NOT Sparkly

To be published in Rocky's school newspaper:

Dear Editor,

Many thanks to the Rocky Mountain High School Highlighter newspaper staff for compiling a first-day issue over the summer months to welcome us all back to school. As an English teacher, I was further gratified by the promotion of the literary masterpieces we teach in our classes (the “Good (required) reads” feature).

As said teacher, however, I must make the RM Highlighter panel aware that their recommendation to “skim” The Scarlet Letter is undermining the education of students; reading a summary/review of a movie is, at best, a poor substitute for the viewing of the actual film, much less fast-forwarding through it; the same is true for books. And the recommendation to “Spark-note” Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (ironically the two shortest texts) is encouraging cheating. Yes, cheating. Consider: What would be the equivalent of “Spark-noting” a math assignment? Looking up the answers online? Certainly, not doing the work for yourself—which is cheating. Now, I’m not asserting that the feature will cause cheating, but it certainly legitimizes it, and that is galling to us as teachers and adults who also want to teach good morals. For this, I do NOT thank you.

My hope is that you—as ethical journalists—simply did not realize the implications of your rating system. I support the freedom of your press, but please do not use it to press others into even the most seemingly minor acts of wrongdoing. (And this isn’t minor.)

-Ms. C, Language Arts teacher