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For most people it is very difficult to wade through difficult works (like some Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, etc.) by themselves, so having to do it for class helps a lot. You also miss a TON of stuff if you read it by yourself as opposed to reading it with an expert.

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could you tell me about something you got from an in-class discussion that you wouldn't have otherwise?

and what sort of long research papers do you do?

to be honest, college is super-expensive and writing/literature/philosophy/poli-sci majors seem to consist of a lot of readings that you could do on your own and talking to a lot of people who would talk to you for free. i.e. i could have a one-on-one discussion with any number of different professors by e-mailing them and it would cost me nothing.

what do you think?

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You seem to be very apprehensive about being an English major, so I just want to make clear I'm really not trying to convince you to become one or anything. It's certainly not for everyone and for a lot of people it could limit your future jobs.

that said, to answer your question, it's really hard to quantify how class discussion helps. Honestly class discussion (when led by students) was the least helpful part of the major. Occasionally it's nice to hear other people's viewpoints, but generally it wasn't that educational. (That's just my personal experience. My professors always said class discussion was so vital, so great for gaining a deeper understanding of the works, etc... it just wasn't how I learned I guess.)

The real benefit comes from the professors. For example, I read Things Fall Apart (a book by an African writer) in high school with a bad teacher and I hated it. Then I read it in college with an African lit expert and loved it. He was able to illuminate parts of the book that the previous teacher couldn't, and I really learned a lot about African culture in that way. That was the case with the majority of books we read.

And yes you could just email professors, but if you're not one of their students I doubt they would spend too much time on their replies, and even if they did, hearing a 30 minute lecture and being able to ask questions in real time is just far superior to asking a few things via email. For some complicated works you probably wouldn't even know the right questions to ask.

Also, props to you if you would, but you clearly could read these works by yourself, but you probably won't.

oh yeah, research papers in English vary a lot. Generally you will read secondary texts in journals written by pretentious literary critics, and then create a thesis that incorporates the text but usually goes somewhat beyond it -- i.e. not just a book review -- (like ...Dickens is arguing that the Industrial Revolution is responsible for... whatever, you get the idea). Then support it, blah blah blah, basic essay stuff.