The National Endowment for the Arts recently released the results of its "Reading at Risk", survey, which described the movement of the American public away from books and literature and toward television and electronic media. According to the survey,"reading is on the decline on every 1. ______ region, within every ethnic group, and at every educational level. "
The day the NEA report released, the U. S. House, in a tie vote, 2. ______ upheld the government’s right to obtain bookstore and library records under a provision of the USA Patriot Act. The House proposal w0uld have barred the federal government from demand library records, reading lists, book 3. ______ customer lists and other material in terrorism and intelligence investigations.
These two events are completely unrelated to, yet they echo each other 4. ______ in the message they send about the place of books and reading in American culture, At the heart of the NEA survey is the belief in our democratic 5. ______ system depends on leaders who can think critically, analyze texts and writing6. ______ clearly. All of these are skills promoted by reading and discussing books and literature. At the same time, through a provision of the Patriot Act, the leaders of our country are unconsciously sending the message that reading may be connected to desirable activities that might undermine our system of 7. ______ government rather than helping democracy flourish.
Our culture’s decline in reading begin well before the existence of the 8. ______ Patriot Act. During the 1980s’ culture wars, school systems across the country pulled some books from library shelves because its content was 9. ______ deemed by parents and teachers to be inappropriate. Now what started in schools across the country is playing itself out on a nation stage and is possibly10. ______ having an impact on .the reading habits of the American public. 10（）