ACT released a study concerning preparedness for college and how it relates to students' ability to do complex reading. While what they are talking about--the ability to make appropriate inferences, to understand subtext, to understand the vocabulary, etc.--is right, their solution--reading classes--seems to be a big swing and a miss. Since most (all) high school students take english classes and most (all) of those classes are literature oriented, they are taking reading classes anyway. Supplimental courses on how to read would be a waste of time. Any student who can read and comprehend Huck Finn or Romeo and Juliet is already capable of complex reading. The fact is that they can't.
This is a problem that politics and parents create more than teachers. So long as the aforementioned Shakespeare tragedy is considered a love story with a tragic twist people don't have issue with it. If it were to be portrayed as a violent revenge filled teenage sex romp, there would be letters. Of course the students may get more interested and start to read a little deeper, but that takes a back seat to protecting them from smut. Politicians don't want educated students because when they reach voting age they would be smart enough not to vote for them. Education brings emancipation.
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