Should Teachers Assign Students To Review The Great Gatsby Book?

Honestly, I lean toward saying yes — but with a big asterisk attached. 'The Great Gatsby' is a dense little lightning bolt of language, image, and social critique; it can teach close reading, symbolism, unreliable narration, and historical context all at once. The green light, the valley of ashes, and Gatsby's parties are almost pedagogical tools for talking about the American Dream, class mobility, and performative identity. Those are timeless discussion starters, and students who wrestle with them tend to leave the book thinking about more than plot: they start asking who gets to tell a country's story and why certain dreams are available only to a few.

That said, the way teachers assign review matters more than the mere fact of assigning it. A bland, five-paragraph book report that asks students to summarize the plot is a missed opportunity; worse, it can make the novel feel irrelevant and dusty. Instead, I’d encourage assignments that invite curiosity: a comparative piece pairing 'The Great Gatsby' with a modern novel or film, a creative retelling from Jordan Baker’s or Myrtle’s perspective, or a media project where students map Fitzgerald’s Jazz Age onto today’s social media stage. I’ve seen a class light up when the teacher played jazz and then showed clips from Baz Luhrmann’s 'The Great Gatsby' (2013) to highlight tone and visual symbolism — that multisensory approach gives context to what might otherwise read like elitist prose.

Practical concerns matter too. Some students struggle with Fitzgerald’s 1920s diction, with themes anchored in a specific American history, or with problematic gender and racial portrayals that need careful framing rather than avoidance. I find scaffolding helps: annotated editions, targeted vocabulary work, and historical primers about the Roaring Twenties and Prohibition. Also, offering choice helps engagement — let students pick between a critical essay, a creative project, or a short podcast episode dissecting a symbol. And don’t shy away from pairing the book with counterpoints that complicate its view of the American Dream, like contemporary immigrant narratives or novels exploring class from different angles.

So yes, assign it if you can make the assignment lively, contextualized, and choice-driven. When students are invited to argue with the text, parody it, or place it beside today’s headlines, 'The Great Gatsby' stops being a relic and becomes a conversation starter, which is exactly how literature should feel to me.

If you want a straight take: I think teachers should assign 'The Great Gatsby' — but only if they turn the review into something more than a checklist. The book’s compact symbolism and its critique of the American Dream are perfect for teaching analytical skills, so a well-designed review teaches students how to look for theme, voice, and unreliable narration rather than just plot points.

In practice I’d ditch the one-size-fits-all worksheet. Ask students to choose how they respond: a sharp five-page close-read, a short film comparing the novel to Baz Luhrmann’s 'The Great Gatsby', a modern-day social media profile of Gatsby, or a personal reflection tying the novel to economic realities today. Provide historical context about the 1920s and some guided questions about race, gender, and class so the conversation doesn’t default to glossing over uncomfortable bits. Little scaffolds — vocabulary lists, timeline handouts, or a playlist of period jazz — make the novel less intimidating and more alive.

Bottom line: assign it, but make the review a conversation, not busywork — and let students bring their own voices into that conversation.