relying on these methods, but we will fail to teach them that reading can be transformative and that it belongs to them. 

Be sure to read the whole thing at the NYT site.

(via BYL)