by Walter Allen

Created on: November 15, 2008

As a straight "A" student in high school and college, I used to look down my nose at other lower ranking students who would use Cliffs Notes to finish their assignments in writing classes or to study for their tests in literature classes. But then, two college degrees and six years later, I became a teacher of what else but English and Language Arts.

It was actually as a teacher that I developed an appreciation for the little yellow books and some of their more obscure companions. It was as a teacher that I realized that these books can actually serve as an aide to my students if used correctly. And it was as a teacher that I actually began to encourage the use of these books in my classroom so that students would learn how to use them appropriately.

One of the primary ways that I used a Cliffs Notes guide in my lesson plans was as a companion reader for more difficult texts. For example, Nathaniel Hawthorne's text The Scarlet Letter is exceptionally hard for mid-level and struggling students in the tenth grade. (To be honest, that text can be difficult for adult readers.) To help my students, we would keep both texts on our desks side by side.

Alternating texts, we would read a paragraph of Cliffs Notes summary followed by a page or two of Hawthorne's complex text. Then we would discuss any vocabulary or syntax that made the original text difficult to understand. We would read the original out loud after the discussion to solidify the sound of the various structures and the new vocabulary in the head of the students. Then we would press forward.

As the students became more comfortable with the more complex text, we would switch up the process, reading Hawthorne's original text first, discussing it, and then checking our understanding by reading summaries in Cliffs Notes. I found that many of my students became more comfortable with stopping and exploring a text rather than just trying to breeze through it to say that it was done.

I also found that using the Cliffs Notes as a companion text modeled the necessary skill of keeping a dictionary or other research materials nearby to help you dissect a complicated passage or to help you understand outdated syntax and vocabulary.

The second way that I would encourage the use of a Cliffs Notes guide in the classroom is as a review guide. After you have read the original text, explored the text on your own and in study groups, and taken notes during your discussions, you will probably be preparing for an objective (multiple

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