Bloomington High School South, The Gothic, 2015, Page 24

Description:	24 ACADEMICSmV a spark of insightSparkNotes is a tool many students use, but sometimes their motivesare questionable.Romeo and Juliet, Pride and Prejudice, The Scarlet Letter-these are a fewof the books that all high school students are assigned to read during tp r time atBloomington High School South. However, some students have never read those booksat all. They prefer to use SparkNotes, a website that provides study guides for varioussubjects and multiple other academic r«burces. However, its most popular useis also its most controversial: book summaries. These sunmaries not only telleverything that happened in the reading selection, but provide professionalanalyses and different viewpoints on what was summarized. The question isis SparkNotes cheating or a legitimate resource?Some look at it as a helpful aid as opposed to a form of cheating.SparkNotes is really useful for when you dont have the time or inclinationto do the reading, and its also good for when youve done the work so youcan go back and make sure youve got the concepts, said sophomore^^^^^ Alexandra Pauly. 1 ther students had similar opinions. Itcould help people understand if theyre having trouble, and irregards to cheating, its no more immoral than lookingsomething up on Wikipedia, reasoned sophomore EmmaDilavore.Others, however, have pointed out problems withSparkNotes. SparkNotes can be a good resource if usedsparingly, but if youre going to use it for every assignment whenyoure just lazy, it could hurt you. I dont believe that itsI cheating, but it can definitely be abused, said sophomoreJustin Baltzegar.Bloomington South AP Language and Compositionteacher Mrs. Susanna Shelton also expressed her opinionSparkNotes. It has some value, but I think the best sourceof value that it has is after the student has read the entirebook. Its bad to use SparkNotes while youre reading thebook, because its another persons opinion about whatshappening in a book. The goal of reading is for you to form yourown opinions about whats happening and to have your ownreading experience.SparkNotes is a controversial tool utilized by countlessstudents. While its intended purpose is to aid students in theirunderstanding of a text, the website is often used as areplacement for reading. This can result in misinterpretationsand unbeneficial results. As Shelton said, it can be a goodresource if used appropriately.-CALEB NORIEGA
Source:	http://cdm17129.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/hs-bloomsouth/id/8857
Collection:	Bloomington High School South

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