"Good lord. What ARE you teaching these kids?"

or,

The Big Idea of big ideas

Part I: Overview and background knowledge

"Welcome to English class, ladies and gentlemen.  We're going to learn a lot in this class."
"Excuse me, teacher.  What are we going to learn?"
"A lot."
"Well, right, you said.  But a lot of what?"
"A lot of English."
"Okay.  Well, I already know a lot of English.  Can I go?"

We've had key ideas of classes re-packaged and re-sold to us in so many ways, it's tough to know where to begin, or what action to take.  Here, to help the confused and unwary, a brief overview of everything.

(Caveat lector:  This goes on for a while.  Only click through if you have some time on your hands.)
(Special note to education students: The definitions below appear in none of your textbooks.  If you use them on your tests, your professor will fail you.  On the other hand, the business college is always ready to take dropouts from the other schools, and I hear they pay their interns.)