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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Parent here. Have been mostly happy w GDS HS english and related faculty.

This fall, one of the HS grades as started out by studying the following topics:

Queer Studies, CRT, Marxist Theory, Intersectionality, Structuralism Theory

Serious old person question - why are these taught in ENGLISH rather than in a special elective class? Isn't english for the study of literature. I get it - literature is a window into humanity....but really? I also get it - it's GDS but this is a core class all students must take.

And there was even an op-ed in student paper last week from a student very unhappy with the single-minded bias faculty show and the lack of oxygen they provide for dissenting views.

[/quote]

OP here. Yes that’s junior English and it’s still taught like that. I’m talking about the new senior English in which CRT and intersectionality are the lenses through which literature will be analyzed. This is new since last year.

I went to GDS. This sounds like the 11th grade English course that I took (albeit, this was many years ago), so no, not OP is a troll. That class was very focused on rhetoric and argument in addition to the study of various critical lenses through which literature can be examined. I remember once I had to do a paper that involved taking two of the aforementioned critical lenses and close reading a short story or essay, the goal being that different critical frameworks yield different analyses and interpretations (so, not at all the 'indoctrination', but an encouragement of different thinking). And for the people griping that English needs to focus on the "classics" this same English 11 course started with Greek rhetorical appeals (ethos, logos, pathos) and Aristotle's poetics.

The only reasonable critique of teaching these things that I can fathom is that they're boring and maybe a bit advanced for some students (and I take issue with that claim, personally). English, especially a class which is focused on rhetoric and argument, is absolutely the place to learn about, well, different approaches to reading a text. And I don't remember that DD was taught that one of these approaches is more right than another -- it's simply useful and important to know they exist.

I found this class to be challenging, but it did make me a better writer and I still use what I learned today, as an adult. [/quote][/quote]

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