Welcome • User Guide
ToS • Privacy • Canary
Donate • Bugs • License

©2026 Poal.co

222

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/06/many-schools-are-assigning-excerpts-of-novels-to-read-instead-of-full-books-why

From the post:

>Reading fiction has been such a joy for me that my heart broke a little to learn recently that many schools no longer assign full books to high school students. Rather, teens are given excerpts of books, and they often read them not in print but on school-issued laptops, according to a survey of 2,000 teachers, students and parents by the New York Times. The reasons are many – including the belief that students have shorter attention spans, and schools’ efforts to teach students to perform well on standardized tests.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/06/many-schools-are-assigning-excerpts-of-novels-to-read-instead-of-full-books-why From the post: >>Reading fiction has been such a joy for me that my heart broke a little to learn recently that many schools no longer assign full books to high school students. Rather, teens are given excerpts of books, and they often read them not in print but on school-issued laptops, according to a survey of 2,000 teachers, students and parents by the New York Times. The reasons are many – including the belief that students have shorter attention spans, and schools’ efforts to teach students to perform well on standardized tests.
You are currently inside a comment thread.
Click here to see all the comments (12).
[–] • 1 pt

I left traditional high school as soon as I could and went to our county's JVS for their communications electronics program. Beyond taking one general English class in 11th (the teacher was good) and an American History (the guy was fucking passionate about it and would work up a sweat teaching) in 12th I didn't have to take any further regular classes to get both my diploma and vocational cert.

Being forced to read something that someone thinks is a "classic" is the best way to turn people off of reading. I've read none of the works you mentioned except for some bits of Beowulf because it gets referenced in other works.

[+] [deleted] • 1 pt