Also an AP Lit teacher, and I had about the same thought. Real poetry is hard for the average American adult to read with their middle school literacy level. They’d probably prefer a straightforward, banal short story produced by an AI to Faulkner, too.
And let’s not pretend that school isn’t partly to blame. We keep dumbing things down to try to get these kids through, and now they balk at reading 10 pages. If it’s not some dumbfuck influencer reacting to a can of beans or whatever, these kids couldn’t care less, and we keep trying to meet them there so No Child Is Left Behind.
