Tips for surviving bad classes and/or horrible teachers?

I'm open to answers from both fellow students and former students for this question! I'm currently taking a literature class, and I absolutely love it, but that's in regards to all the novels on our reading syllabus being outstanding reads and my own innate passion for literature. When it comes to the actual class, I almost dread going to school every morning since it's my first period (I'm a high school student). I find that my own desires and expectations for the class are incompatible with the reality of it. My teacher provides shallow commentary on the content of our novels, but then expects high-quality analysis and understanding from us students when she can't even provide that level of analysis herself. In fact, students often ask questions for clarification and she either beats around the bush or manages to avoid the question entirely by redirecting their attention to some other topic she brings up. She also expects everyone to improve in their writing and reading analysis skills, but provides no coursework or feedback for improvement, instead repeatedly assuring us that "our skills will improve during our time in the class" - something unlikely to happen if she just expects us to become better "naturally." She never returns or allows students to see past quizzes and tests, and on essays, she only writes vague, criticizing remarks of what we did wrong rather than offering advice on how to improve our writing for higher scores. Confronting her directly/privately for advice and further feedback results in more vague comments. There seems to be no way to coax constructive criticism or explanations of the "high-level analysis" she expects out of her, so the result is a class full of disillusioned and tired students who don't want to try anymore and don't want to improve. Not to mention her behavior makes her lack any sort of credibility so I really can't take anything she says seriously anymore. I'm doing relatively well in the class, but this is thanks to the foundation of literature-based skills I've acquired prior to entering this class, not the result of anything she's taught us. With that being said, are there any tips to trudge through a pointless and unfulfilling class? There are a number of problems here, but my primary concern is preventing a terrible teacher from damaging my love of literature, because this has happened in the past where I had an English teacher so awful that I started to hate literature despite it always being one of my greatest passions. On a personal level, it's also difficult not to let her interpretation of the novels we read ruin my reading experience and my feelings toward said books - for example, she makes a lot of misogynistic comments reinforcing gender roles and completely missing the point that I think the author was actually trying to make when we discuss feminist novels. I need tips on how to survive teachers like her so I can get through the rest of this year and also put them to use if I end up having professors like her in college. (Sorry for writing a novel for my own here!) #student #advice #student-advice #class #high-school-classes #classes #survival #surviving-high-school #tips #bad-classes #bad-teachers #literature #english-literature #english #english-literature #academic-english #writing #reading #books #book #novels #novel #essay #essays #help

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