Instructional reforms are essentially worthwhile as they help students improve their reading from 13th percentile to the 25th or 34th percentile. Only with an expansion of expert tutoring, the goal of all students reading on grade level can be achieved.

During the Fall term, 2001, the author taught a new course intended to develop a diversity of close reading skills among his students. An integral component of the course involved the exploration of memory and history. As the fate of the syllabus would have it, right after the September attacks he taught Sarah Farmer's "Martyred Village:…