So I was informed yesterday that I went too far of of the standard with my teaching. That I was giving too much information. What was I doing? Giving some context to Shakespeare's Sonnet 29.

I was told, literally told, the text is irrelevant. That getting the kids to read or think doesn't matter. All that matters is mastering the benchmark. Which apparently will be easier if the kids don't know why they're reading something, or why it was written.

I pointed out by that logic, we should remove the names of authors since they don't help with mastery. I was told to just to teach English and not history.

English doesn't happen in a vacuum though, it requires knowledge of the world it came from to understand it. The people who wrote in the past didn't think the same way we do.

Why even call me an English teacher? Just call me a Benchmark teacher. I'll teach the benchmarks, no one will think and test scores won't change because the kids don't care.

Trying to learn English without content is like learning swimming on dry land. In theory it can be done. In practice, it's a lot of movement without going anywhere.