What is the purpose of English class?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

<p>Now allow me to explain, before I get a legion of English majors on my butt for being "close minded" and "ignorant".</p>

<p>You need 4 English credits to graduate from high school. Comparatively, you only need 3 science and 1 technology credit. Somebody feel free to explain to me why analyzing 2000 year old texts is a more important endeavor, both to one's own career and the benefit of society as a whole, than physics or engineering. Why is English class more important than Science?</p>

<p>Obviously, being able to write and read well is a crucial component of modern society. But English classes don't focus on this! You spend maybe 10% of the course learning grammar and proper paragraph construction, and the rest...analyzing Shakespeare and Faulkner. Ooohh. How the hell is Shakespeare still relevant in real life? His plays do contain themes, but they don't present logical arguments of what human nature is or how politics play out, but rather evoke emotional kneejerk support for "themes" that anybody can logically deduce from personal experience anyhow. He's valued as important...because he's old, that's what. It's just a carefully veiled Appeal to Tradition.</p>

<p>Learning proper grammar and sentence construction is important. Doesn't it make sense to frame it in a more relevant subject?</p>

2

<p>Language is the way we communicate. That’s why it’s required so much. Science isn’t required as much because not everybody goes into a science related field. Math isn’t required as much (although it usually is) because not everyone goes into a math related field. No matter what field you go into, you’re going to need English.</p>

3

<p>Well at my school we`ve gotta have 4 credits for all core classes (Math, English, Science, History) anyhow, so…

But when do we really use science in our lives? Not as much as English. Just like how we use basic Algebra in our every day lives, unless you plan on speaking Spanish, German, etc, for the rest of your life, you need to know how to do that. Cant answer too much about Shakespeare and all of his buddies....but its how we communicate, so I guess it`s good to know about English across all ages.</p>

4

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<p>How does analyzing Shakespeare help us communicate?</p>

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<p>You’re confusing English class with knowing how to communicate in English. The latter is crucial, the former is much like the examples you cited; it’s only useful to those pursuing literature based careers. Of course, those careers are typically self-perpetuating; the primary job English majors get is a teaching position…to teach more English students. And it isn’t even comparable in societal importance to jobs that require math, science and technology.</p>

<p>English classes should focus more on actually teaching you how to write. Instead, they teach you how gruesomely violate Occam’s Razor and find non-existent symbolism in centuries old texts for the purpose of…oops.</p>

5

<p>No, you confused what question I was answering. </p>

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6

<p>okay, wow, hold on just a second there. analyzing English texts is important. VERY important. of course, learning how to communicate for yourself in English is very important. but learning how to understand what others are communicating and learning from them is just as important, if not more. especially if they’re coming from a society completely different from our own and practically speak a different language (I mean, I know Shakespeare’s English, but I can barely understand it). it gets rid of an AWFUL ignorance which 99% of the human population has. you need to be able to understand what other people are saying, regardless of whether you agree or disagree. you must be able to understand their point of view, which is what you learn to do by analyzing texts (although, admittedly, most people fail at this in English class).</p>

<p>everyone’s wants to be heard, but no one wants to listen. most people don’t even realize how true that is. it’s a sad cycle which needs to be broken.</p>

7

<p>^ This. </p>

<p>Great job, stressed!</p>

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<p>You’re mistakenly labeling the type of literary analysis commonly found in English class as “understanding the meaning”. It’s one thing to be able to read an abstract and understand what the person is trying to communicate. It can also be important to understand subtle implications and wordplay. But in English class, students are encouraged to violate Occam’s Razor and come up with ridiculous symbolic meanings in pieces of text that might just be plot development. What purpose does understanding complex extended metaphors in The Odyssey serve? If it’s to improve our practical reading comprehension, it’s a horribly efficient method of doing so. It would be like improving your reading skills by doing math homework…because you have to read the problems, right? Why not just read a book?</p>

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<p>So exactly how is the standard English curriculum - analyzing ancient texts for symbolic meaning, more important than understanding scientific or mathematical concepts?</p>

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<p>See Post #2 and #6. No need to repeat what has already been said.</p>

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<p>Analyzing English texts throughout time helps to teach you how to communicate efficiently by paying attention to how others have used words to illustrate a point in the past. Since communication is so important to society, four years of English class is required.</p>

11

<p>I’m also interested in getting more opinions about RMIB’s question, and agree with him that some of the explanations so far could use a little more clarification. I think that communication is important, but I’m baffled why we analyze old and (in my opinion) irrelevant books instead of working directly on applicable skills. I feel that I got little or nothing out of my 3 English classes at a public high school, and that I learned the most about language from grammar and writing workbooks that I used for my homeschooling.</p>

12

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<p>No, you make the case that “knowing how to communicate = good”, but never make the needed leap in logic that “analyzing Shakespeare = improved communication skills”.</p>

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<p>Maybe because I don’t want to…? I don’t answer questions that I don’t see the need to be answered. I understand this is your musing that was struck up out of frustration (maybe), but this “literature” that you don’t understand is the “history” part of English. Just as chemistry has its history…biology has its history…math has it history, except more elaborated because its able to elaborated on.</p>

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<p>@ OP, I would largely agree with you. </p>

<p>For example, today in English we discussed Milton’s Paradise Lost. We talked about how Sin was the first woman and was concieved when Satan thought about rebelling against God. Satan then proceeded to brutalize her, creating Death. Death then proceeded to rape his mother Sin, causing her to give birth to dogs that encircled her, tearing her flesh off and hourly crawling back into her womb and ravaging her once more.</p>

<p>Why on earth do I need to know that? Its disturbing and pointless.</p>

<p>Why do I need to know what this says about how England during Milton’s life? </p>

<p>Why do I need to understand what Mary Wollenstonecraft’s opinions on this are?</p>

15

<p>We need it because 75% of the population couldn’t tell you when you’re supposed to use an apostrophe, or the difference between your and you’re if they tried.</p>

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<p>Because it’s part of being educated, I guess. At the very least, people should know a little about the classics and their historical significance.
I think they emphasize literature too much, though. Most of the kids in my honors English class can’t write a decent paragraph, let alone a ten-page essay on the significance of the turtle in The Grapes of Wrath. We don’t focus on writing skills needed in the real world as much as we should.</p>

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<p>Here’s my take on your proposed question: There is no answer. There is no answer to YOUR question because the answer you are looking for is very specific, something you subconsciously made up, and there will probably be no person on this earth who can answer your question unless you tell us exactly what you’re looking for. Every person on this thread has answered your question(s) in one way or another, you’re just choosing to not accept them because they aren’t up to your standards. It’s not as if they’re misinterpreting what you’re saying, you’re simply not letting any of the arguments stand because you disagree with them.</p>

<p>With that said, I’m going to give you my real answer. Now, I don’t know where you go to school, and quite frankly, I don’t care. I go to a public school in the middle of Connecticut. We’re not in the top anything. We’re in a lower DRG. We don’t send a ton of kids to top schools. There’s a ton of bright kids in my class, our town’s socioeconomic level just doesn’t match up with how smart we are. Because of this, our teachers don’t come from places like Harvard, Bowdoin, or other really fancy shmancy schools (with the exception of two of our science teachers who actually did go to Harvard and Bowdoin for undergrad and grad). My point is, my school isn’t the best, but our core English courses are all grammar based. We are taught how to write essays in all different forms, which will be useful for college and when we have to write essays in the future. We are taught grammar. Lots and lots of grammar. We do tons of vocab. We also study texts from various years. The reason behind this, like so many have pointed out, is to understand the way we communicate. If you’ve never read Macbeth, I’m sure whenever someone makes the joke of “Out out brief candle,” you would never understand it. Some texts supplement history, like Animal Farm and The Adventures of Huck Finn and such. It’s all relevant.</p>

<p>English, like history, is there to help broaden your view of the world and where our societies started. It’s to make you more knowledgeable citizens of this earth. It’s to ensure that you’re not the “average” idiot teenager who knows nothing and relies solely on the Internet and Google to answer your questions and solve your life problems. </p>

<p>Math and science are important. At my school, we have to have four years of every subject with the exception of foreign language, where three years suffices.</p>

<p>But as Niqui said, it’s our history. Math has history, so does science, so does language, and history, well, is everything. That’s why it’s important that we have English.</p>

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<p>for your typical public school english curriculum, one purpose is probably to differentiate smarter, harder working students from students who are less smart and who do not work as hard.</p>

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<p>Swizzle13’s answer is awesome! I agreed with OP kind of in the idea that English is almost pointless with the way the teachers had taught it. I was learning nothing new, so I never really enjoyed it. This year, I understand better tht English and History is important. The reading part is great if you love reading and while annotating and analyzing books suck and take the joy out of reading for fun, you can understand at a better view and the underlying meaning of the book. Yes some of it is disturbing or weird or gross, but the imagination and thought process behind it is amazing. I think writing effectively is important aspect of English also. All core subjects are important and maintaining a balance is great.</p>

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<p>Yea the stuff Iearn in English is stupid because 3/4 of the year is focused on understanding how to decompose a story and literary and poetic devices which I think is stupid because the odd of me ever using it is 1 in a billion. I want to go into the field of medicine and I doubt what I’m learning is relevant to it. If anything I’d rather just learn grammar and essay structure and write an essay every month than read old Shakespeare books and try to explain and understand them which can be actually really hard…</p>