I'm in North Carolina now - not my home state - and away from my books but the last post makes me think. I feel that students can learn about literature by reading books they enjoy. However......if a book is required reading, no matter how good it is, a significant portion of the class will be resistant to it. Why is that? I know that's the way it was, and sometimes still is, with me. And I can't remember what I was required to read in high school, except for Shakespeare, Poe and Silas Marner, either. But I can't remember a lot of things anymore.