The first week of school: waking up before 7 a.m., finding your classes, walking through crowded hallways and, wait, research?

The Honors British Literature classes taught by Mrs. Champlin and Mrs. Warner have already started the research unit of their class only a few days after the start of school.

The curriculum for this class calls for a research paper sometime during first semester. The decision to complete the unit in the first quarter is entirely up to the teachers.

“One of the big reasons we do it so early is the grading aspect of it,” Mrs. Champlin said. “We have to have grades in by a certain time and research papers are very time consuming. We also have to make sure that we can spend enough time grading each student’s paper and have it assessed fairly.”

Teachers also have to make sure that the students have and adequate amount of time to read and understand their novels before analyzing and reporting on it.

“We’re still in the early baby stages of the project,” Mrs. Champlin said. “I like to do it in chunks rather than give the whole project to my students all at once. By starting it this early, I know that they have enough time to read their books and let it all sink in before they have to write a paper about it.”

Mrs. Warner has been starting the research component of her class this early since she started teaching Honors Brit Lit three years ago. Her students have already chosen the novels for their papers and have time to read them over the next six weeks before actually starting the paper.

“I let the students pick a novel of their choice,” Mrs. Warner said. “That way there is a little student choice involved in there and it keeps [the students] more interested.”

The research project has the students pick a novel by a British author, read it and conduct a literary analysis on the novel.

“For me, I like to have a little more focus because literary analysis can be such a broad spectrum,” Mrs. Champlin said. “[My classes] focus on the character analysis aspect, but the students have many avenues they can go with that would open up a whole new discussion.”

One of the Honors Brit Lit students, senior William Hein, enjoys that the unit starts so early. He knows that later in the year, he’d rather be doing other things.

“I am all for it starting sooner,” Hein said, “The sooner we [finish] it, the better. That way if anything were to go wrong, there is more time to recover or redo it.”

Senior Tommy Giacobbe is also glad that research is already underway. “I feel pretty good about it because I’m ready to get it out of the way and then focus on the other things that I enjoy later on in the school year.” Giacobbe said.

Even though it’s only the second week of school, Mrs. Champlin is feeling confident that her students will succeed.

“We’re only week one into it,” Mrs. Champlin said, “but from my perspective it’s going well.”