Readers, who read independently, sometimes need a little help. Even the best readers occasionally need assistance in understanding some of the key points in a text.
Luckily, there are several reputable study guides available online for the texts you will likely encounter in school. This lesson will help you investigate them, and show you some of their benefits, as well as some of the negative aspects of study guides.
Some key benefits of online study guides:
- They’re generally pretty accurate. When SparkNotes first began publishing in the late 1990s, the company employed freelance writers and college students to write their guides. There were mistakes in some of their guides, which at the time I exploited. I taught a lesson several times where we as a class “corrected” a section of one of the notes. However, since then the guides have been revised numerous times, and obvious mistakes such as this are pretty much a thing of the past.
- They’re available when you want them. If you have a question about something in a book, you can’t always ask a friend. But you can generally get a basic answer in a guide like SparkNotes.
- They summarize the important points. If you’re reviewing in preparation for a test or a major exam, you may not have time to review the full text.
- They go into more detail, providing context that is sometimes necessary to understand a major text.
However, relying too heavily on study guides alone will inevitably get you into trouble. For example, read the following excerpt from SparkNotes’ summary of Chapter 20 of Great Expectations:
Jaggers takes Pip to London, where the country boy is amazed and displeased by the stench and the thronging crowds in such areas as Smithfield. Jaggers seems to be an important and powerful man: hordes of people wait outside his office, muttering his name among themselves. Pip meets Jaggers’s cynical, wry clerk, Wemmick. (Link)
This is all Spark Notes gives you of Pip’s first impression of London. It’s a good summary. It serves its purpose. But it lacks the rich detail of the character descriptions Dickens gives the reader. If you’re asked to provide a specific example of the type of person waiting for Jaggers, you’re done for. Plus you miss the humor of this scene.
Your assignment: Take a few minutes to browse one or both of the following sites. Then answer the following questions in the “Leave a Reply” section below. Your comments will be sent to me, but not displayed.
Spoiler Alert: In going through these sites, it’s possible you may encounter information about the book you didn’t want to know — such as what happens to a character in the end of the book. In particular, you’re likely to find this sort of information when reading the “Character Analysis” sections. Browse with a careful eye. If you truly don’t want to encounter any information that might “spoil” the ending, this section of the Spark Note on Great Expectations discusses Chapters 20-26 without ruining any of the surprises.
Questions
- Identify one thing you learned or understand more clearly about Great Expectations from reviewing the study guides that you didn’t know before. Be sure to note where you got your information.
- In your opinion, was this activity a good idea or not? Explain.
One thing that I understand more clearly about Great Expectations is the scene when Wemmick takes Pip back to his “castle” for dinner. I had a hard time understanding what was going on, and how to picture everything that was happening. After I checked out Spark Notes, it became much clearer to me.
The analysis of Pip’s first impressions of his aquantinces in London, helped me understand the contrast of his new and old lifestyle. Jaggers is the most powerful man he’s ever met, Herbert has knowledge of how to be a gentleman, and Bentley Drummle is an oaf.
By reviewing the study guide I learned that in Great Expectations the characters contrast each other in not so obvious ways. For example, Herbert is the contrast to Mr. Jaggers( a foil character). Herbert’s open personality towards Pip makes the relationship between Mr. Jaggers and Pip seem even more closed in and secretive.
Everyone seemed to like the activity as well. This is a representative comment:
In my opinion this activity was a good idea because it showed us a different side to learning. Instead of learning from the book and sitting in class, we got a change.
Hopefully we’ll be able to do more things like this in the near future.
