Juniors at New York City's Edward R. Murrow High School told the New York Post they were told to read "Goldilocks and the Three Bears" and "The Tortoise and the Hare" for their American literature course. They were asked to answer basic questions and write a one-sentence summary of each work. A Department of Education spokesman declined to answer questions about it, but he tweeted that the assignment was preparing students for tougher work, to read Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and answer similar questions. Students in the class told the newspaper they didn't actually read The Scarlet Letter but a seven-page summary of the novel.
