I had no idea some high school lit classes are taught out of a textbook. That’s ridiculous.

I always considered myself fortunate to have had Mr. Powers as my high school AP English teacher. He tossed out the AP test’s suggested readings list (lots of Shakespeare, etc) and instead turned us on to things like Raymond Carver’s short stories and Flannery O’Connor’s novels. He also reserved half the chalkboard for a new poem each week, which he meticulously copied down. We didn’t discuss the poemit was just there to tempt us. And his method worked. That class turned us all into a bunch of readers.

The class was a lucky break simply because it was far cry from earlier h.s. lit classes, where we stuck to the syllabus and dissected Shakespeare (or napped). But at least we read entire plays from paperbacks, not textbooks. Now I realize just how lucky I was.