[Ginkasa]

...as well as any other fantasy or sci-fi author.

I take AP English Literature and Composition. We've been looking at different promps used for past AP tests, and we've noticed that every single one has said that we have to choose a book of "literary merit." Someone asked exactly which books would have literary merit and how would we know what they were.

So my teacher answers by saying something along the lines of, "I'm sorry if you read science fiction or fantasy, but they don't have literary merit. Harry Potter, Tolkien, Stephen King; they are certainly fun reads, but they have no literary merit." That's not an exact quote, but its pretty darn close.

Once she said this, my respect for her completely disappeared. Quite frankly, if she can so quickly dismiss a book or author as having no literary merit just because of the genre, then she should not be teaching a class about literature. Not to say I'll slack off in her class or ignore her, however. I'm sure I can pick up some stuff about hwo to please AP graders and overanalyze the written word, but it will be a chore to come to her class, not a pleasure as my English classes have been for the past two years.

And it wasn't so much that she classified sci-fi and fantasy in general as having no literary merit, its almost expected, but that she singled out Tolkien himself. Its not that she's read the wrong books, but that she's just biased and ignorant...


/me shrugs and walks away