The Book As Museum Piece
Rethinking The High School English Canon
by Thomas Washington
A student phoned me over Christmas Break to tell me he was flunking his first semester of senior English under the thumb of Mrs. Knowles. Chris had failed to rewrite his term paper, worth fifty-five percent of the semester grade. This is cruel and common practice among English teachers, by the way. By placing a premium on a single project, you instill creative paralysis and assure that the bottom troop, those who need your help the most, will fail. Although his thesis and content eventually passed muster, Chris’s margins, paragraph format, and Roman numeral system somehow remained askew. In addition, Chris wasn’t faring well on the multiple choice pop quizzes, an apparent Monday favorite activity for Mrs. Knowles. I used to subject sophomore students to these. Twenty years later and I’m still penitent. Reading literature can never be boiled down to filling in circles. This is something better suited for the math department. more...
Posted on 01/01/2008 7:06 AM by NER
