The Scarlet Letter is a great book for use by teachers who teach The Scarlet Letter in high school. The book talks about different ways to teach the book, a variety of different assignments teachers may use, and a variety of ways to assess students' knowledge of the material.
R. Brigham Lampert clearly seems to know the material. His attachment to the book is clearly evident. He presents the material based on the "10 Theories of Choice" or ways in which to interpret the text. He clearly lists what standards each activity meets in terms of National English Standards as well as Advanced Placement English Standards.
What I found most helpful is the different chapters based on the different testing methods. The book is divided into different testing styles which you may copy for class usage. The different styles include: comparing the book to a historical text; essays; applying literary theory; vocabulary analysis; Venn diagrams; AP-style multiple choice quizzes; reading quizzes; analyzing quotations; taxonomical worksheets; Socratic seminar tips and guidelines; debate tips and format; and research projects. Thankfully there is a grading rubric and even lesson plans.
The Scarlet Letter is the ultimate "how-to" for any teacher using Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter in their classroom. While geared primarily for AP classes, many of the assignments could be used in lower level classes. This book is a definite must for anyone teaching this important literary classic. ( )

I really like this resource. It has some fun activities to help students delve further into Hawthorne's thought provoking story. ( )

Great content and well laid out! I will use this with my students! ( )

This work is a very helpful resource for AP and honors English teachers focusing on The Scarlet Letter. Its contents is well thought-out and thorough, and it takes an opportunity early on to introduce theories of literary criticism in a manner that I think would be most helpful to engaged English students. The book contains solid grading rubrics and an almost excessive number of options for reinforcement. My only significant criticism would be that I dislike the book's emphasis on worksheets. I know that this approach is somewhat inevitable both for this sort of book and for the average public school classroom, but most bright students at the intended age would feel both bogged-down and initialized by this reductive/busy work approach, even if the activities/questions contained within the worksheets are of a more creative or higher-level thinking nature. ( )

"Advanced Placement Classroom: The Scarlet Letter" by R. Brigham Lampert is a useful, if somewhat overwhelming, collection of ideas and worksheets to use in conjunction with teaching Hawthorne's novel. There are a number of intriguing ideas embedded in the book, such as different types of literary criticism that can be applied to "The Scarlet Letter" and other works. Lampert also includes suggestions for helping students write an effective essay for the AP test and a large number of worksheets and handouts ranging from AP-style multiple choice questions to graphic organizers.

The suggestions here are sound, and I could see using a number of them with high school students (AP level and otherwise). However, there are a number of small but notable limitations regarding this book. As donbuch1 notes, the number of reader-tracking worksheets and quizzes does seem unnecessary (especially given the focus on AP-level students). Additionally, some of the questions on the reading quizzes seems unnecessarily detail oriented, in that they focus on seemingly minute trivia and less on student comprehension and analysis. Finally, there is a sense of "everything but the kitchen sink" in the approach to teaching "The Scarlet Letter." Consequently, as with any book of this nature, it is important to select the ideas and activities carefully and to adapt them to the students in your classroom rather than just using the all of the activities with no editing or personalization.

Nevertheless, these limitations do not detract from the book's usefulness or Lambert's approach to the novel. "Advanced Placement Classroom: The Scarlet Letter" would be a great resource for any high school literature teacher. ( )