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comment by Devac
Devac  ·  1780 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: The Academic Apocalypse: The crisis of English departments is also a crisis of faith.

Good one. I went for a lazy solution, where after discovering that all Polish Lit teachers have massive hots for Adam Mickiewicz's works (mostly overrated, Pan Tadeusz is the only good thing from him we have in syllabus/canon), I'd take his collected works, pick a poem at random, use it as an opening and make as many connections to it as it was humanly possible. Double points if I managed to draw a parallel with said Pan Tadeusz, which usually meant I could expect a solid B even if my entire argument was about as sound as Soviet engineering.

    I have yet to meet an English or Art teacher who is willing to discuss any assertion beyond "because I said so."

True => "Because I said so" can time out Mathematica/Wolfram Alpha, so it's probably too sophisticated for all but chosen few.