I'm super confused about this. Every text we went through in school was done AFTER reading the text for homework. It might be done in a handful of chapters at once - but if you're doing this type of textual analysis, you'll discuss "can you see anything in this scene" - look in to what themes may be portrayed. Then, you'll go back, once the text is finished and discuss "now that we've read the whole thing, we can look at these paragraphs again - the standing on the hill now clearly is a foreshadowing of his isolation and the snowball is him trying to hold on to innocence. The author sets the tone here, but is not overt about it and we can through reading the rest of the text appreciate these nuances"...

Bad teachers, I guess.