by Arjun Singh ‘12

Assigned reading is an intrinsic aspect of education, beginning as early as elementary school. As students get older, however, many increasingly find the “easy solution” by turning to online sites such as Sparknotes. These sites provide summaries of books and analyses of each chapter, and while students use these sites to reinforce what they have read, others simply read the summary in place of the book.

While advocates of Sparknotes and other online resources assert that students should be able to use online resources to help them understand and interpret sophisticated readings, critics argue that too many students use sites as a crutch to shirk actually reading, stunting development of reading comprehension skills. According to a Warrior survey of 151 students, 65.6 percent of students do not believe reading Sparknotes instead of the actual book is cheating. Even though English teachers may disapprove, numerous students continue to utilize Sparknotes.

“[I use Sparknotes] about every other time a teacher assigns chapters to read,” said sophomore Alex Shoop. “[Sparknotes] helps me get a better understanding of the material if I don’t understand the teacher’s explanation.”

While there is no official English department policy regarding Sparknotes or other online technologies, rules against plagiarism apply to online resources for writing assignments. Some critics say students who rely on Sparknotes likely get only a superficial understanding of the novel or play and presumably will do worse on formative and summative assignments. Beyond grades on assignments and in the class overall, teachers assert that the dependence on these resources negatively impact reading and interpreting skills.

“[The English department] doesn’t think [technologies such as Sparknotes] help kids get to be better readers at all,” said English resource teacher Shelley Jackson. “It just doesn’t help them develop their reading skills, and we see fewer and fewer good readers come through.”

While some English teachers do not approve of Sparknotes, others believe online resources give students the ability to find additional analysis of books outside of class that help them interact and understand their book while reading it.

“Students have opportunities online, not just using Sparknotes, to look at literary analysis while they are reading a text for a class,” said English teacher Liza Schad. “If they look at some form of analysis it probably helps them understand the text better.”

The use of Sparknotes has forced teachers to use creative methods to distinguish those who use Sparknotes in addition to reading the book and those who use Sparknotes in place of reading books. Teachers use various online technologies to check for misuse of Sparknotes and personalize tests to prevent cheating and ensure that students actually read their books.

“[Next year] the English department is going to be enforcing the use of turnitin.com [to prevent direct cheating],” said English teacher Brianna Russell. “I check Sparknotes to ensure that the quiz questions I have created cannot be answered simply by a student reading Sparknotes.”

Even with these precautions against cheating, students continue to utilize online resources for assigned readings in English class. In a Warrior survey, 96 percent of students believe that reading Sparknotes while reading an assigned book is not cheating and 66.9 percent of students think that using Sparknotes does not hurt their reading comprehension skills.

“Everyone learns differently, and for me Sparknotes clarifies things,” said junior Sara Grantham. “I don’t consider it cheating; I’m not plagiarizing or stealing answers, I’m reading information that is available to me to help me understand the work I need to do.”