I don’t remember reading books in high school.  While I am confident that my eyes did scan most
every word and page of the assigned novels, the only things I remember are a
handful of titles, a vague sense of kinship with Holden Caulfield and something
about Shylock’s humanity.  Granted at 42
years old, most high school memories are increasingly blurry, but I do vividly
remember reading books on my own in college. 
In high school though, I read books from afar, knowing that my brilliant
English teacher, Mr. Tilson, would eventually tell me everything that was really important about the book.

Mr. Tilson was probably the most erudite person I knew in
Yucca Valley.  He brought classical music
into my Honors English classes and got excited about Byron and Keats.  He was also personable and fun – I remember
the balled up sock he used to chuck at chatty students.  While I appreciated the cultural
sophistication that Mr. Tilson introduced, books became a mystery that I only
had superficial interactions with.  Mr.
Tilson would point out symbols, allusions and themes that had blown right past
me, and most of what I learned about books was that they proved my own
ignorance (which wasn’t a terrible lesson). 
I became proficient at repeating Mr. Tilson’s ideas back to him in
essays, and entered college a fairly weak reader and writer.

Years later, after a circuitous path led me to the front of
my own high school English class,

Mr. Tilson’s teaching approach became the primary model for
my own teaching.  I started an A.P.
Literature class at St. Elizabeth, and suddenly I got to be that guy, that
genius magician who could show my students what they had not seen.  Being in this position was great for the ego,
which is admittedly important for a new teacher. But it was also elitist; the
whole paradigm was elitist, something I might not have seen if it had not been
for the racial disparity in my classes. 
I could not ignore the fact that I was the white expert, telling my
non-white students the proper way to think about things.  After reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed and plenty of Noam Chomsky, I began to
rethink this central interaction in my classes.

As I began to dismantle my approach to teaching books, I
tried to place my students’ engagement with the text at the forefront.  I wanted to hear what they thought about
books, even if their ideas fell short of traditional literary analysis.  I tried to strike a balance between stoking
enthusiasm and providing a framework for academic understanding.  I began searching for entry points into books
that my students could access.  My
summative assessments for book units changed too – instead of asking for essays
that explained the symbolism of the cliff in The Catcher in the Rye, I had my students write first person
fictional accounts of a Holden Caulfield-like character in East Oakland;
instead of asking about the colors in The
Great Gatsby, I created projects that asked my students to make cultural comparisons
between the 1920s and the 2000s.

In creating non-traditional essay prompts and projects, I sometimes
wonder if I am somehow short-changing my students.  Nobody ever granted me permission for veering
off on my own, and I often hear friends talk about how their kids’ high school English
teachers do not seem to assign traditional writing assignments any more.  But the more I think about it, the more I
have come to realize that the traditional high school literary analysis essay
is dying fast, and for good reason.  A
take home essay on the symbolism of the colors in The Great Gatsby is simply a book report given the vast online resources
available to our students.  As are many
other essay prompts that high school students receive in their English classes.  I think it is beneficial for all teachers to
Google their own essay prompts and see what comes up.  If you’ve ever received an essay that seemed
like a patchwork of undeveloped ideas that is lacking an any cohesive voice,
this might be the reason.  Literary
analysis essays often become low-level thinking activities, and the process
that many students take to compose their work can actually make them less
confident in the expression of their own ideas.

Many English teachers that I know use the word Sparknotes as
a pejorative (although Shmoop seems to be taking over these days).  For a long time, the existence of these
websites offended me, particularly the idea that literature could be diluted
into easily digestible plot summary, character overviews, and lists of
applicable literary techniques.  In my
view, the whole purpose of reading books is to spend hours engrossed in the perspective
of another human being, to become immersed in a different worldview and gain
insights that could not otherwise be gained. 
Or to paraphrase Jeff Sutton, to gain a better understanding of the
world, and a better understanding of ourselves and our own place in that
world.  Books are not vessels of
information, but a quick scan of a Sparknote page might lead you to believe
otherwise. 

But I wonder if this the existence of internet resources
like Sparknotes is such a bad thing.  For
a struggling reader, or for a student who does not understand the context of a
particular chapter, this wealth of information can potentially supplement their experience
reading books.  They are probably getting
a better experience than simply struggling (or quitting) and waiting for the teacher
to illuminate what they read.  Best case
scenario, they are still reading authentically and looking things up that they
don’t understand.  Worst case scenario,
they just read the essential supplemental information and simply extract
information from books.  Either way, this
is the world that we live in, and I have come to accept that to fight against
it is to stand on the beach with my hands up trying to stop a wave from reaching
the shore.

I also have to ask myself, don’t Sparknotes do what Mr. Tilson
used to do, what I used to (and sometimes still) do?  Part of my disdain towards Sparknotes and
Shmoop might be that they get to be the expert, and it becomes a little less
clear what the English teacher’s job is. 
I have been reading my assigned books on the Kindle this year, and it
amazes me how much the supplemental material can alter my interaction with the
text.  When I ask my students to find
quotes about Myrtle Wilson, they can search her name and find them instantaneously.  I find myself having to quiet that gut
reaction that this is somehow cheating. 
Maybe it’s just a more efficient way to do what I asked them.  These tools exist and are very accessible,
and acknowledging their existence forces me to reassess my learning objectives
and assessments.  I still want my
students to read books for the same reasons I always have, and both eBooks and
the internet can ideally enhance that experience.  It just requires a conscious shift in
approach. 

Even though students’ interactions with books is
fundamentally changing, I still love teaching literature.  More than ever I need to create high
engagement opportunities for my students to interact with books.  We should still hold students accountable for
completing the assigned reading, but we have to be mindful of how we
assess.  Multiple choice reading quizzes seem
easy to cheat.  Asking students to write
about a passage from the reading that includes details and gives context seems
more authentic.  I also use unit evaluations to ask my students how much of the book they read, and if they did not read it
to give a reason why.  Even though I
believe the take home literary analysis essay is near death, elements of it can
be integrated into other assessments so that those same core skills are being
built.  I am also heartened that the
cousins of the literary analysis, namely the rhetorical analysis and the
argumentative essay seem to be thriving. 
When we focus on reading and writing as being experiential, there are
many possible ways to build upon the old model. 
The book never belonged at the center of the English class anyway, and
student learning should always be the primary focus.