Au Contraire, Ms. Jacobs...
"The thing is, I don’t hear that many adults these days drop references to Job, or McCarthyism, or even Orwell."

Job. Especially Job. In a whiny self-pitying, "Our car has a gas line leak, we just paid $260 to ComEd and the little dog pooped in the bathroom while I was working out and I stepped in it on my way to the shower," sort of way. I don't think scripture should necessarily be treated as just literature....but if you're gonna feed it to public high school freshman, Job is a good place to start.