"Fields once wide open to English majors — teaching, academia, publishing, the arts, nonprofits, the media — have collapsed or become less desirable."

"Facing astronomical debt and an uncertain job market, students may find majors like communication arts and digital storytelling more pragmatic.... And yet another important and dispiriting part of the story is that the study of English itself may have lost its allure, even among kids who enjoy reading. They are learning to hate the subject well before college. Both in terms of what kids are assigned and how they are instructed to read it, English class in middle and high school — now reconceived as language arts, E.L.A. or language and literature — is often a misery.... By high school, 70 percent of assigned texts are meant to be nonfiction. Educators can maximize the remaining fiction by emphasizing excerpts, essays and digital material over full-length novels... A typical high school assignment now involves painstakingly marking up text with colored pencils in search of 'literary devices' — red for imagery and diction, yellow for tone or mood, etc. Students are instructed to read even popular fiction at an excruciatingly slow pace in the service of close reading in unison. They’re warned not to skip ahead. You wouldn’t want anyone to get excited!"

Writes Pamela Paul in "How to Get Kids to Hate English" (NYT).

Of course, most reading in school should be nonfiction! Older children should be reading science and social studies, learning things about the world, finding out what may interest them enough to lead to a career. 30% of the school day is plenty of time to take up the challenge of somewhat difficult fiction. As for "popular fiction" — read that on your own free time, whatever you want, at any speed. 30% of your school is still for reading fiction, and yet this columnist thinks it's somehow disastrous.