<p>what is the culminating project for this reading assignment? if i don't read this book will i be screwed? can i just sparknote it and get away with it?</p>
<p>the culminating project should be some essay about the book that you must submit; however, you really dont have to read the book. if there are sparknotes, you’ll be fine just reading those.</p>
<p>Why do so many students try to get out of this reading assignment? Every year people come on here and ask if they’ll suffer any consequences if they skip it.</p>
<p>The answer is no, not really, but why don’t you want to do it? The point of the reading is to give a unifying focus to the freshman class. It’s something that brings together Engineers and Architects and Poets and Scientists and people with all manner of interests. It’s supposed to be a way of collectively celebrating your arrival into the world of higher learning.</p>
<p>Sure, orientation parties are fun, but presumably you’re not opposed to a reading assignment from time to time or you wouldn’t have chosen Cornell.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to direct this at the OP specifically. He or she no doubt has his or her own reasons for asking. I’m just surprised that the question comes up every year – what is so hard about reading a book? :-)</p>
<p>You can do nothing and get away with it.</p>
<p>I totally understand why you don’t want to do it, and I never judge those who don’t – it’s the summer after your senior year, likely the first homework-free summer you’ve had in a long time, and you’re given a long assignment?</p>
<p>In an ideal world, yes, the project is a “unifying focus” for the freshman class, but the reality is that when you arrive at campus you’ll 1) be herded into hot, humid, cramped Barton Hall to listen to three strange professors talk over a crackling microphone about your book for just 15 minutes each, and 2) be herded into a smaller (read: 15-person) group somewhere else on campus, in a strange classroom, with strangers you’ll probably never see again, to discuss a book you had no autonomy in selecting and may very well dislike. It isn’t a very enlightening process whatsoever.</p>
<p>But kdmom does have a point that you’re going to have to get used to reading assignments. So my advice? Pick a great, sophisticated book to read over the summer, on your own, and just make sure to think about it a little after you finish. Then blow off the Summer Reading Project events to have fun with some new friends on campus, to sleep, to walk around campus by yourself just to get adjusted better, or whatever the hell you want, because until Senior Week four years later you’re really not going to have that amount of free time again.</p>
<p>Or, y’know, go. Whichever you want to do. :)</p>
<p>/ducks tomatoes thrown by more sophisticated students than herself, who may have read “The Great Gatsby” (likely over again) but who are not necessarily better students for it</p>
<p>i am not particularly keen on reading the grapes of wrath only because i read East of Eden 3 years ago and it seems to follow the same type of californian culture which i have had enough of. I’m hoping that the literary analysis that evolves in discussions will be worth it, because if they just graze the surface of the book’s meaning then so help me god i will thrash out in a whirlwind of flying pies at the profs.</p>
<p>Well, the guys in my discussion section who didn’t read it got chewed out by this 80 year old English professor. The “This guy is an example of a future college dropout” sort of chewed out.</p>
<p>It’s optional and you shouldn’t let yourself be guilt-tripped into participating if it’s not your thing.</p>
<p>its bs, dont even bother</p>
<p>so…you could not write the essay and still be fine?</p>
<p>do your RA a favor and please attend the discussion. not participating is a great way to get your RA to hate you right off the bat. </p>
<p>ours was a cool guy so luckily everyone liked him enough right off the pat to actually show up. </p>
<p>i can imagine an english professor chewing out kids, but we had a biology/hard science professor lead our discussion lol so it was a lot easier to bs. but we were assigned The Great Gatsby which many of us had already read in high school lol. </p>
<p>grapes of wrath this year? great book…great symbols…breast feeding and turtles </p>
<p>here are some quotes that i think go well with grapes of wrath. </p>
<p>Lady Macbeth:
Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be
What thou art promis’d. Yet do I fear thy nature,
It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.</p>
<p>and </p>
<pre><code>See the TURTLE of enormous girth!
On his shell he holds the earth.
His thought is slow but always kind;
He holds us all within his mind.
"On his back all vows are made;
He sees the truth but mayn’t aid.
He loves the land and loves the sea,
And even loves a child like me.
-Stephen King
</code></pre>
<p>if you had to read the pickup you had no sparknotes - it was terrible. we were all unified in the sense that we all hated the book</p>
<p>you don’t have to read it at all…last year, the book wasn’t even in sparknotes so people had a tougher time bsing it.</p>
<p>i read pickup!!!, no idea what its about… who cares about RAs… ive spoken like a total of 3 words to her… ever int he entire year. (think i wanted to borrow teh vacuum which was in her room)</p>
<p>I’m sure there are some kids who discussed the work in different contexts and analyzed the subtleties beyond the organized discussions. I agree with KDmom: it’s not that big of an assignment, and this IS cornell.</p>
<p>i read that the essay we write is just to be entered in a contest and the winner gets like $200 to books and stuff. i think thats what i read on the summer reading website anyways…</p>
<p>I’m not an uppreclassmen but i figured this was not very significant. i’m not going to read it again because i read it in highschool and i hate this book. its so…slow. F turtles. i’ll probably BS the essay too. it’ll be horrible.</p>
<p>ahah totally agree ^</p>
<p>I’m guessing winners will probably tie the book to the current recession. How Americans can no longer go out West to recover!</p>
<p>this isn’t highschool. While you are taking a writing seminar, its about a specific subject and non freshmen are in them, so you don’t exactly have a class where you’ll be required to know about the book for so what exactly could be the repercussions for not reading the book? Worst that could possibly happen is the discussion person gets mad at you as someone above said, but that’s a rarity, most freshmen my year didn’t read it since the book was awful.</p>
<p>Also while you should probably attend the small discussion session, do your self a favor and skip the large panel discussion thing if they have that again, its a waste of time.</p>
<p>If you have nothing to do this summer, I would advise that you read it otherwise its not worth it.</p>
<p>Give the book a try; if it does not align well with your literary tastes then skim through it and look up some relevant stuff about it on line so you know what is all about and can make some intelligent commentary about it. Learn the art of skimming/speed reading and summarizing. It will serve you well no matter where studies and interests lie.</p>