Back in high school most of the book discussions were exclusively about explaining it to students who couldn't understand the material (included (parts of) The Oddesy, Anthem by Ayn Rand, The Cask of Amontillado and Telltale Heart, A Streetcar Named Desire, To Kill a Mockingbird, some satire of Victorian social standards that I can't remember the name of, and probably more I can't remember)
We also had to read A Separate Peace during the Summer and when classes started we had a week to discuss it and turn in a report on it.
I hated it, everyone else probably hated it, and the only thing discussed was how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (actually true). Then the next year we read The Great Gatsby, and discussion over it was relegated to talking about how the two main characters were totes gay for each other (also true)
To Kill a Mockingbird was pulled from the curriculum the year after my class read it b/c a student complained about the N word
So what were your school lit discussions like? Surface-level repetition of plot points or high-brow elucidating dialogues?
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awful until some teacher forced us to read this at some point
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Read_Literature_Like_a_Professor
then it was kinda fun seeing what metaphors you could regurgitate into existence. at least on your own
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Do you remember anything legitimately useful from the book or was it an instructional guide on how to be a pseudointellectual
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kind of a mix? i remember it being sort of like a cheat sheet for common literary tropes
like, "hey, if a main character gets dunked in a river and comes back up, that might be a reference to baptism or moral cleansing. but not always."
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A Separate Peace was such fricking dogshit thanks for reminding me of that.
The teachers tried to broach the topic of subtext but usually most of the class thought the teacher was making shit up. Weirdly the discussions were better the dumber the kids in the class were, because they'd get mad about random bullshit and have very strong opinions.
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The subtext was that you shouldn’t push friends off trees and then down a flight of stairs
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Thinking back, we really didn't read that many books in my English classes in high school. All I remember is The Great Gatsby, The Odyssey, and a couple of Shakespeare plays. None of the discussions ever really went anywhere, no one liked being forced to read shit. I do remember reading Frankenstein and some people liking it, but everyone took to the "Frankenstein was the real monster" take which is dumb imo, I didn't see it like that at all. The only other things from English class I remember are one teacher forgetting to skip the nude scene in Romeo and Juliet so we all saw tits in 9th grade, and the class that was half special ed that was just shenanigans nonstop where no one learned anything at all.
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frankenstein is the doctor, and also the book pretty explicitly states how hes the truly evil one, and its not even subtext
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No it doesn't. The only "evil" thing he does is make him, then be a coward, then spend the rest of his life trying to correct his mistake. He isn't evil by any stretch of the word, the worst you could call him is, again, a coward.
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Objectively wrong
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Frankenstein is the guy who made him. It's a common take that he's the real monster in the novel, having made an abomination as he did. While I agree he fricked up, he spends a good bit of the novel trying to atone for his sin. The monster is not inherently evil but is driven to doing straight up evil shit, and is irredeemable by the end. I don't think Frankenstein is meant to be a good person by any means, I just think the novel has more nuance than "Frankenstein is the real monster," which is a common take. Used to see it all the time on Reddit.
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Nuh-uh
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I skipped all my english classes and got credit in to weeks summer skool.
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UM SO LIKE WUZ UM SO YALL SAYIN SO WHAT YOU BE SAYIN IS THAT UM
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English class in high school was dire. Discussions in uni English class were actually interesting and engaging and taught me a lot more about reading than anything from HS
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