This is the sort of tripe which falls into the category of reading for social indoctrination. Forget the fabulous literary pantheon of the west, and truly honing critical reasoning skills because of an introduction to grammar, rhetoric, and logic. Today's indoctrinators want to mold young skulls of mush with the same shopworn literary drivel they've been promoting for years: Of Mice and Men; Fahrenheit 451; To Kill a Mockingbird. Not that the books in and of themselves are bad, just that they bespeak a larger agenda, and are offered at the expense of a survey of literature which might actually serve to hone the reasoning skills of the students, instead of spoon feeding them social think. V's wife.
Hey! Reading Farenheit 451 is very good. It will hopefully insure that the left wing commies will never get our society to be like that.
BTW- Sadly I can already see quite a few of those charcteristics in the world now.
I'm inclined to agree, which is why I brought this vanity post - - to see if I was totally out to lunch. At least one person - you - seems to sense something's up with all of the emphasis on Harper Lee's book in high school, -- somethimg other than a pure commitment to literature.