1 . One of the most well-known figures of American history, Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States and the author of the Declaration of Independence. His life was an inspiring one and at the same time a little bit contradictory to his statements and way of living life, and thus he has formed the subject of a lot of authors’ books.

3 . The habit of reading is one of the greatest resources of mankind: we enjoy reading books that belong to us much more than if they are borrowed. Some people regard a borrowed book as a ________ in the house. It must be treated with care and considerate ________. Casual attitudes are forbidden. Because the book is borrowed it tolerates no damage which means it must not suffer while ________. While reading the book, you are not allowed to make any mark or underline the important ________ when a flash of creative idea emerge. This is huge ________ to one’s imagination.

________, your own books belong to you and you can treat them with so much closeness that you are not afraid to mark it up or to place it in a dirty place. Your own books are there for use, not for ________. You don’t need to display them in front of others. Private ownership also encourages ________ marking. A good reason for marking instructive passages in books is that this practice enables you to remember more easily the significant sayings, to ________ them quickly and then review them more frequently in the future.

Given the importance of owned books to a man, everyone should begin collecting a private library, making up his own ________ property. One should have his own bookshelves, which should not be having doors, glass windows, or keys. They should be free and ________ to the hand as well as the eye. Like the jewellery to a woman, the best moral _________ to a man is books. They are more varied in colour and appearance than any wall-paper. Their variety indicates ________ out of brains of different book writers. The knowledge that books are in plain view is also stimulating. Your body and mind are both _________. With books at hand, your mind is free to land any _________ or even strange possibility, which eventually gives birth to new discoveries or inventions.

4 . Now that we have briefly explored the history of the short story and heard from a few of its creators, let us consider the role of the reader. Readers are not empty vessels that wait, _______ raised, to receive a teacher’s or a critic’s interpretation. They bring their unique life experiences to the story. With these_______ , the best readers also bring their attention, their reading skills, and most importantly, their_______ to a reading of a story.

My students always_______ me to discuss, analyze, interpret, and evaluate the stories we read without destroying the excitement of being beamed up into another world. For years I _______with one response after the other to this challenge. Then one day I read an article by a botanist who had explored the beauty of flowers by x-raying them. His illustrations showed the rose and the lily in their_______ beauty, and his x-rays_______the wonders of their construction. I brought the article to class, where we discussed the benefits of examining the internal structure of flowers, relationships, current events, and short stories.

A short story, _______ , is not a fossil to admire. Readers must ask questions, guess at the answers,_______what will happen next, then read to discover. They and the author form a partnership that brings the story to life. Awareness of this partnership keeps the original excitement alive through discussion, analysis, interpretation, and ________. Literary explorations allow the reader to admire the authors’________ as well as their artistry. In fact, original appreciation may be enhanced by this x-ray vision. The final step is to appreciate once again the story________— to put the pieces back together.

Now it is your turn. Form a partnership with your author. During your________in reading, enter into a dialogue with the published scholars featured in Short Stories for Students. Through this________with experts you will revise, enrich, or________your original observations and interpretations.

During this adventure, I hope you will feel the same as the listeners that surround the neck of my Pueblo storyteller.

Universities should not be “airbrushing” history by removing books from reading lists to protect students from challenging content, the education secretary has said.

James Cleverly told of his concern after The Times found that academics have started dropping books from reading lists     1     they harm students.

Ten universities, including three from the Russell Group, were discovered     2     (take) books off reading lists, or made     3     optional, because of concerns about their content.

“University is about challenging ideas, it is about learning about circumstances beyond your own experience and that includes     4     (difficult) circumstances of all time,” Cleverly told Talk TV.

“I am really concerned about difficult bits of global history     5     (airbrush) out. We can’t just turn life into a Disneyland     6     (purify) version of reality.”

The Times sent freedom of information requests about reading lists to all 140 UK universities. The University of Essex said that the 2017 Pulitzer prize winning novel The Underground Railroad,     7     Colson Whitehead, had been removed from a student reading list because of its “graphic description of violence and abuse of slavery”.

Robert Halfon, the Tory MP for Harlow and chairman of the Commons education committee, said: “We should be encouraging people to read books, even if the subject matter is difficult because that is     8     we learn.”

Sir Anthony Seldon. the former vice chancellor of the University of Buckingham, told LBC Radio: “We should be very concerned because universities are all about the discovery of truth. We discover truth by not shutting texts down     9     by examining them.”

Essex said The Underground Railroad remained available in the university library and is     10     option for future reading lists. Sussex said Miss Julie was removed from a literature module following student suicides, but staff expected the text to be reinstated. Aberdeen said its content warnings policy enabled staff “to explore controversial topics in an inclusive environment”.

6 . Criticism is judgment. A critic is a judge. A judge must study and think about the material presented to him, accept it, correct it or reject it after thinking over what he has read, watched or heard.

Another word for criticism is appreciation. When I criticize or appreciate some object or another, I look for its good points and bad points. In reading any printed or written matter, I always have a pencil in hand and put any comments in the book or on a separate paper. In other words, I always talk back to the writer.

That sort of critical reading might well be called creative reading because I am thinking along with the author, asking him questions, seeing whether he answers the questions and how well he answers them. I mark the good passages to store them in my memory and ask myself about every other part and about the complete piece of writing; where, how and why could or should I improve upon it?

You might think that doing what I suggested is work. Yes, it is, but the work is a pleasure because I can feel my brain expanding, my emotion reacting and my way of living change.

Reading exercises is a great influence on a person. If pictures, still or moving, accompany the reading, the memory will retain the material for a long time.

Just as evil books can corrupt, so also can good books gradually work a change on a corrupt person.

Let's get back to the beneficial effects of thinking while reading. It helps us to enlarge our minds. We understand more about the universe, its people and many of its wonders. We learn to think and observe in new ways. We certainly do get a feeling for the language we are reading. All good writers in any language have been readers who read critically and continuously.