#if i didnt live and breath textual analysis it would have turned me off the concept for life

[asthedeathoflight]

I think the debate of "the curtains are just blue and I hated my high school English teacher" vs "if you think the curtains are just blue you're stupid and making the world worse" is missing the, I think, QUITE OBVIOUS point here. Which is that (American) public school English is by and large NOT TAUGHT WELL.

I fucking looove textual analysis and I laughed at and reblogged those "the curtains are just blue" memes, because they /had a point./

A lot of English classes are taught in a way that expects everyone to relate to and think about a story the same way. Even if you think deeply about a story, you might never come up with the answer they want because you're not coming at it from the same angle. And it can be SO frustrating when an essay prompt relies on an experience of a story you just /didn't have/.

Yes, it's annoying when people act like subtext isn't real and alternative readings are less "correct" than the obvious or accepted one. But a lot of them are coming from an experience of textual analysis that is synonymous with "your thoughts and opinions about this story are wrong and invalid, and you need to think about it my way and ONLY my way."

And before anyone goes to blame this on "bad" classes or teachers: my source for this post is having taken AP Literature. The teacher was amazing, the textbooks were a nightmare.