Why Johnny Won't Read, Part 4

For the first 3 blogs in Dr. Smith's series on Johnny, see the blogs listed below. 

 I went around to every English classroom in my building toward the end of the semester and conducted a survey for each novel assigned that semester.  The survey consisted of two questions for every title:

How much of this work did you actually read: all of it; most of it; half of it; some of it; or none of it.  The second question was “How much did you rely on SparkNotes?  Their possible responses are below.

I don’t know what SparkNotes is.

I know what it is, but didn’t use it.

I used it a little.

 I used it a lot.

That’s all I read.

I gathered my data toward the end of the semester, so their responses would have no impact on their grade.  Besides, no one would see the responses except for me.  

 As I mentioned before, we had three groups of students: AP/Honors, Academic, and General.  I had no idea how the study would turn out, nor did I have a clear idea as to who was using SparkNotes and who was actually reading the novels.  I could argue for any of the three groups.  Here’s what I found out.

 The AP/Honors classes actually read the assigned novels, but they also used SparkNotes.  However, they use SparkNotes like a lot of teachers do.  They check to see if they’ve missed something or to clarify something that didn’t make sense.  

 I do the same thing.  In fact, one of the students in Bob’s AP class came to me to ask about the biblical allusions in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon.  I had to confess that I’d never picked it up, so I got a copy and started reading it.    In the first chapter, some gal is walking down the road singing “Sugarman done fly away,” while some poor slob is standing on the roof of a building.  This didn’t make a bit of sense to me, so I went to SparkNotes which said something like “The protagonist is walking down a road singing ‘O Sugarman done fly away’ while an insurance agent is preparing to ‘fly’ off of the roof of the local hospital.”  OK, I got it.  

 So the Honors/AP students use SparkNotes much like I do, but they also read the novels. 

 This left two groups.  The academic classes and the general classes.  Who wasn’t doing the reading but relying on SparkNotes instead? Stay tuned.