Not a book, but my 10th grade English teacher put me off reading and the subject of English for at least 2 years. I was the person who wanted to be an English teacher and after her class I was like “mm. maybe no.”
Highlights include spending over 2 months on the book Metamorphasis by Kafka… before a break, she’d asked us about what the representation of the apple being the cause of his death was. The class talked about how apples usually mean health (an apple a day) and she said it was wrong, and it had to do with original sin. After the break, I guess she forgot she’d already asked us this, because she asked us again. We spat back the BS about original sin and said that was wrong and it was because apples mean health.
She took points off my final project because she said I misspelled the title of some book or poem, even though I had very carefully copied how it was spelled because it was an unusual spelling. (I think I got a 98 on that, so I didn’t bitch because it wasn’t worth it).
She constantly made us do “fish bowl” discussions where a group sat in a circle and each person had to speak X many times or they’d get points off.
And that’s just what I remember from 13+ years ago…
