Is this really an honors class?

Weekly Read (The Whipping)

As you can see from the title, the whipping is about the speaker watching a young boy gets abused by his mother. He remembers how he used to be hit and whipped just like the young boy he is watching. Now, this seems pretty easy to get. Our prompt was to compare the Whipping to our previous poem Papas Waltz. Papas Waltz is about the speaker himself being abused but he sees it as normal, routine. Both talk about the abuse but one is about how it feels normal while the other is about how it's horrible. Now, these topics commonly discussed in our poems are very delicate and are sensitive. Yet, every god damned week I have to read over my peers' response of them completely butchering every detail of not only the poem but also the whole analysis. "How can you do that?" You might ask. it's quite easy if you're in my honors class.

Here's a response I had to read and I did not comment on this one because I felt too angry to even finish reading. It's not as bad as the other one though, it just makes me mad that they don't even try especially with these sensitive topics.

"In the poem "The whipping" Hayden uses imagery in the whole poem to portray readers on what he witness on a boy being abused by his mother who is describe as a "old woman , crippling fat and more" the author seems to feel some type of way towards this whole scene "My head gripped in bony vise of knees, the writhing struggle to wrench free, the blows, the fear worse than blows that hateful Words could bring, the face that I no longer knew or loved . . . Well, it is over now, it is over," he seemed to confused me on this part as if the image was him so it turn the whole story from a witness to being that boy, In the other hand "My papa's Waltz" it seems to have the same experience though it was from a different point of view when the author states it was because of a father being drunk and how he will be abused from alcohol or wine who is controlling the father to hitting him and more and in " The whipping" it was more on the mother anger and avenging herself from her past she been bearing. Both poems seemed to talk about being abused from a parent, but different reasons and how it differently effected them they both put lots of imagery."

What is my honors class doing? Why are they admitting to being confused about the poem? Even if you're confused, you completely bullshit your way through your response. I've been confused about different poems and pieces of literature. I've also come to completely different conclusions of those same poems. She has grammatical errors here and there that you could easily overlook. The biggest problem I have is her not quoting her quotes and the way she is wording her sentences. We are learning about how to word sentences correctly and the subject-verb agreements and many other sentence structures.  She also barely talked about the other poem. That was the whole point of this fucking weekly read was to compare and contrast these poems. 

My response to this prompt wasn't the best and was not nearly important but I answered the prompt correctly.

"My Papa's Waltz by Roethke has a very indifferent tone. As it explains the abuse the speaker is going through, it uses dashes to convey a very monotone reading. The Whipping by Hayden, on the other hand, is drastically different. This is not a poem where you are supposed to read it with a monotone voice or an indifferent tone. This poem is full of feelings and full of different meanings. The speaker is witnessing a boy being abused for messing up. The speaker describes this in detail and explains how the abuser hits the boy with a stick until it breaks. The man remembers his own trauma. Both of the themes show family abuse and while one is supposed to be an indifferent tone the other is supposed to be read with a violent tone. The readers are able to understand that the abuser is angry with her child and only is beating him to relieve herself, while she may be excusing it as teaching him a lesson. In The Whipping, the boy that's been beaten cries and begs for mercy. In My Papa's Waltz, the boy runs around but in the end, takes the beating and goes to bed. There is no anger, no feeling towards the abuser in My Papa's Waltz but in The Whipping, the boy is clearly affected by the beating."

I know what you guys are going to say and it pisses me off too. I did not introduce my response correctly. Introductions are essential for responses. They tell the reader what they are going to read, where your stance is and even what to expect from the response. I could've quoted My Papa's Waltz and could've talked about it more throughout my response. What did I do differently from the other girl?

I did not sound confused, I explained it and left out any minor details or any things I might've not understood.  I used correct sentence structures and while I lacked an introduction sentence I made up for it with a proper analysis. I believe the girl didn't even mention themes and her tones weren't properly supported. She could've added more support and explained her analysis a bit better. I understand we are nowhere near perfect since we are only in 10th grade currently but at least she could try a bit harder. Also, these people write like this all the time and speak like this and I feel so lost. It's like they never were taught anything other than to say their jumbled thoughts.