Yes, American literature should continue to be required reading. Are the English classes going to teach informational texts instead? Students need a broad education, not one only designed for the job market. Life is about more than work and money.

Unbelievable. If we cease to have students read good literature, how will they have a taste of life outside their own? Where will they get their own ideas from? What will happen to their imagination? Who will be our great thinkers? Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. We need students who are well educated and knowing how to read a manual only leads to the mundane in life.

Seems like there is a great deal of confusion surrounding many aspects of the Common Core Standards. I hope our local teachers and educators are able to deal with it appropriately. I can only imagine it must be very frustrating. Students should be reading non-fiction in their social studies, science and math courses, leaving English teachers primarily to fiction. But in practice, it appears that it's not working out that way. I don't have any issue with my child reading more non-fiction, but I also want to preserve those classics that have been taught over generations for a reason.

My children will read them at home, if they don't read them at school, that's for sure.

There has been a lot of panic and outrage over this in recent weeks. It is important to note, however, that the 70-30 suggested reading ratio is *across all disciplines* -- in other words, it requires more reading in history, science, and other STEM classes. The CCSS specifically state "Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts." (seriously -- google that phrase and find out the truth from the CCSS website itself). Anyone who says otherwise is misreading the standards, and may need more experience with informational texts him/herself.

I like what patchadam said about the move towards reading across all disciplines. The only problem is that content area/subject-specific teachers "DON'T TEACH READING" and aren't interested or trained in how to help students delve deeply into texts, or even how to help a struggling reader.

In addition, those wonderful pieces of literature not only ignite the imagination and grapple with serious themes, they also provide common points of reference in discussions about larger issues. What will happen to the common discourse when all we can reference to make grand points are technical manuals and vocational materials?

I was talking with my child's teacher from last year, and when I asked if I should be working on creative writing over the summer, she said that the schools were shifting in language arts to non-fiction writing and reading. So, no more stories and no more creative writing assignments. Only regurgitation of facts that have been read. It's sad.

To Kill a Mockingbird teaches empathy and is a story that shows that during the time when blacks were treated as second class citizens, that there were people who cared, who didn't bow to public pressure to conform to the norm, but took a stand for the concept that all men are created equal. Strange that in today's social climate that we would throw out a book like that. Especially when history is being rewritten at every turn.
A good teacher would excite kids to read the story before they ever picked the book up. I had such a teacher. It was not just an assignment - we discussed the meaning of the story from the get go and couldn't wait to find out how it turned out.