The Atlantic Did Me Dirty

Framing of the Atlantic Piece and the Substack Response

• Many see the Substack title (“did me dirty”) as misleading; the Atlantic article barely features the teacher, so some call it a bait‑and‑switch.
• Several argue high‑prestige outlets often start from a thesis and cherry‑pick quotes, but others think in this case the Atlantic did not obviously misrepresent the source.
• There’s broader criticism that modern journalism favors pre‑ordained narratives over open‑ended reporting.

Causes of Students’ Reading Difficulties

• One camp: smartphones/social media have clearly damaged attention spans; dismissing them as “old news” is seen as absurd.
• Another camp: phones matter, but curriculum, pedagogy, and culture (low value on reading, test pressure) are at least as important.
• Some note that any assigned reading schedule can drain joy, regardless of book choice.

Canon vs Contemporary and Representation

• Strong split over replacing or supplementing the “canon” (long, older, mostly white and male works) with newer, identity‑focused texts.
• Supporters say modern, demographically varied books better hook today’s students and still can be complex.
• Critics argue this devalues enduring works, weakens shared cultural reference points, and sometimes crosses into race/sex/age essentialism.
• Multiple commenters stress literature as a “door” to other lives, not a mirror; over‑insisting on characters “like me” is seen by some as narrowing.

Difficulty, Length, and Pedagogical Aims

• Debate over assigning very long 19th‑century novels: some love the digressions (sewers, whaling), others find them punishing and counterproductive.
• One side: struggling through hard, dense texts trains close reading and doing hard things you don’t choose.
• Other side: hitting kids with maximal difficulty too soon turns them off reading entirely; better to build stamina and pleasure first.

Language Change and Shakespeare / Older Texts

• Disagreement on how far adolescent dialect has drifted: some compare teens reading Shakespeare today to adults reading Middle English; others call this wildly overstated.
• Many note that glossed editions and classroom guidance have long been standard; some suggest modern translations for very old works.

Book Bans and School Libraries

• A long subthread disputes how serious U.S. school “book bans” are.
• One side: most bans target “pornographic” or graphic sexual content and are just curation.
• Other side: data suggest only a minority of targeted books are explicitly sexual; bans and vague laws chill access, especially for less‑privileged kids.
• Extent, sexual content definitions, and impact magnitude remain contested and largely “unclear” from available evidence.