Writing Test 16

Is a person's gender an important influence on how he or she behaves with others? Contemporary sociologists and other scholars have argued on this question fiercely. The following pair of passages presents two contrasting voices from that debate. 

Passage 1

      The desire to affirm that women and men are completely equal has made some scholars reluctant to show ways in which they are different, because differences Line between two groups of people have so often been used (5) to 'justify" unequal treatment and opportunity. Much as I understand and am in sympathy with those who wish there were no differences between women and men, only reparable social injustice, my research on styles of conversation tells me that, at least in this (10) area, it simply isn't so. I believe that there are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them. Without such understanding, we are doomed to blame others or ourselves or our own relationships for the otherwise mystifying and damaging (15) effects of our contrasting conversational styles. 
         It is clear to me that recognizing gender differences in conversational styles would free individuals from the burden of an inappropriate sense of being at fault for chronic disagreements. Many women and men feel (20) dissatisfied with their close relationships with spouses, siblings, parents and become even more frustrated when they try to talk things out. Taking a socio-linguistic approach to such troubling encounters makes it possible to explain these dissatisfaction without accusing anyone (25) of being wrong and without blaming or discarding the relationship. 
              The socio=linguistic approach I take in my work is based on my belief that many frictions arise because, here in the United States, boys and girls grow up in what are essentially (30) different cultures, so that talk between women and men is actually cross-cultural communication. For little boys, talk is primarily a means of making statements of achievement through games like bragging contests. This may also be done by exhibiting knowledge or skill and by (35) holding center stage through such verbal performance as storytelling, joking, or imparting information. Little girls appear to be eager to share and compare interests and ideas. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. For them, the language of conversation (40) is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connection and negotiating relationships. So this view of children's behavior predicts that more women than men will be comfortable speaking one-on-one, to individuals. And even when addressing an audience, women may be (45) more concerned than men with establishing rapport. 

Passage 2

         Gender stereotypes should concern us for several reasons. First, they may dictate what we notice and bias our perceptions in the direction of expectation. Some researchers attempt to elucidate gender differences in (50) order to help women and men understand and respond to one another better. In the process, however, their work encourages people to notice and attend to differences rather than similarities, to perceive men and women in accordance with stereotypes that may not accurately depict their behave (55) for or intentions. Second, gender stereotypes may not only describe behavior but also prescribe it, dictating how men and women "should" behave. People begin to act in ways that support other people's gender-role expectations of them. 
          (60) It is time to rethink our understanding of gender, to move away from the notion that men and women have two contrasting styles of interaction that were acquired in childhood. We need to move from a conceptualization of gender as an attribute or style of behavior to an understanding (65) of gender as something people do in social interaction. As a noted scholar proposes, "None of us is feminine or is masculine or fails to be either of those. In particular contexts people do feminine, in others, they do masculine." People display contradictory behaviors as they (70) encounter different social norms and pressures. 
        Some researchers view male-female conversations as cross-cultural communication. The two-cultures approach postulates that difficulties in communication between men and women arise because of a clash of conversational (75) styles. But this approach has a number of limitations. First, the coherence of male and female subcultures in childhood has been exaggerated. We arrive at a contrasting picture of the cultures of boys and girls only by singling out those children who fit common gender stereotypes and marginalizing (80) others. We fail to notice the children who do not fit those stereotypes, for example, boys who excel at caring for younger siblings or girls who enjoy building things in shop class. Second, although children may choose same-sex playmates as preferred partners, they interact daily (85) inside and outside school with the opposite sex. Children have countless experiences communicating with people of both sexes: they do not learn to communicate in gender-segregated worlds. They learn to display different styles of interaction in different contexts: they do not learn a single (90) gender-related style. The same child may display dominance and give orders to a younger playmate but show deference and follow orders from an older friend. 

Is a person's gender an important influence on how he or she behaves with others? Contemporary sociologists and other scholars have argued on this question fiercely. The following pair of passages presents two contrasting voices from that debate. 

Passage 1

      The desire to affirm that women and men are completely equal has made some scholars reluctant to show ways in which they are different, because differences Line between two groups of people have so often been used (5) to 'justify" unequal treatment and opportunity. Much as I understand and am in sympathy with those who wish there were no differences between women and men, only reparable social injustice, my research on styles of conversation tells me that, at least in this (10) area, it simply isn't so. I believe that there are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them. Without such understanding, we are doomed to blame others or ourselves or our own relationships for the otherwise mystifying and damaging (15) effects of our contrasting conversational styles. 
         It is clear to me that recognizing gender differences in conversational styles would free individuals from the burden of an inappropriate sense of being at fault for chronic disagreements. Many women and men feel (20) dissatisfied with their close relationships with spouses, siblings, parents and become even more frustrated when they try to talk things out. Taking a socio-linguistic approach to such troubling encounters makes it possible to explain these dissatisfaction without accusing anyone (25) of being wrong and without blaming or discarding the relationship. 
              The socio=linguistic approach I take in my work is based on my belief that many frictions arise because, here in the United States, boys and girls grow up in what are essentially (30) different cultures, so that talk between women and men is actually cross-cultural communication. For little boys, talk is primarily a means of making statements of achievement through games like bragging contests. This may also be done by exhibiting knowledge or skill and by (35) holding center stage through such verbal performance as storytelling, joking, or imparting information. Little girls appear to be eager to share and compare interests and ideas. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. For them, the language of conversation (40) is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connection and negotiating relationships. So this view of children's behavior predicts that more women than men will be comfortable speaking one-on-one, to individuals. And even when addressing an audience, women may be (45) more concerned than men with establishing rapport. 

Passage 2

         Gender stereotypes should concern us for several reasons. First, they may dictate what we notice and bias our perceptions in the direction of expectation. Some researchers attempt to elucidate gender differences in (50) order to help women and men understand and respond to one another better. In the process, however, their work encourages people to notice and attend to differences rather than similarities, to perceive men and women in accordance with stereotypes that may not accurately depict their behave (55) for or intentions. Second, gender stereotypes may not only describe behavior but also prescribe it, dictating how men and women "should" behave. People begin to act in ways that support other people's gender-role expectations of them. 
          (60) It is time to rethink our understanding of gender, to move away from the notion that men and women have two contrasting styles of interaction that were acquired in childhood. We need to move from a conceptualization of gender as an attribute or style of behavior to an understanding (65) of gender as something people do in social interaction. As a noted scholar proposes, "None of us is feminine or is masculine or fails to be either of those. In particular contexts people do feminine, in others, they do masculine." People display contradictory behaviors as they (70) encounter different social norms and pressures. 
        Some researchers view male-female conversations as cross-cultural communication. The two-cultures approach postulates that difficulties in communication between men and women arise because of a clash of conversational (75) styles. But this approach has a number of limitations. First, the coherence of male and female subcultures in childhood has been exaggerated. We arrive at a contrasting picture of the cultures of boys and girls only by singling out those children who fit common gender stereotypes and marginalizing (80) others. We fail to notice the children who do not fit those stereotypes, for example, boys who excel at caring for younger siblings or girls who enjoy building things in shop class. Second, although children may choose same-sex playmates as preferred partners, they interact daily (85) inside and outside school with the opposite sex. Children have countless experiences communicating with people of both sexes: they do not learn to communicate in gender-segregated worlds. They learn to display different styles of interaction in different contexts: they do not learn a single (90) gender-related style. The same child may display dominance and give orders to a younger playmate but show deference and follow orders from an older friend. 

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

Is a person's gender an important influence on how he or she behaves with others? Contemporary sociologists and other scholars have argued on this question fiercely. The following pair of passages presents two contrasting voices from that debate. 

Passage 1

      The desire to affirm that women and men are completely equal has made some scholars reluctant to show ways in which they are different, because differences Line between two groups of people have so often been used (5) to 'justify" unequal treatment and opportunity. Much as I understand and am in sympathy with those who wish there were no differences between women and men, only reparable social injustice, my research on styles of conversation tells me that, at least in this (10) area, it simply isn't so. I believe that there are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them. Without such understanding, we are doomed to blame others or ourselves or our own relationships for the otherwise mystifying and damaging (15) effects of our contrasting conversational styles. 
         It is clear to me that recognizing gender differences in conversational styles would free individuals from the burden of an inappropriate sense of being at fault for chronic disagreements. Many women and men feel (20) dissatisfied with their close relationships with spouses, siblings, parents and become even more frustrated when they try to talk things out. Taking a socio-linguistic approach to such troubling encounters makes it possible to explain these dissatisfaction without accusing anyone (25) of being wrong and without blaming or discarding the relationship. 
              The socio=linguistic approach I take in my work is based on my belief that many frictions arise because, here in the United States, boys and girls grow up in what are essentially (30) different cultures, so that talk between women and men is actually cross-cultural communication. For little boys, talk is primarily a means of making statements of achievement through games like bragging contests. This may also be done by exhibiting knowledge or skill and by (35) holding center stage through such verbal performance as storytelling, joking, or imparting information. Little girls appear to be eager to share and compare interests and ideas. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. For them, the language of conversation (40) is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connection and negotiating relationships. So this view of children's behavior predicts that more women than men will be comfortable speaking one-on-one, to individuals. And even when addressing an audience, women may be (45) more concerned than men with establishing rapport. 

Passage 2

         Gender stereotypes should concern us for several reasons. First, they may dictate what we notice and bias our perceptions in the direction of expectation. Some researchers attempt to elucidate gender differences in (50) order to help women and men understand and respond to one another better. In the process, however, their work encourages people to notice and attend to differences rather than similarities, to perceive men and women in accordance with stereotypes that may not accurately depict their behave (55) for or intentions. Second, gender stereotypes may not only describe behavior but also prescribe it, dictating how men and women "should" behave. People begin to act in ways that support other people's gender-role expectations of them. 
          (60) It is time to rethink our understanding of gender, to move away from the notion that men and women have two contrasting styles of interaction that were acquired in childhood. We need to move from a conceptualization of gender as an attribute or style of behavior to an understanding (65) of gender as something people do in social interaction. As a noted scholar proposes, "None of us is feminine or is masculine or fails to be either of those. In particular contexts people do feminine, in others, they do masculine." People display contradictory behaviors as they (70) encounter different social norms and pressures. 
        Some researchers view male-female conversations as cross-cultural communication. The two-cultures approach postulates that difficulties in communication between men and women arise because of a clash of conversational (75) styles. But this approach has a number of limitations. First, the coherence of male and female subcultures in childhood has been exaggerated. We arrive at a contrasting picture of the cultures of boys and girls only by singling out those children who fit common gender stereotypes and marginalizing (80) others. We fail to notice the children who do not fit those stereotypes, for example, boys who excel at caring for younger siblings or girls who enjoy building things in shop class. Second, although children may choose same-sex playmates as preferred partners, they interact daily (85) inside and outside school with the opposite sex. Children have countless experiences communicating with people of both sexes: they do not learn to communicate in gender-segregated worlds. They learn to display different styles of interaction in different contexts: they do not learn a single (90) gender-related style. The same child may display dominance and give orders to a younger playmate but show deference and follow orders from an older friend. 

Is a person's gender an important influence on how he or she behaves with others? Contemporary sociologists and other scholars have argued on this question fiercely. The following pair of passages presents two contrasting voices from that debate. 

Passage 1

      The desire to affirm that women and men are completely equal has made some scholars reluctant to show ways in which they are different, because differences Line between two groups of people have so often been used (5) to 'justify" unequal treatment and opportunity. Much as I understand and am in sympathy with those who wish there were no differences between women and men, only reparable social injustice, my research on styles of conversation tells me that, at least in this (10) area, it simply isn't so. I believe that there are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them. Without such understanding, we are doomed to blame others or ourselves or our own relationships for the otherwise mystifying and damaging (15) effects of our contrasting conversational styles. 
         It is clear to me that recognizing gender differences in conversational styles would free individuals from the burden of an inappropriate sense of being at fault for chronic disagreements. Many women and men feel (20) dissatisfied with their close relationships with spouses, siblings, parents and become even more frustrated when they try to talk things out. Taking a socio-linguistic approach to such troubling encounters makes it possible to explain these dissatisfaction without accusing anyone (25) of being wrong and without blaming or discarding the relationship. 
              The socio=linguistic approach I take in my work is based on my belief that many frictions arise because, here in the United States, boys and girls grow up in what are essentially (30) different cultures, so that talk between women and men is actually cross-cultural communication. For little boys, talk is primarily a means of making statements of achievement through games like bragging contests. This may also be done by exhibiting knowledge or skill and by (35) holding center stage through such verbal performance as storytelling, joking, or imparting information. Little girls appear to be eager to share and compare interests and ideas. Emphasis is placed on displaying similarities and matching experiences. For them, the language of conversation (40) is primarily a language of rapport: a way of establishing connection and negotiating relationships. So this view of children's behavior predicts that more women than men will be comfortable speaking one-on-one, to individuals. And even when addressing an audience, women may be (45) more concerned than men with establishing rapport. 

Passage 2

         Gender stereotypes should concern us for several reasons. First, they may dictate what we notice and bias our perceptions in the direction of expectation. Some researchers attempt to elucidate gender differences in (50) order to help women and men understand and respond to one another better. In the process, however, their work encourages people to notice and attend to differences rather than similarities, to perceive men and women in accordance with stereotypes that may not accurately depict their behave (55) for or intentions. Second, gender stereotypes may not only describe behavior but also prescribe it, dictating how men and women "should" behave. People begin to act in ways that support other people's gender-role expectations of them. 
          (60) It is time to rethink our understanding of gender, to move away from the notion that men and women have two contrasting styles of interaction that were acquired in childhood. We need to move from a conceptualization of gender as an attribute or style of behavior to an understanding (65) of gender as something people do in social interaction. As a noted scholar proposes, "None of us is feminine or is masculine or fails to be either of those. In particular contexts people do feminine, in others, they do masculine." People display contradictory behaviors as they (70) encounter different social norms and pressures. 
        Some researchers view male-female conversations as cross-cultural communication. The two-cultures approach postulates that difficulties in communication between men and women arise because of a clash of conversational (75) styles. But this approach has a number of limitations. First, the coherence of male and female subcultures in childhood has been exaggerated. We arrive at a contrasting picture of the cultures of boys and girls only by singling out those children who fit common gender stereotypes and marginalizing (80) others. We fail to notice the children who do not fit those stereotypes, for example, boys who excel at caring for younger siblings or girls who enjoy building things in shop class. Second, although children may choose same-sex playmates as preferred partners, they interact daily (85) inside and outside school with the opposite sex. Children have countless experiences communicating with people of both sexes: they do not learn to communicate in gender-segregated worlds. They learn to display different styles of interaction in different contexts: they do not learn a single (90) gender-related style. The same child may display dominance and give orders to a younger playmate but show deference and follow orders from an older friend. 

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

The following passage is from a 1991 essay that discusses
the debate over which authors should be taught in English
classes.
Now, what are we to make of this sputtering debate,
in which charges of imperialism are met by equally
passionate accusations of vandalism, in which each side
hates the other, and yet each seems to have its share of
reason? It occurs to me that perhaps what we have here
is one of those debates in which the opposing sides,
unbeknownst to themselves, share a myopia that will turn
out to be the most interesting and important feature of the
whole discussion, a debate, for instance, like that of the
Founding Fathers over the nature of the franchise. Think
of all the energy and passion spent debating the question
of property qualifications, or direct versus legislative
elections, while all along, unmentioned and unimagined,
was the fact - to us so central - that women and slaves
were never considered for any kind of vote.
While everyone is busy fighting over what should be
taught in the classroom, something is being overlooked.
That is the state of reading, and books, and literature in our
country, at this time. Why, ask yourself, is everyone so hot
 under the collar about what to put on the required-reading
shelf? It is because, while we have been arguing so fiercely
about which books make the best medicine, the patient has
been slipping deeper and deeper into a coma.
Let us imagine a country in which reading was a popular
voluntary activity. There, parents read books for their own
edification and pleasure and are seen by their children at
this silent and mysterious pastime. These parents also read
to their children, give them books for presents, talk to them
about books, and underwrite, with their taxes, a public
library system that is open all day, every day. In school,
the children study certain books together but also have an
active reading life of their own. Years later, it may even
be hard for them to remember if they read Jane Eyre at
home and Judy Blume in class or the other way around.
In college, young people continue to be assigned certain
books, but far more important are the books they discover
for themselves browsing in the library, in bookstores, on
the shelves of friends, one book leading to another, back
and forth in history and across languages and cultures.
After graduation, they continue to read and in the fullness
of time produce a new generation of readers. Oh happy
land! I wish we all lived there.
In that country of real readers, voluntary, active, self-
determined readers, a debate like the current one over the
canon would not be taking place. Or if it did, it would be
as a kind of parlor game: What books would you take to
a desert island? Everyone would know that the top-ten list
was merely a tiny fraction of the books one would read in
a lifetime. It would not seem racist or sexist or hopelessly
hidebound to put Nathaniel Hawthorne on the list and not
Toni Morrison. It would be more like putting oatmeal
and not noodles on the breakfast menu - a choice partly
arbitrary, partly a nod to the national past, and partly, dare
one say it, a kind of reverse affirmative action: School
might frankly be the place where one reads the books that
are a little off-putting, that have gone a little cold, that you
might overlook because they do not address, in reader-
friendly contemporary fashion, the issues most immediately
at stake in modern life but that, with a little study, turn out
to have a great deal to say. Being on the list wouldn't mean
so much. It might even add to a writer's cachet not to be on
the list, to be in one way or another too heady, too daring,
too exciting to be ground up into institutional fodder for
teenagers. Generations of high school kids have been turned
off to George Eliot by being forced to read Silas Marner
at a tender age. One can imagine a whole new readership
for her if grown-ups were left to approach Middlemarch
and Daniel Deronda with open minds, at their leisure.

(1) Not many children leave elementary school and they
have not heard of Pocahontas' heroic rescue of John Smith
from her own people, the Powhatans. (2) Generations of
Americans have learned the story of a courageous Indian
princess who threw herself between the Virginia colonist
and the clubs raised to end his life. (3) The captive himself
reported the incident. (4) According to that report,
Pocahontas held his head in her arms and laid her own
upon his to save him from death.
(5) But can Smith's account be trusted? (6) Probably
it cannot, say several historians interested in dispelling
myths about Pocahontas. (7) According to these experts,
in his eagerness to find patrons for future expeditions,
Smith changed the facts in order to enhance his image.
(8) Portraying himself as the object of a royal princess'
devotion may have merely been a good public relations
ploy. (9) Research into Powhatan culture suggests that
what Smith described as an execution might have been
merely a ritual display of strength. (10) Smith may have
been a character in a drama in which even Pocahontas
was playing a role.
(11) As ambassador from the Powhatans to the
Jamestown settlers, Pocahontas headed off confrontations
between mutually suspicious parties. (12) Later, after her
marriage to colonist John Rolfe, Pocahontas traveled to
England, where her diplomacy played a large part in
gaining support for the Virginia Company.