Senior Spotlight: Independent Studies, Marco Schoellerman: Great American Novels

Riverdale Review: Please briefly discuss the subject of your independent study. 

Marco Schoellerman: My independent study was on great American novels–so basically the most significant novels culturally in American history and the impact they had. 

RR: Why did you choose to spend additional time studying this topic? 

MS: I loved CA but I thought that the one thing that was missing was that we never actually spent any time on big full-length novels, and I wanted to address that. I [also] had a super close relationship with Dr. McLain, so I was happy to spend the extra time with her. 

RR: What was the goal of your study or central question you were trying to answer? 

MS: What makes a novel culturally significant? And what distinguishes a really good book from a book that actually had an impact on history… how people think long term, and what novels throughout American history fit that descripton? 

RR: What was your answer?

MS: The answer we came to was that it has to do with novels that capture the spirit of and the sentiment of an entire generation because for something to be considered a great [American novel] it has to have something to say about all of America, an entire period of time as a whole. So something that manages to do that – have something to say about an entire country and generation– while still managing to feel coherent of a specific focus. 

RR: What was your biggest challenge during the experience? 

MS: Managing our time. We bit off a bit more than we could chew. We planned to read four novels and we got through three. And we kind of spent the whole time rushing a little bit when we realized we weren’t going to finish. We spent [around] four months reading Huckleberry Finn alone. 

RR: What was your biggest takeaway from the experience? 

MS: I was kind of nervous about doing an independent study that it would get awkward and we would have nothing to talk about…Literally the entire study [was] just me and Dr. McLain talking. And I was really worried that there would be one time where the chapter was kind of boring and we would just have nothing to talk about and that never really happened. My takeaway was that stuff like that can work if you’re both…passionate and you’re willing to…give it a good shot.