Teenage Vandals Were Sentenced to Read Books. Heres What One Learned By Christine Hauser

Read attached article carefully, and then write an essay in response to the question below. Be sure that your essay reacts to the ideas and/or evidence presented in the article, but remember that you are explaining your own point of view, not the authors.

Your essay should:
Support a clear thesis statement
Be organized into well-developed paragraphs
Refer to the attached article at least once.

Write your essay in a word processing program and submit the completed document through Canvas.
This exam will accept files from cloud services like OneDrive or Google Docs as well as attachments of files in .docx format.
The essay does not need to be in MLA style.
You may use a dictionary and spell-check.
The article below is the only source you should read for this essay. Keep in mind that the purpose of this exam is to assess your writing ability not your knowledge of this topic.
Note: Use of any other source in your essay will be considered plagiarism and will lead to your essay receiving a zero. This occurs very rarely and is something you don’t have to worry about if you are just relying on the article below.
Spend some time thinking about what you are going to write before you begin your essay. You may write notes or an outline as part of the writing process, but those other materials should not be included in the file you submit.

Is being required to read books an appropriate punishment for nonviolent hate crimes?