By Emily Shinault
We all know SparkNotes. We all know we shouldn't use it, but yet we do.
It’s the website that likes to pretend that its articles are a “supplement” to our reading, but we all know how it is.
Didn’t get around to reading chapter four of Catcher in the Rye? No problem. Good ol’ SparkNotes has got you covered. It’s got a complete summary and analysis of every chapter of every required reading book in every public high school in this great nation. SparkNotes will give you detailed analyses of every character, theme, and setting. Heck, you can even take a practice quiz.
SparkNotes has become such a prominent part of our school lives that, much like Google, it’s become a verb. It’s not uncommon to hear this conversation in our hallways and classrooms:
“Hey, did you read those chapters of Frankenstein?”
“No, but I SparkNoted them.”
These reading guides facilitate our laziness. I’ve met plenty of responsible, morally-upstanding individuals who don’t read a single chapter of their assigned books. Now, if there were no SparkNotes to read, sure, not every student would read what he or she was supposed to, but many would, if for nothing else but to pass the test. But with a resource like SparkNotes, we can all be lazy and free from consequence.
Maybe one day our teachers will assign us more obscure books that don’t have free online reading guides. Until then, happy SparkNoting, my friends.
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