This is not limited to short stories and English. If I had not been an avid reader when entering my teen years, the selection of books thrown at me in school would have turned me into a passionate hater of books.
Y'all are taking about the girl with the green ribbon, my first year college lit teacher had us read a short story where a kid fist-fucked his mom and I'm feeling like maybe my education was problematic.
Flashbacks to when only the teacher and I understood A Modest Proposal and not being able to explain to anyone else in that class that i was appreciating that he was sassing the english NOT the actual idea of eating babies. 🙃
All of it was a largely unmemorable slog with one teacher being adamant that their interpretation was the only correct one every time, even after they chose a book with a living author and I got it in writing that what the teacher thought was not the author's intent. I actually made use of the business letter lesson from an earlier year...
Except one class was good and did stick with me. As a result Atwood still has me bugged out over chickie knobs and pigoons, especially now that we pretty much have both. And depression over alex the parrot.
A good thing imo
Grew up with animals of farthing wood before school, your stories have no power here.
This thread unlocked an old memory of a poem we read Sophomore year about a frog getting killed by a lawnmower.
I can honestly say that not a single book or story I read in so left me with any impression whatsoever. I just learned that literature teachers of all languages are waaay too absorbed in their own circle jerks.
I won't comment on the circle jerk thing, but I mostly agree with the first sentence (Great Expectations being the lone exception for me for some reason). I've just never enjoyed reading, it just doesn't do it for me. In fact I recently found a 20 year old high school report card and apparently I took a Humanities class that year and completely forgot about it. But then I also didn't remember taking AP Econ that year either.
Ray Bradbury "The Pedestrian"
My dad read "All summer in a day" to me when I was 5ish. I think I was being mean to another kid and he was trying to teach me a lesson. That story still sucks me up.
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