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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I am a college literature professor at a very good school and I have several close friends who are high school English teachers. I understand that your/their job is harder than mine in many ways: I don't have to work very hard simply to engage my students. I can assume a certain level, not just of literacy, but of critical analysis skills. I take for granted my students' commitment to the coursework and to the educational endeavor in general. I realize that your students and goals are different.

That said, I am bothered by how dismissive you are of so many responses. You call on the "latest research" as though it were an irrefutable authority when these are all questions that teachers wrestle with and will continue to wrestle with for years to come.

Personally, I believe that the goal of any language arts instructor, or high school English teacher, or college literature professor should be to teach certain skills, to ensure that students can analyze difficult texts (whether it's a canonical work, an opinion article, or a political speech), and can put together a coherent argument. It is our job to challenge students -- to try to prepare them a little bit for the challenge that is life. If the students are going to read (maybe only part of...) of a few books per year, they should be books vetted and carefully chosen by YOU (the most prepared person in the room!). Every part of the classics can be analyzed, questioned, critiqued, deconstructed -- as you do that, you both deal with the difficult issues instead of avoiding them and teach students how to deal with them in life.

I admire you for being so thoughtful in your approach to teaching but I don't see how you can get a consistently good discussion or how you can consistently teach important skills
with this format.[/quote]

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