Check out this link: http://stopcommoncorewa.wordpress.com/2013/09/01/a-monstrous-story-for-a-monstrous-curriculum-the-ugly-heart-of-common-core/.
As a 20-year English teacher I felt I had to point out this blatant inaccuracy about Maupassant’s story “A Mother of Monsters.” This nonsensical attack on the story is based on the most juvenile of misunderstandings. The character “demonstrating individuality” in the face of outside pressure is the narrator, a member of the bourgeoisie himself, not the two evil mothers. I wrote a lengthy reply, “Bourgeois Monstrosities,” for my hometown newspaper, The Democrat Argus of Caruthersville, MO, and it was printed in the Feb 5 issue of this year. Seems Ms. Dana R Casey has been propagating this idiocy all over the nation. Why I haven’t seen more English profs step in to refute her contentions about the associated writing assignment, I don’t know, but I’ve done my research on this story. I also haven’t seen the curriculum designers do any defending of their writing assignment, which in my judgement is actually a good one, not the Pollyanna platitudes I believe Ms Casey might want from her students.
duckworthsam 