“Mandated curriculum and state standards aside, what content area knowledge is most valuable in a high school ELA classroom?“

-Anonymous

Most.

I don’t love superlatives. It’s why I choose better to best. I prefer ways over ends, and words like most and best seem to suggest ends. So, I avoid them. But, here we are, and since you asked, I will do my best better to respond.

To be fair, it’s a question worth asking, and I suppose it gets asked a lot, for we–at all levels of education–seem to want to have some clarity on such things. So we ask. And ask. And ask. And while an ask wants an answer, I am not sure we’ve found or will ever fully find the answer, for who decides definitively? And when we throw the words “most valuable” in the mix, a well-intended ask becomes a veritably impossible task. 

And it becomes more messy when we confront the question, “Content or skills?” In my experience, the conversation often turns to content, and if we, as we are here, take the “state” out of it, then it becomes what do we read?

Most valuable, then?

Whatever the kids choose.

Choice = most value.

~sy