SEC: Valentine's Contest/Literary Couples

[Bonnie Fulmer <GBF1@MARISTB.MARIST.EDU>]

Dear Netters,
     With Valentine's Day approaching, I thought I'd remind
everybody about a great idea posted here a year or so ago
by Claire Whelihan (Thank you, Claire!)  I'm running this
contest now in my library, and it's been such a success that
I've had to open two categories: one for teachers and one
for students.  I didn't expect the TEACHERS to get into
this.  One English teacher spent her entire prep period,
lunch, and after school here to complete the list the first
day.  I awarded her a special prize: the Obsessive/Compulsive
Award.  (A bar of French milled soap.  She picked up on the
comparison to Jaggers in _Great Expectations_, with his
incessant handwashing.)  We ARE having fun with this!
     I cut 9 x 12" hearts out of red construction paper,
wrote names of famous couples from literature on them
with gold glitter, and numbered them 1-20.  I posted these
all over the circulation desk, and made up simple ballots
(Xeroxed on pink paper, of course) for the students
to fill in with titles and authors.  I deliberately
did not write the entire list of couples on the
ballot, in an attempt to get students to work on the
activity here, rather than taking the list and just asking
around.
     Here is a list of the couples I used, followed by answers:

Aeneas & Dido                The Aeneid, Virgil
Becky & Tom                  Adv. of Tom Sawyer, Twain/Clemens
Catherine & Frederic         A Farewell to Arms, Hemingway
Darcy & Elizabeth            Pride & Prejudice, Austen
Esmeralda & Quasimoto        Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hugo
Heathcliff & Cathy           Wuthering Heights, Bronte, Emily
Henry & Eliza                Pygmalion, Shaw   OR
                             My Fair Lady, Lerner
Jane & Rochester             Jane Eyre, Bronte, Charlotte
Jenny & Oliver               Love Story, Segal
Lancelot & Guinevere         Le Morte D'Arthur, Malory  OR
                             Idylls of the King, Tennyson
Lara & Yuri                  Dr. Zhivago, Pasternak
Oberon & Titania             Midsummer Night's Dream, Shakespeare
Pip & Estella                Great Expectations, Dickins
Rhett & Scarlett             Gone With the Wind, Mitchell
Roxanne & Cyrano             Cyrano de Bergerac, Rostand
Shug & Albert                Color Purple, Walker
Siegfried & Brunhild         Nibelungenlied, Unknown   OR
                             Die Walkure, Wagner    OR
                             Der Ring des Nibelungen, Wagner
Tristan & Isolde             Tristan & Isolde, von Strassburg
Troilus & Criseyde           Troilus & Criseyde, Chaucer
                              (spelling of Criseyde precludes
                               other versions, like Shakespeare's
                               Troilus and Cressida)
Valjean & Fantine            Les Miserables, Hugo

     My students have been able to find almost all of these in
Gale's _Characters in 19th-Century Literature,_ _Characters in
20th-Century Literature,_ Magill's _Cyclopedia of Literary
Characters,_ and Gale's CD-ROM _DISCovering Authors_.  I
did give a hint for Jenny & Oliver: Jenny dies, and the
author writes another book about Oliver, of which Oliver
is the first word in the title.
     First prize is a big box of Valentine chocolates,
drawn from all correct entries received by homeroom on
February 14.  Whitman has small (4 piece) heart boxes for
99 cents, so I may award one to every correct entry.  Some
English teachers are awarding extra credit to students when
I return student's corrected entry to teacher at the end
of the contest.
     This was a very simple idea to implement, and it has
driven students to actually do research!  It's working so
well for us that I thought I'd share it with you.  And
thanks so much to Claire and to Geri Moulton for coming
up with the idea originally.

                                  Bonnie Fulmer
                                  Spackenkill High School Library
                                  112 Spackenkill Road
                                  Poughkeepsie, Ny   12603
                                  gbf1@maristb.marist.edu