Jack London was the subject in Daterrius Hamilton\u2019s online English 3 course. In a high school classroom packed with computers, he read a brief biography of London with single-paragraph excerpts from the author\u2019s works. But the curriculum did not require him, as it had generations of English students, to wade through a tattered copy of \u201cCall of the Wild\u201d\u009d or \u201cTo Build a Fire.\u201d\u009d<\/p>\n
Mr. Hamilton, who had failed English 3 in a conventional classroom and was hoping to earn credit online to graduate, was asked a question about the meaning of social Darwinism. He pasted the question into Google and read a summary of a Wikipedia entry. He copied the language, spell-checked it and e-mailed it to his teacher.<\/p>\n
Mr. Hamilton, 18, is among the expanding ranks of students in kindergarten through grade 12 \u201d\u201d more than one million in the United States, by one estimate \u201d\u201d taking online courses.<\/p>\n