The dreaded author project has once again reared its ugly head at CHS. For years, juniors in the honors American Lit classes have gone through the process of choosing an author, researching their lives and finally writing a paper on them.

However, it is much easier said than done. The mere task of choosing an author was challenging.

Although all the authors have one thing in common, that is being an American author; they all have very unique and different writing styles and genres. Juniors were required to choose one such as Jack London, Isaac Isaminov, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Jack Kerouac and Philip K. Dick, just to name a few.

The requirements pertaining to the research included reading a biography of the author and completing 50 note cards containing quotes on how the author’s life influenced his or her work, finding three scholarly articles and annotating them according to the guidelines the English teachers gave, and finally gathering three pieces of the author’s work and annotating two of them while doing a split page journal entry over the third.

It sounds like a lot to do, however, juniors had a while to complete all of it. Yet even though a matter of months and all of winter break were given to complete the project, procrastination took its toll on many of the juniors.

“Technically I got my books as early as October, but I didn’t start reading them until Winter break,” junior Matt Mikesic said.

A vast majority of juniors used breaks to get their reading done.

“I got all my resources together near Thanksgiving break and started reading and annotating the last week of winter break,” Riss said. “Everything was done by Tuesday of that week.”

Some waited until the due date to finally finish up their projects. Overall, each student handled the project deadlines somewhat differently.

“Mrs. Teson let us turn our projects in as late as midnight that night,” Mikesic said. “Of course she didn’t collect them until 10:30 the next morning anyway.”

No extensions or benefits were given to students under Mr. Hayward, however.

Wrapping the author project was also another task juniors had to undertake. The only sole requirement was containing the project somehow in a box, but, depending on which teacher one had, some went to great lengths to wrap their projects, while others simply did not have the time.

“The last thing on my mind was wrapping my project,” Lachtrup said. “The only time where wrapping my project seemed like a good idea was when I turned in my project and all my note cards fell on the floor.”

Although no extra credit was given for this by either teacher, some students wrapped them and decorated them elaborately, while others added a few minor details to their boxes.

“I used a shoebox because, thankfully my dad had one on hand,” Mikesic said. “However, since it was late at night I hastily just slapped a piece of paper on the front and wrote a witty letter that had something to do with his life on it.”
Though the author project may seem like a challenge to most students it does come with its fair share of both hard and easy tasks.

“I think the hardest part was narrowing down what I would read,” Daw said. “It was hard to just pick three books by Jack Kerouac, and I ended up reading his most popular novel, one of his more well-known novels.”
On the contrary, choosing major works was the easiest part.

“The easiest for me was picking out major works,” Mikesic said. “There were two of London’s books that are really well known, White Fang and Call of the Wild. These obviously are the biggest books that he ever did, so I was able to choose quickly.”

Though choosing three works might have been easy, many juniors would agree that actually taking time and reading the novels was the hardest part.

“Getting myself to do it was hard,” Lachtrup said. “Self motivation in general was a challenge because so many people were leaving it for winter break and, normally, that’s what I would’ve done, but I was pressed for time. Annotating was also really hard. It’s hard to get lost in the work when you have to stop and mark down pages.”

Yet even though reading was challenging, it had its rewards.

“I felt so accomplished at the end of the day if I had read parts of the book,” Daw said. “I was one step closer to reaching my goal, which was really awesome.”

Though the project may be sound impossible and may scare off some sophomores, if the soon to be incoming juniors heed the advice of the current juniors, the project will not be as hard as it’s made out to be.

“Firstly, pick an author that does things that interest you, not just an author who has a great literary reputation,” Lachtrup said. “Also, getting my project done in December made me be able to have a completely relaxing break where I didn’t have to worry or stress over it for hours.”

While most students leave this monster project to do over break, some get done with plenty of time to spare.

“It can be done; you just have to be disciplined,”  Lachtrup said.  “Don’t procrastinate, I know you will, but try not to.”