> I was one of the best in that class, but when I asked what we need this stuff for the other people in the class looked at me and said the following: "if you ask this question you're in the wrong class"

I am always so disappointed when I hear people express this. Being able to place an effort in a broader context is so helpful in being able to approach the work well. A few teachers in the Literature department in high school had the same attitude and it was incredibly demoralizing and left me kinda directionless in their classes. I wish things like https://youtube.com/watch?v=suf0Jdt2Hpo had existed back then to give me some idea of what useful and interesting literary analysis looked like and could do.