for me it was the cold equations by Tom Godwin

This is not limited to short stories and English. If I had not been an avid reader when entering my teen years, the selection of books thrown at me in school would have turned me into a passionate hater of books.

Y'all are taking about the girl with the green ribbon, my first year college lit teacher had us read a short story where a kid fist-fucked his mom and I'm feeling like maybe my education was problematic.

Flashbacks to when only the teacher and I understood A Modest Proposal and not being able to explain to anyone else in that class that i was appreciating that he was sassing the english NOT the actual idea of eating babies. 🙃

A good thing imo

All of it was a largely unmemorable slog with one teacher being adamant that their interpretation was the only correct one every time, even after they chose a book with a living author and I got it in writing that what the teacher thought was not the author's intent. I actually made use of the business letter lesson from an earlier year...

Except one class was good and did stick with me. As a result Atwood still has me bugged out over chickie knobs and pigoons, especially now that we pretty much have both. And depression over alex the parrot.

Grew up with animals of farthing wood before school, your stories have no power here.

This thread unlocked an old memory of a poem we read Sophomore year about a frog getting killed by a lawnmower.

Ray Bradbury "The Pedestrian"

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge has entered the chat