Because by all means... everything learned in a classroom setting needs to be fun and appealing and even exciting! And no one should ever have to learn the difference between doing things you
want to do and doing the things you're
assigned to do.
I know I've always appreciated the experimental "No Wrong Answers (or fractions/decimals either!)" math class my school offered.
But seriously...why does this always seem to come up? In my experience, the desire "
to read" is sparked long before a child starts being assigned "chore fiction" to read in school. And I've yet to meet the child whose passion for reading was
extinguished by academic reading assignments. Case in point: these articles are almost invariably written by people
who still love to read even after the horrible ordeals they were put through. Waaaah!
So in my opinion, while "upgrading" curricula to include more contemporary, "exciting" genre fiction just might result in
better grades (on the average), I don't think it would have much impact overall on the number of avid readers that come out of the system.
Readers are going to read what they want outside of class anyway, so why
not at least expose them to other writing? Even if they don't like it? It won't kill them.
"You can't always get what you want.
You can't always get what you want.
No, you can't always get what you want...
But if you try sometimes... you just mind find...
You get what you need.