THE FANTASTIC Harry Potter.The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling has become one of the most popular children's series of our time. Featuring a young orphan who discovers--at the age of 11--that his parents had magical powers and that he is a wizard, the books chronicle Harry's adventures in magic at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry wiz·ard·ry n. pl. wiz·ard·ries 1. The art, skill, or practice of a wizard; sorcery. 2. a. A power or effect that appears magical by its capacity to transform: . With such an appealing, noble hero and a vividly drawn cast of friends and enemies, it's easy to understand why these books have kindled kin·dle 1 v. kin·dled, kin·dling, kin·dles v.tr. 1. a. To build or fuel (a fire). b. To set fire to; ignite. 2. a nationwide interest in fantasy. Chances are many of your students spent the first part of the summer in rapt anticipation of the release of the fourth book in the series, published just last month. The fantasy genre has a lot in common with any good plot-driven fiction: It's imaginative and tells a compelling story. In fantasy, however, anything goes. Characters can fly on broomsticks, cast spells, and converse with animals. The Harry Potter books make an ideal starting point Noun 1. starting point - earliest limiting point terminus a quo commencement, get-go, offset, outset, showtime, starting time, beginning, start, kickoff, first - the time at which something is supposed to begin; "they got an early start"; "she knew from the for discussions about this genre. Use the activities cited on these pages to heighten your students' appreciation for inventive storytelling and to inspire them to think about what goes into creating a good fantasy story. J.K. Rowling Spills Some Secrets Q Flow do you come up with all the unique names, places, and things in the Harry Potter books? A Many of the names are invented, for example, "Quidditch" and "Muggle." I also collect unusual names. "Hedwig" was a saint; "Dumbledore" is an Old English Old English: see type; English language; Anglo-Saxon literature. Old English or Anglo-Saxon Language spoken and written in England before AD 1100. It belongs to the Anglo-Frisian group of Germanic languages. word for bumblebee bumblebee: see bee. bumblebee Any member of two genera constituting the insect tribe Bombini (family Apidae, order Hymenoptera), found almost worldwide but most common in temperate climates. Bumblebees are robust and hairy, average about 0. ; "Snape" is a place in England A Place in England is a novel by Melvyn Bragg, first published in 1970. It is the second part of Bragg's Cumbrian Trilogy. The story is set predominantly in Thurston (Bragg's name for Wigton), from the 1920s to the 1960s, and follows the life of Joseph Tallentire, a . Q Do you have an actual floor plan for Hogwarts? A It would be difficult for the most skilled architect to draw owing to owing to prep. Because of; on account of: I couldn't attend, owing to illness. owing to prep → debido a, por causa de the fact that the staircases and rooms keep moving. However, I have a very vivid mental image of what it looks like. (Excerpted from www.scholastic.com/harrypotter) Harry's History: A Time Line Book 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. Harry discovers that he's a wizard and leaves his horrible Muggle (non-magical) aunt and uncle to attend Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. Book 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Harry returns to Hogwarts as a second-year student and must track down and stop the evil magician who is turning students to stone. Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Sirius Black Sirius Black is a fictional character in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. Sirius Black was first mentioned briefly in Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone , a wizard once found guilty of committing terrible crimes, has escaped from prison, and everyone suspects he's out to end Harry Potter's life. Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Harry continues his wizard education in his fourth year at Hogwarts and reaches new heights in the fast-paced airborne game of Quidditch. Writers Revise Ask your students how long they think it takes J.K. Rowling to write a Harry Potter book. Explain that the books they buy or check out of the library are often the result of years of work, and that it took J.K. Rowling five years to write the first Harry Potter book! One reason the process takes so much time is that good writers do more than one draft of a story. They make changes in their chapters, paragraphs, and sentences, both to make the words sound better and to help the story develop properly. Give students 15 minutes to write a paragraph that envisions Harry traveling on a Muggle airplane for the first time. When the time is up, ask them to think about what they could change to make the writing better. Are there any misspellings or missing words? Have they picked the best adjectives and verbs for what they're trying to say? Did they leave anything out that would make the paragraph more exciting to read? After the students answer these questions, have them revise their original paragraphs. Then have them make a list of what they think improved with their second draft. Dynamic Dialogue The term dialogue is most often used to refer to the conversation between characters in books, movies, and plays. In fiction, dialogue is used to advance the plot and to reveal what characters are thinking and feeling. The words Harry, his friends, and teachers use when they speak to one another also help paint a clearer picture of their characters. The gentle giant Hagrid, for example, speaks in less-than-proper English, which makes him stand out from the other adults in the book. We infer that Snape is mean-spirited, if fairly harmless, from the nasty things he often says to Harry. Break the class into groups of twos or threes. Choose a passage of dialogue from one of the Harry Potter hooks that occurs between two or three characters, and have groups act out the conversation. Have the partners ask each other the following questions about what this dialogue means to the story. Afterward, ask the groups to write their own dialogue, specifically a conversation that these Harry Potter characters might have. 1. What do you learn in this passage of dialogue? 2. Why do you think the author chose to relay this information in dialogue as opposed to narrative? 3. What are the differences in the way these characters speak? 4. What are the things you assume about each character according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. the way he or she speaks? Punctuation Station Have your students fix the grammar and punctuation in the following excerpt from page 301 in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic): "Gryffindor hadn't won the Quidditch Cup since the legendary Charlie Weasley (Rons second oldest brother had been Seeker But Harry doubted whether any of them even Wood wanted to win as much as he did. The enmity between Harry and Malfoy was at it's highest point ever. Malfoy was still smarting about the mud-throwing incident in Hogsmeade and was, even more furious that Harry had somehow wormed his way out of punishment. Harry hadnt forgotten Malfoys' attempt to sabotage him in the match against Ravenclaw but it was the matter of Buckbeak that made him most determined to beat Malfoy in front of the entire school." Fantasy Resources If your students like fantasy, the Harry Potter series is a good choice. There are also other books and series in the fantasy genre that they might enjoy! The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis (HarperCollins, 1994) A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle Madeleine L'Engle (November 29 1918 – September 6 2007)[1] was an American writer best known for her Young Adult fiction, particularly the Newbery Medal-winning A Wrinkle in Time and its sequels A Wind in the Door, (Houghton Mifflin Houghton Mifflin Company is a leading educational publisher in the United States. The company's headquarters is located in Boston's Back Bay. It publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers , 1997) The Once and Future King, by T.H. White (Putnam Publishing, 1996) The Dark Is Rising, by Susan Cooper For the Oxford physics professor, see . Susan Mary Cooper (born 23 May 1935) is a British author best known for The Dark Is Rising, an award-winning five-volume fantasy saga set in and around England and Wales. (Aladdin, 1999) Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien Houghton Mifflin, 1999) Half Magic, by Edward Eager Edward McMaken Eager (1911 – October 23, 1964) was an American author who made a distinct contribution to children's literature by introducing a theme of magic into the lives of ordinary children. , et al (Harcourt Brace & Company, 1999) Time Warp time warp n. A hypothetical discontinuity or distortion occurring in the flow of time that would move events from one time period to another or suspend the passage of time. Trio XYZ XYZ interj. Informal Used to indicate to someone that the zipper of his or her pants is open. [ex(amine) y(our) z(ipper).] , by Jon Scieszka Jon Scieszka (SHEH-ska) (born September 8, 1954 in Flint, Michigan, U.S.) is an American author of children's literature, best known for his collaborations with illustrator Lane Smith. (Viking, 1991) |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion