Would be way cooler to assign 2-3 different books and request a critical analysis of competing themes. Or pick you own book, get it approved by the teacher, and analyze that. But some of that is probably too much for younger students
In my high school English we used a 2-volume “anthology” of American lit that had entire books and short stories but was mostly very long excerpts of maybe a couple hundred novels/stories/poems, and we took a comparative approach. Most of us had already read all the top 25 classics (gatsby, Harper Lee, Salinger, grapes of wrath etc) by the time we got to that class though
The book How to Read a Book goes into how to read and evaluate multiple works this way. I'd recommend it to any high schooler, by the way. It also talks more generally about how to read and take notes effectively.
I agree, and the most enjoyable semester of English was one where the professor took this approach. The only downside was that the books to select from were limited and there were no non-fiction options to choose from. However my teacher did appreciate the effort I made in trying to persuade him to allow me to read Meditations instead.
Picking a book getting approached by the teacher then writing a book report has been how I was taught to read since 1st grade. After moving to the US for high school, being forced to read through the American classics was what killed any urges I had for reading fiction outside of school work
In my high school English we used a 2-volume “anthology” of American lit that had entire books and short stories but was mostly very long excerpts of maybe a couple hundred novels/stories/poems, and we took a comparative approach. Most of us had already read all the top 25 classics (gatsby, Harper Lee, Salinger, grapes of wrath etc) by the time we got to that class though