Classic (Entry #5)

In seventh and eighth grade (no, not at New Paltz Middle School), I and the other students in my grade were assigned a project that involved picking a book of our own, and completing several writing and artistically-based assignments. The first time doing this project, I chose to read Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, having heard that it was a novel similar in effect to the classic television show “The Twilight Zone,” which I was a huge fan of at the time. At that point I had yet to ever read a novel that was not categorized as “teen” or “young adult,” and was daunted by the prospect of reading a novel of shall I say, “literary merit.” The fact that this assignment forced me to interact with a higher-level novel was the inception of my love for “classic” novels. Since the assignment called for other small projects such as creating artwork based off the interpretation of the novel, and other forms of written analysis (sometimes even in blog form!), I was able to open my mind to new and more advanced themes encountered in the text. From that book forward, I have been on a kick of reading books that are considered “classic” (or at least those labeled as such at the book store), and even proceeded to read Lord of The Flies by William Golding the following year for the same project. After having completed these individual novel projects, I can definitely say that my literacy has been positively impacted, since some of the novels I was inspired to read are now my favorite books (Frankenstein, 1984, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde… etc.) 

Side note: I highly recommend all the novels mentioned in this entry