American Classics to be Replaced With How-To Manuals

Catcher in the Rye and To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced in US classrooms by 2014, according to The London Telegraph. And what will replace them? Non-fiction texts aimed at getting students ready for the workplace. From The Telegraph:

A new school curriculum which will affect 46 out of 50 states will make it compulsory for at least 70 per cent of books studied to be non-fiction, in an effort to ready pupils for the workplace. 

Books such as JD Salinger's Catcher in the Rye and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird will be replaced by "informational texts" approved by the Common Core State Standards.

Suggested non-fiction texts include Recommended Levels of Insulation by the the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the Invasive Plant Inventory, by California's Invasive Plant Council.

The piece is here.