from Newkirk

But sadly, writing in secondary schools is colonized by literature instruction and serves as a vehicle for analysis. With the whole world to explain, explore, and argue about, why should literature be the dominant topic of analysis? If we accept (as I do) the claim that extended analytic argumentation is difficult for most students, it stands to reason we don't compound this task by choosing as a topic a difficult and complex novel. To do so violates a basic maxim of teaching: that when teaching any new skill, you don't compound the problem by adding difficulties...In choosing literary analysis as a main form of writing, we are asking students to write in a form they don't read, to enter a conversation they know nothing about, to learn a genre that is virtually nonexistent in the wider culture, and to disregard topics and controversies where they might actually have some stake. This is not to say this form should not have a place in the curriculum, only that it should not dominate, as I believe it does. (Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, 154)