I remember it vividly; I was a student and we were all talking and laughing about it.
I'm sure that your child's English teacher got that junk force fed to him when he was in college.
Yes, as a parent, it is incumbent upon us to pick and choose which battles we're going to storm the barricades of the school with; however, since this garbage has been so conclusively been derided and laughed at, for more than four decades now, a little research on the matter and you could have gone to the principal with arm loads of material to back your side up.
When my kiddo was in school, I picked which battles to fight and which not to, as well. But there are times and I think that this case was one of them, that you probably should have made your case.
When I was in college and grad school, if I or any other student had tried to get a grade raised, I think I/they would have gotten an F. How times have changed and not for the better!
I didn’t know of this site when she had to do the assignment. We were at a loss, my husband and me, and her, I spent hours searching all the databases provided on the high school site and googled it too for info on the homosexual stuff in the book. I almost gave up. Yep, the “come up on the raft, huck honey” and the fact they were naked most of the time, lol. I’m halfway intelligent when it comes to anything but the math and science courses, I always excelled at English courses, I have two Master degrees (not in the math or sciences) and this assignment literally threw me through a loop. I usually don’t have to help her or any of them with homework but this took hours and hours of my time. I was totally frustrated and I haven’t been a student in a long time. She’s in tears, my husband is ranting and raving about it, I’m looking at and reading so much online trying to find research to back up this, she’s on her computer trying to find info to support her dictated position, it was a nightmare. Finally, at about 2am, I gave her the “guts” of the piece, swayed it to what he wanted, and told her that this paper wasn’t going to mean anything 10 years down the road. It was the first time she needed so much of my help for a school assignment. She’s independent, does most of this and daily stuff on her own. This assignment threw us all out of whack. Most of the info I came up with all pointed to it not having any homosexual inferences but she had to argue the opposite.
I wish I had known of this place and could have received help - I would have loved going into the principal’s office armed with information. Fortunately, it turned out well for her. And a good lesson in that sometimes she’s going to have to suck it up and we’re going to have to help her find the research to avoid tears. But I really wish I had known of this site, I may have asked for help. I called every friend I have and none could help. I thought, with all of my degrees/background/education blah blah blah, why can’t I find enough info on this? It was so frustrating.
The assignment seemed so stupid to me but knowing her teacher from this year, and my own kid was adamant that I not cause a stir since she thought it would affect her grade, I let it go. Just like I let the comment on the other kid’s report (she doesn’t ask for help) go since she’s an A/B student so why should she ask for help when she obviously doesn’t need it?
You can bet I will post to you on the next English assignment I get can’t help them with :)