SparkNotes Vs Literature

Today SparkNotes has completely taken over high school, and even college literature courses. Students no longer feel the need to read an assigned book if they can simply read a few pages from a SparkNotes book. This is a problem because as a student and future teacher I can say that there is absolutely no substitute for reading the novel. It is impossible for SparkNotes to cover everything in a entire novel. But do not worry fellow educators, there is a solution!

A recent professor gave mentioned this idea to me about two weeks ago and I thought it was brilliant! As a project have the students compare and contrast SparkNotes to the actual book. This forces the student to read the actual novel and critique it themselves. The professor that has tried this found that there are countless errors in SparkNotes. A student would have never figured this out if he studied the SparkNotes alone. Also it helps the students take a closer look at the piece of literature, including figuring out their own themes, motifs, and character analysis!