October 17, 2008

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