A huge part of the curriculum in my English 9 class is Reading. Every Friday is Recreational Reading Day — this is a nonnegotiable; it's not something where if we get behind during the week we can make it up on Friday and then read. We find another time to make it up — Friday is purely reading.
Students are required to read two recreational novels a quarter and turn in literary analyses for them. So, if I have 140 students and (let's just say) the all turn in the required two analyses — that is 280 analyses. But, I also offer extra credit for completing a third! So (and this is going out on a huge stretch) I could possibly have over 400 literary analyses to look at by the end of the QUARTER and over 800 by the end of the SEMESTER.
Oh what a great life.
But really, if I had to rate all the grading I do (pun intended) grading these analyses would be my favorite. I love hearing what my students thought about what read and what they didn't like.
Last semester I sort of "dropped the ball" when it came to book talks because I didn't think they were working; I thought that the students were just sort of sitting through it to appease me and that they weren't getting anything out of it.
Boy was I wrong.
During Christmas Break I spent an evening and put all the papers together in alphabetical order by title; while doing this I saw some definite patterns — especially in regards to books on my shelves that I had talked about or pitched to students, most namely "The Hunger Games" and "Beastly."
I did book talk "I Am Number Four" at the beginning of the year and a student raced to the front of the room (no joke) to ask to borrow it first. Unfortunately, when I got it back it was in such bad shape that I took it off my shelves. Many other students asked about it, but because I didn't have it on my shelves and they would actually have to, oh I don't know, go down to the library to reserve it, not many of those interested read it. Now, you may think this ridiculous on my part — why let a books poor appearance keep me from lending it out? Well, "I Am Number Four" was one of my favorite reads for 2010, it was the first book I received at BEA10, it is signed, it is an ARC, and, again, it was a GREAT read and the kid TORE it to pieces! I mean the spine was cracked in more than five places, the pages were dog eared at every chapter (had he not HEARD of using a book mark!?!), there were BITE marks on the cover, and the back cover was torn off — you tell me, love of a book or book abuse?
Anyway, for last semester I collected 406 literary analyses (obviously everybody didn't get their work turned in). Of those analyses:
- Beastly — 9 (2.2%)
- The Hunger Games — 11 (2.7%)
"Beastly" Literary Analyses
"The Hunger Games" Literary Analyses
