With instruction time reduced as much as half by the coronavirus pandemic, many of the nation's middle school and high school teachers have given up on covering all the material normally included in their classes and instead are cutting lessons. With instruction time reduced as much as half by the coronavirus pandemic, many of the nation's middle school and high school teachers have given up on covering all the material normally included in their classes and instead are cutting lessons. But teachers are largely on their own to make difficult choices — what to prioritize and what to sacrifice to the pandemic. In every other school year, English teacher Cristin Espinoza in Denver would have her ninth grade students read graphic novels in groups modeled on book clubs. The skill his eighth grade students at Carlos F. Vigil Middle School miss out on in that exercise, Madsen said, is comparing and contrasting text.