Replacing Shakespeare

I recently read an article in Time magazine titled "How I Replaced Shakespeare."  Naturally, I was intrigued.  The author, Joel Stein, writes about his realization that language arts teachers have begun to assign non-fiction texts in efforts to satisfy the new Common Core standards, as the reading and comprehension of non-fiction text has become a major focus in education.  Stein admits that he was astounded to find that teachers were assigning his work (he writes regularly for Time), and he "regularly get[s] emails from students asking about [his] use of anastrophe, metonymy, thesis statements and other things [he has] never heard of."

In his humorous, at times sarcastic essay, he argues that the best way to improve his writing is by reading something that makes him think, namely literature.  He quips, "teaching language through non-fiction is like teaching history by playing Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire'."  His point of view is an interesting one.  Yes, it's our job as educators to prepare our students to be productive citizens in the workplace, but are we doing them a disservice by guiding them away from great literature?  Stein argues that "school isn't merely training for work; it's training to communicate throughout our lives."  There is no question that kids need to enter the workforce knowing how to read and comprehend non-fiction text; but, it shouldn't come at the expense of the texts that teach us something about ourselves and the world around us.