Writer Biography

Megan Monson is a sophomore and an English Teaching major. She has a passion for snow skiing and wakeboarding and loves reading, writing, and knitting. In fact, she reads so much that she had to get a job at a bookstore to pay for her addiction to books. She wholly believes that I Love Lucy holds the title for the best television series ever made. She spends most of the winter wishing she could be on her skis flying down the slopes, and would rather sing in the rain than wait for the sun. While Monson is usually very busy, the precious time she does have is spent with friends and family or reading sappy romance novels.

This essay was first published in the 2016 edition of Voices and uses MLA documentation.

FIFTH TIME TEACHING [insert book title here]: 1…2…3…4… You count silently in your head as you pass out books to the class. It’s fourth quarter, you’re tired; your students are tired, and it is certainly past time for summer to come. Judging by the looks on your students’ faces, they’re also growing tired of the constant flow of dull days. You watch them inspect the books you’ve just handed them. You know they aren’t excited about reading it, and you know that many of them will skip reading it altogether, but what more can you do for a group of burnt-out students?

This is a dilemma that many English teachers face constantly. How are they supposed to help students actually read the book without getting put on the teachers-everyone-hates-list? Conversely, students are wondering how they can get away with not reading it in the first place. Why does it seem like there’s no solution to this problem?

Sophomore year, English class: your teacher circulates the room handing out your next reading assignment, ugh. You’ve heard about this one. The teacher drones on and on about the reading assignments you’ll have to do when they need to be done…blah, blah, blah. You listen half-heartedly. You know the book likely won’t even make it out of your backpack until it’s time to turn it back in. What’s the point in actually reading a book when you can just read SparkNotes online?

This is, unfortunately, a nearly universal experience for high school students. If they don’t want to read a book, they don’t have to. There are plenty of ways for them to get the information they need elsewhere.

English teachers know that students are not always happy about reading books and that they are perfectly willing to find their own “study-helps” to forgo picking up a book. These “study-helps” have become much more than just a helpful guide to reading the assigned novel. In many cases, they have become the means by which students gain all of their knowledge of plots, characters, quotes, and rhetorical devices. Teachers often convince themselves that it’s not as bad as it seems and that as long as students still get the general idea of the book, that’s as much as they can ask from students. However, the lessons learned and the skills taught by reading are irreplaceable. This is why we need capable, knowledgeable English teachers, and that’s why they need to encourage students to read. Teachers must stop being passive about the use of SparkNotes and start taking more action to encourage reading and learning in their classrooms.

Listening to an eighteen-year-old college freshman about how you should run your classroom may seem illogical. I am clearly no expert on teaching English. However, I am a student, and I consider myself to be an expert in the field of being a student. I understand why students choose not to read the novels given to them, and I understand why they choose to read study-helps instead. My goal is not at all to make you think that you are doing something wrong. What I do want you to gain is an insight into the minds of your students and an idea of how to help them.

The very root of the problem is in what SparkNotes is, or rather, what they claim to be. SparkNotes is the study-help site used most commonly by high school English students; it claims to be “a resource you can turn to when you’re confuzzled,” because, “sometimes you don’t understand your teacher, your textbooks make no sense, and you have to read sixteen chapters by tomorrow” (“About SparkNotes”). They continue, “We help you understand books, write papers, and study for tests. We’re clear and concise, but we never leave out important info” (“About SparkNotes”). SparkNotes may have begun as just another resource, but it has become so much more than that.

SparkNotes began much in the same way a small company begins, with a few contributors and just a few products or study guides. Mick O’Leary explains the beginnings of SparkNotes in a 2003 article: “SparkNotes was started in 1999 by four Harvard students who figured that the web was a wonderful medium for lazy, procrastinating students. The site began with 40 homemade guides; there are now more than 250 literature guides, still written mostly by Harvard students and grads” (O’Leary).

The writers for SparkNotes study the books thoroughly. They know the main characters and the plots, but they also know the side characters and the subplots. O’Leary continues, “A SparkNotes Study Guide has everything you need to appear learned: detailed plot summary and analysis, principal character analysis, explanation of themes and symbols, and even a sample test. There’s a Study Guide for almost any title you’re likely to be assigned, from Homer (not Simpson) to Morrison (Toni, not Jim)” (O’Leary). From The Adventures of Tom Sawyer to Wuthering Heights and everything in between, there’s a study guide, and reading it will take less than a quarter of the time it takes to read the book.

You can find no end to the amount of details in a SparkNotes study guide, and if there is one thing that most English teachers think will trick the students who don’t read the book, it’s testing on the details. As Alison Bach, author of “‘The Right Understanding’: Teaching Literature in the Age of SparkNotes,” asked, “The question, then, becomes not, ‘Why do students use SparkNotes,’ but rather ‘Why wouldn’t they?’” (Bach). If students can get all of the answers in a fraction of the time, they don’t usually see the reason in reading the book. A student who has read SparkNotes will often be able to regurgitate the details and the key plot elements. However, a student who has read the book will often miss the detail-oriented questions, but they will know the characters more deeply and will understand the language better, rather than just knowing the gist of the story.

In my junior AP Language class, we read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and I did not understand a word of it. I spent hours reading the sections, but I still failed the quizzes. After a particularly difficult quiz, I asked my friend, Zach, for help. Zach had been acing the quizzes. His advice was simple, “I stopped reading the book after the first section,” he said, “I just read the SparkNotes; they make way more sense.” I had two options: read the book or read the SparkNotes. The first seemed the morally right thing to do, but the second was more likely to help my grade. The solution was simple: I read the SparkNotes in advance to give me a synopsis of the text. Then I would read the book, looking more for rhetorical devices and language use than for content.

You, as an English teacher, know the books inside and out. You’ve read and analyzed them every year. You have nothing to gain for your own learning from reading a synopsis, except for one thing: a way to help your students. You could write all of your own synopses or you could use the ones that are already written for you. If a student is struggling, these study-helps can be just that. When teaching a particularly difficult text, try assigning the SparkNotes to your students as a side reading. This will help them to understand what they are reading, without having to wade through the text unarmed.

One thing books have always been is a catalyst for change. The United States would likely not even be a country if Thomas Paine hadn’t written Common Sense (Hedrick). In an episode of Doctor Who, Russell T. Davies wrote, “You want weapons? We’re in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room’s the greatest arsenal we could have” (“Tooth and Claw”). By choosing to skip reading assigned texts, students miss out on more than just fantastic literature. Books have the ability to change lives. The books students are assigned to read are chosen for specific reasons. They help them understand and gain values and morals that are necessary in society. Harper Lee used Atticus Finch, the hero of her main characters, to teach life lessons to her readers in To Kill a Mockingbird. For instance, after Atticus Finch requires his son, Jem, read to Mrs. Dubose, their ill-tempered neighbor who Jem and Scout describe as near “death’s door,” Atticus tells Jem, “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do” (Lee 116). The power of this statement could potentially change lives. If students choose to forgo reading the book and go straight to SparkNotes they would read instead on the study guide that “Mrs. Dubose dies a little more than a month after Jem’s punishment ends. Atticus reveals to Jem that she was addicted to morphine and that the reading was part of her successful effort to combat this addiction” (“To Kill a Mockingbird”). The difference in the lesson is incredible, one teaches a powerful lesson of courage and strength, the second merely informs the reader of Mrs. Dubose’s winning her battle with addiction. Reviewing and summarizing plot points from stories is rarely helpful to students, but discussing concepts and lessons that can be learned from books brings more depth to class discussions. As an English teacher, you know that students are required to read for experience, life lessons, critical thinking skills, comprehension, cultural awareness, and so much more. These are all things that are lost when students don’t actually pick up the books assigned to them.

Changing this situation is your responsibility; if you want your students to learn, you’re going to have to be the one to teach it to them. The first hurdle you will face is students and their expectations of you. Timothy Slater, an associate professor of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, explains what is called “The Hidden Contract.” Students are expected to come to class and learn, but teachers have much more required of them: “The Hidden Contract clearly stipulates that teachers who provide avenues for extra credit, who tell humorous anecdotes in class, hold detailed exam review sessions that further delineate the possible test questions from a wealth of possible questions, and are flexible on assignment due dates are held in the highest regard. Teachers who break this Hidden Contract by writing test questions that are either ambiguous or go beyond the examples presented in class are labeled as being unfair, unresponsive, or simply just bad teachers” (Slater 437). It seems impossible for teachers to do their job correctly, including giving homework, and still be liked by students. How can this be accomplished?

To start with, if you have any possible way to allow them to read a something they want to read for credit, allow them to. One of the English classes at my high school was teaching books like The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby, but alongside great American classics, the teacher chose to also teach The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. The teacher chose to use it as a vehicle for teaching the concept of allusion. She was able to teach a bit of Shakespeare by pointing out that the title of the book is an allusion to Julius Caesar, “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, / but in ourselves, that we are underlings” (1.2.147-48). She was also able to teach a little about poetry from the allusion to William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow.” This obviously does not apply to every book that your students might enjoy reading, but if you can find one that might really speak to them and help them learn a little about literature in the process, you will be able to better get through to them, and they would be significantly more willing to read other texts that you assign them if they are able to grasp the excitement that comes from reading.

Another way to encourage students to read is to give them responsibility inside the classroom that requires them to do work outside the classroom. One idea that I particularly liked occurred in my senior year AP Literature class. When we first would receive a book, we would get into groups and choose a day to lead the class discussion. The groups were relatively small, usually three or four people, and the discussions were to take forty-five minutes of class. This required each student to practice essential skill in presenting and conversing with peers. It also required the students to know their section particularly well, so as not to be surprised by questions that might be posed by the teacher or members of the class. As my group and I would prepare for our discussions, we would often use the SparkNotes to assure us that we were understanding the reading. The SparkNotes were particularly helpful when reading texts such as Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which challenged students with its complex use of language.

Tests do not have to be about the storyline, or on the tiniest of details within the book. After all, the reason tests are given is not to find out who got what details from the book; it is to gauge comprehension. The most effective tests I took in any English class were the ones that asked me to explain concepts from the book. Focusing on questions that allow students to write out the ideas they understood from the text helps their writing and comprehension skills to be heightened. For written exams, the questions do not need to be overly difficult to understand or too easy to answer. Allowing students to freely express ideas gives you, as the teacher, a good way to gauge who is understanding and who is falling behind. This also gives you more insight into the books you are teaching because different people see things in different ways. Along with that, answers to questions provide more avenues for class discussion.

As an English teacher, you need to be the one to help compel your students to read the books as they are and to avoid using SparkNotes as their primary text. Encouraging students to read the texts assigned to them can have vast impacts on their lives, teach them life lessons, and help them learn about society. SparkNotes may be a good source for a synopsis, but it is not a good way to learn everything about a book. Using SparkNotes as a resource can bring new meaning to novels for many students, and can help them enjoy reading, rather than being frustrated with their lack of understanding. Do not be afraid to fight back against SparkNotes; fighting it is the only way to bring students to an understanding of the power of literature.

Works Cited

“About SparkNotes.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes, 15 Mar. 2016, https://www.sparknotes.com/about/. Accessed 21 Apr. 2016.

Bach, Alison. “‘The Right Understanding’: Teaching Literature in the Age of SparkNotes.” CEA Critic, vol. 76 no. 3, 2014, p. 273-277. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/cea.2014.0025. Accessed 15 Mar. 2016.

“Tooth and Claw.” Doctor Who, created by Sydney Newman et al., season 2, episode 2, written by Russell T Davies, directed by Euros Lyn, BBC One, 22 April 2006.

Hedrick, Joan D. Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. Oxford University Press, 1994.

Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. HarperCollins, 1960.

O’Leary, Mick. “SparkNotes Softens Student Life.” Information Today, vol. 20, no. 2, Feb. 2003, p. 41. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=9042313&site=ehost-live. Accessed 15 Mar. 2016.

Shakespeare, William. Julius Caesar. Folger Shakespeare Library, https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeares-works/julius-caesar/read/. Accessed 15 Mar. 2016.

Slater, Timothy F. “When Is a Good Day Teaching a Bad Thing?” Physics Teacher, vol. 41, no. 7, Oct. 2003, pp. 437–38. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.dist.lib.usu.edu/10.1119/1.1616492. Accessed 15 Mar. 2016.

“To Kill a Mockingbird Chapters 9-11.” SparkNotes, SparkNotes, 15 Mar. 2016, https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/mocking/section5/?dx=1. Accessed 21 Apr. 2016.

Williams Carlos, Williams. “The Red Wheelbarrow.” The Collected Poems of William Carlos Williams, Volume I, 1909-1939, edited by Christopher MacGowan, New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1938.