COMMON CORE IN THE REAL WORLD: DESTROYING LITERACY THROUGH STANDARDIZATION (AGAIN)
I have a brief comedy routine I use with my students, typically early in each course I teach—in part to introduce them to me, and in part to make a point about literacy.* The joke goes like this:
“When I graduated high school,” I say, ” I had 7,000 comic books,” slight pause, “and no girl friend.”
The students typically laugh, and then I deadpan, “That’s not funny. That’s sad.”
When they suddenly stop laughing, I smile widely, and we all laugh together.**
I began collecting comic books—primarily to draw from them—in the summer before my ninth grade, the summer I learned I had scoliosis and would have to wear a huge back brace throughout my high school years (23 hours a day at first and throughout school hours into my junior year of high school). That situation provided me with yet another joke for my students; when I tell that part of my life story, I say that I called my back brace “the chick magnet.” More laughter.
By my sophomore year of high school, I was collecting, drawing from, and reading dozens of comics each month. I also