It's your fault my kid's a cheater!

[DesignFox]

I love to read, but I have to admit, there have been a few books I skimmed through or BS'd my way out of reading entirely.

The best example that comes to my mind is our reading assignment for Honors Biology. We had to read "The Life and Death of the Salt Marsh."

You want to talk about boring? Try reading an entire chapter about grass growing...
I quit after that and just took the questions we had to answer and hunted through the index (like everyone else in my class was doing, that I was trying not to do-at least I can say I honestly did the work myself unlike half my classmates).

Then there was AP English...

Our assignment was "As I Lay Dying." We were split into groups and each group had to give an oral presentation on some aspect of the book. My partner and I got stuck with symbolism. We were forbidden from using Cliff's Notes, so we used all the books we could dig up in the library... we could find no information whatsoever on symbolism. We sought help from our teacher, who of course provided none, but gave us an extra day to find the information we needed. He then bitched to us that the pair in the second class who had our topic had no problem finding the information and maybe we should talk to them... guess what they handed us? the CLIFF'S NOTES. Fuckers....so we used that and got an A...

Oh, and this was the teacher who had a filing cabinet FULL of Cliff's notes. We started to notice that he taught straight from them...we always used them after that.

As for my opinion of the notes. I think they are a great source of information. They are certainly a life saver if you've got some topic you can't understand and can't find any other information on.

I only think it is cheating if you don't at least attempt to read the book...

[trunks2k]

I We were forbidden from using Cliff's Notes, so we used all the books we could dig up in the library...

That's when you use Monarch Notes instead (I actually preferred Monarch Notes to Cliff Notes)

[ThePhoneGoddess]

As Far as the Scarlet Letter is concerned, you only need to read it once. After that all questions can be honestly answered with the following sentence: "it was a symbol of her shame."

Any symbolism, analogy, metaphor or theme in the book can be boiled down to that one idea. It was all a symbol of her shame.

[Seshat]

Damn, and I thought I had fitting issues. I feel you there, honey. I have a tiny 18 1/2 inch waist but the rest of my figure is fairly normal, except for my feet.

At least waist modifications are generally (relatively) easy. Though depending on how much you need to tuck in, pants and the straighter skirts might be annoying.

I look for ones with unusual construction techniques---I learn a lot from puzzling out those old pattern instructions.

That's a good thought! I hadn't considered that.

Ah. I love high heels. I know they are bad for my legs, but I just love how Amazonian I feel when I wear them. I am one of those women men bitch about sometimes---the ones with the 'shoe habit'. Gawd I love fancy shoes.

Health issues here, unfortunately. I have enough problems without inviting more.

[JustADude]

Any symbolism, analogy, metaphor or theme in the book can be boiled down to that one idea. It was all a symbol of her shame.

Personally, I like the answer I gave my teacher, when we were asked to sum up, in class, our thoughts on the book during Senior English. It was the beginning of the year, and they hadn't realized I had the habit of reading in class more than doing actual work, since I read (yes, from cover to cover) and assimilated my textbooks within a few weeks of school starting. I also dressed like your typical slacker/goth (NOT Emo!), so people tended to forget I was a huge "brain" (that, and I didn't act socially inept).

*a few people go, giving the standard BS, Cliff-note summary of the plot and metaphor, etc.*

Unsuspecting Teacher: Dude, why don't you go next?

Young Dude: *stands up* It's dry, boring, and the writing style gave me a headache after a few pages. Frankly, I have no clue why it's a required read, unless it's as an example of the worst book of all time.

UT: I'm sorry you feel that way. Maybe you'd learn to appreciate it if you read more...

YD: <Indignant>Ma'am, I've read everything from Asimov to Shakespeare and Tolstoy to Tolkien, and I've never before come across a book that I wasn't able to enjoy on SOME level. This piece of tripe is horrible. It is the complete and total antithesis of what a good book should be. I was physically unable to force myself to read more than a few pages at a time. Honestly, it feels like I died a bit inside from having to force myself to completely absorb the travesty that is contained in that cover. My Math Textbook was a better read!</indignant>

*astonished looks and nods of agreement from the class*

UT: Oh... um... I see... Well... thank you. That was certainly... honest...



NOTE: I got an A on that unit. The diatribe is a bit paraphrased, but the jist and the broad points are the same.

[Becks]

Dude...

I've wanted to say that about a book or two in school.

[Imogene]

I took Honors English in HS, and to be perfectly honest, I barely remember much. I think part of the memory issue is that I was still having seizures back then, and the other part is that I hated reading the dry old long books that I didn't understand.

Had a teacher for AP Brit Lit in High School, she absolutely hated the intelligent students (IE, myself and one or two of my friends in her class) because she knew what we did when we went out of the class and hung out in the Spectra (the gifted program) room. We'd basically veg on riddles and random stuff that actually intrigued us, as opposed to the stuff that was shoved down our throats.
For instance...

I think I got to the second page of the first story, then tried other stories. Nope. Not happening.

We did a chapter on Canterbury Tales, and that teacher separated all the parts to different students, then told us to: dress as the character, present the section we read, and give OUR interpretations of the character.
I got one of the wealthy characters (Anyone who actually likes CT, I was the one who 'rode a Horse as best he could'), did my presentation to the class, and suggested that it sounded to me like he spent most of his time out at sea. See, the whole 'rode a horse as best he could' sounded to me like he was inexperienced at horse riding. Said this to the class, teach asks me, "So, it doesn't sound like, perhaps, he's spent a lot of time learning how to ride, to show off?"
Er, no, if it had, I'd have said that, you ungrateful shrew. You asked for our interpretations, not YOURS!

[Geek King]

Had a teacher for AP Brit Lit in High School, she absolutely hated the intelligent students (IE, myself and one or two of my friends in her class) because she knew what we did when we went out of the class and hung out in the Spectra (the gifted program) room.

And this person is teaching an AP class? Oi.

Oh, and I kinda enjoyed Canterbury Tales, but then again, I was in a Middle English class in college, reading it as origionally written, and we were just coming off of reading Pilgrim's Progress (Hate Scarlet Letter? Try Pilgrim's Progress. Makes SL look like LotR.). Anything would have been good.

[cinema guy]

We only studied the prologue to CT when I was at school. Studying one of the tales would have been far more interesting. But I kind of liked the language rather than the story. It didn't exactly enamour me to Chaucer, although I did go to university in Canterbury.

The book I really hated in English lit lessons was Cider with Rosie. Now that was boring. It is essentially about the authour's childhood in rural England in the early part of the century and how he got drunk on cider and lost his virginity to Rosie under a haywagon.

The worst part about my English classes was the teacher would always ask me to read out and explain any reference to sex. I was 14 or 15 and very easily embarassed so was always blushing mightily as I stammered out an explanation of what Shakespeare meant by 'make love' in Macbeth, or what Rosie had been up to under the wagon.

[Kogarashi]

did my presentation to the class, and suggested that it sounded to me like he spent most of his time out at sea. See, the whole 'rode a horse as best he could' sounded to me like he was inexperienced at horse riding. Said this to the class, teach asks me, "So, it doesn't sound like, perhaps, he's spent a lot of time learning how to ride, to show off?"
Er, no, if it had, I'd have said that, you ungrateful shrew. You asked for our interpretations, not YOURS!

Sounds like one of the Lit teacher I had at college. If you said something that disagreed with the teacher's opinion, he'd either flat-out tell you you were wrong, or twist what you said until it matched his own opinion anyway.

My arch nemesis was Thomas Hardy. I've disliked him since I had to read The Return of the Native for my AP English Lit class in high school. I still got through the book, and wrote a relatively convincing literature journal entry on it for the class, but I've disliked Hardy since. Which is why after attempting to get into Far From the Madding Crowd for one of my college lit classes, I hit up PinkMonkey.com for notes. Managed to ace that one. I also hated Toni Morrison's Beloved and did the Pink Monkey thing there too. Pink Monkey (and other notes sites) also got me through the two semesters where I had to triple up on my literature classes because of scheduling difficulties during other semesters. And Steinbeck has a rather sore spot in my heart too. My brain's profanity filter has caused me to forget at least 1/3 of Of Mice and Men, I didn't like "The Pearl," and utterly despised The Grapes of Wrath. Didn't help that the printing of the book we used for my AP History class had the text go right up to the very end of the back of the very last sheet of paper, making me think at first that there were pages missing.

Shakespeare, though, I love. I've read a good handful of his plays just for fun. You'd think I was anathema to Romeo and Juliet, though. I somehow managed to avoid reading it all through high school. I ended up in the one 9th grade class that chose to read something else since "everybody reads R&J," according to the teacher. I finally read it in Humanities 101 at college, in comparison with West Side Story. And then never read it again despite taking a class entirely dedicated to Shakespeare (also managed to avoid a third-time-over re-read of Hamlet and a re-read of Macbeth there, too).

I have to admit that, though I was an English major, my emphases were in creative writing and editing, and I much prefer to read SF/Fantasy as opposed to classic literature.

[Shabo]

No, it probably isn't just an elective. It's probably a required gen-ed course.

Generally speaking, when you're in your first year or two of college you're doing your gen-eds, which require you to take some form of math, English, science, maybe public speaking or a computer course or something like that. At least that is how it worked for me. You're required to take those courses to have a more "well-rounded" educational experience.

Sure, it can count as a gen-ed OR an elective, BUT it is not a required class. At this university, people can choose whatever courses to fill electives as long as they aren't within your college (ie if you are business, you have to take a certain amount of non-business electives). For the gen eds, they have a choice of a good number of classes that they can use to fill their requirements. And it's a 200 level course, which means it's not a requirement for any English degree either.

So I state again. If you don't like reading, don't take Lit classes. No one is making them take that class.

[Dragon_Dreamer]

In high school, I was actually *forbidden* to read ahead. Because once you gave me the book, love it or hate it, I'd usually have it read within a couple days. Annoyed my teachers to no end. 9.9