We’re talking about high school here.
It has never been the case that serious university-level courses in, say, history or political theory or linguistics didn’t require serious paper writing.
It has never been the case that serious university-level courses in, say, history or political theory or linguistics didn’t require serious paper writing.
(The account he offers is, well, not so much flat-out wrong as woefully incomplete. See A.J. Minnis' Medieval Theory of Authorship for a definitive scholarly account of the genesis of professional literary studies.)
"Now, one could argue that students have been brainwashed by 12 years of school by the time I’ve got them, and to some extent that’s probably true."
History, in particular, explicitly emphasised structured arguments and critical analysis of sources. I think we wrote short essays, in class, at least 3 times a week. We had a fantastic teacher and I remember it being good fun...felt like decoding puzzles.
Another example I can remember was in English. We spent several weeks reading, discussing, and writing about Brighton Rock in a very structured way. We were then given a creative assignment with 3 options; one was to write a screenplay, which I did. So at 14/15 I absolutely loved writing my first (and only) screenplay.
Maybe I was lucky, but I enjoyed writing essays at school.