Assign Books, and Students Will Read

By NANCY BUNGE

After watching an instructional film informing us that only 26 percent of today's college students do the reading for their courses, I announced to a colleague that I give reading tests; he looked at me with what seemed a mixture of shock and pity. Indeed, the video in no way suggested that instructors compel students to read; instead, it implied that we must accept students' aversion to books and find a more palatable way to deliver information to them.

Caleb Crain's New Yorker