Halloween night, princesses and monsters parade through the streets. Halloween day, literary characters masquerade in the hallways. Many English classes offer extra credit for students who dress up as different literary characters or other figures discussed throughout the year.
“Personally, I like to see how far kids will sacrifice their dignity for extra credit,” English teacher Mr. Sean Rochester said.
According to Rochester, many students will go to great lengths for extra credit. Some of his favorite costumes were worn by students he said were the quietest, donning outfits as outlandish as Abbe Faria from “The Count of Monte Cristo” or French soldiers.
“Part of enjoying a book is to have a sense of humor with it, to never take it too seriously,” Rochester said.
Humor is a main goal for many of the students, such as senior Nicole Bunte, who participated last year.
“I think it was a really fun experience to see most of my classmates dressed up. It was also hilarious walking around school and seeing people’s faces,” Bunte said, “I dressed up as Hester Prynne from ‘The Scarlet Letter.’ I wore this long, black, ugly Puritan looking dress I got from Goodwill. I put a huge scarlet letter A on the dress and wore a head shawl.”
According to Bunte, dressing up benefited her beyond just the extra credit she received for donning the costume for the day.
“Dressing up really got me more into the text. I had to look at descriptions of Hester to see what she would wear, and seeing other people in costume helped reinforce other characters in my mind,” Bunte said.
This year, all the American Literature teachers will give their students this opportunity through the first Literary Costume Contest. Students will be given extra credit for dressing up according to the first semester’s curriculum.
“The reason we do it is to help remind students we read for enjoyment,” Rochester said. “We never want kids to forget that at one point in their life they loved to read.”