Ping.
I recalled an incident from my junior year, when a couple of friends hunted me down to relate that they’d encountered my dad in the hall, between classes. They thought they’d get in a dig, and told him that their new English classes were a lot tougher than his had been. He looked at them, and said “Tough shit, gentlemen.” They seemed to think that I needed to know this.
I can see him giving that response, and it being an entirely appropriate one. It probably shocked them because they weren’t used to being called gentlemen.
I don’t think the classes could have been tougher on the basic technical composition side. Wrestling with literary ideas perhaps—but while using a foundation that they had been given but obviously could not appreciate
I remember writing essays or possibly precis for him in which I averaged about two transitions a sentence and managed to not use any form of “to be.”
That both could get an “A” and build up habits that could give you an ability to say something once one had something to say.
I don’t recall his classes as being at all annoying on the reading side—but that wasn’t the point of the class. We did read “A Separate Peace,” the message of which had more of an impact on me and has given me more cause for reflection than any other book that I can think of from the Marshfield English classes.