they are so lucky there in the UK. they should totally do that in the US for Honors/Advanced students. and i think HP is very suitable for studying because it isnt all fantasy, there are a lot of real life connections in the books and i think it would be really cool to study the series even more in depth than i already have.

As much as I love Harry Potter I don’t think it should be required reading. It’s yet to stand the test of time. Give it another 20 years and if it still has a strong influence then I guess you can justify its use. Then again this move might encourage more people to take up literature. I think the best solution is to make this an optional module in the course.

very cool Jo should be proud ! and no Jo’s spproval wouldn’t be needed as no money is being made, and i think she would gladly give it any way

Now that is some amazing recognition.

Forcing any literature is bull. Whether it be considered a great author, a top seller, or not, it does not matter. Making children aware of those works is great, but expecting them to read them and worship them just because the last generation did the same does not help them broaden their views.

It´s a great step and yes HP is a worthy literature. The onlt thing is they should have let the students choose which book they would like to resume as there would have been much more fun sitting together in groups writing diferents parts and comment them.

Anyway I don´t like Hamlet it´s a terrible story, so yes Hattys world is much better and nicer

SS:

At some point though, you do have to “force” certain books upon students. It may be the teacher, it may be the school system, it may be the government. But at some point, someone must make the decision of what students learn. An english classroom would not be an effective learning environment if all the students were reading different texts.

English teachers (or at least any good English teachers) do not expect students to worship texts. Religions expect their followers to worship religious texts, but the word worship is much too strong to apply to the English classroom. Rather, the teachers expect the students to appreciate the texts, to be able to recognize the value that the “last generation” saw in the text, to be able to draw fresh conclusions, and even to be able to criticize the text and/or the “last generation’s” interpretation.

Oh, and thank you Ally and FraA for the compliments!

I honestly wouldn’t want to study Harry Potter. I think it would ruin the “magic” of the book. I wouldn’t want to be reading, and get to a part I wrote about, and start thinking about alliteration or allusion or any sort of literary crap like that. I just want to enjoy the story.

Oh, but the “literary crap” you speak of makes the books so much more meaningful!

A few others mentioned it, but the “They will also have to write their own 500 to 800-word story inspired by the book.” bit made me laugh so hard. I too first thought “OMG fanfic!”

Even if it is intended to be taken as inspired on the themes rather than just lifting the characters, that could still fall into the Uber category of fanfic if done in a way which is true to the character archetypes.

Slightly off topic, but I wonder when the last time the average American student sat an exam that required a 1200 to 1500 word essay, and a 500 to 800 word story? It seem education in the USA has descended to A, B, C, D, T, or F, or as we called in ‘multiple guess’.

If I had this for my A-Levels,I’d have aced them! Lucky students! :-D

I read Philosopher’s Stone when I was 38. Actually, I read it with a view of criticizing it. My then eight-year old son had asked me for it and as he was an avid reader, I thought that he had long surpassed the ‘fairytale’ stage of witches and wizards. However, as I am not one to discourage anyone from reading anything they find enjoyable, I bought the book and decided to give it a read despite my prejudice. I was hooked from page 1, though I felt too shy to admit it to anyone for a long time. But it gave me hours of discussion with my son and dealt with topics that would not otherwise have cropped up. There are many levels to these books and each can view them at whatever level of maturity one has reached. So yes, they are enjoyable for third-graders – they will probably go for the story line and enjoy it. But adults can read the story too and enjoy it in a different way. They would still enjoy the story of course (there is no age-limit to liking a story) but there are so many other things to enjoy: the moral themes, the derivatives of names, the mythological references, the stereotypical characters, the deep and mysterious characters, the comical ones. So yes, a brave but wise decision by the board.

personally the most important thing in education, is to keep the students interested in the subject, a select few of a-level students will admit they honestly enjoy texts like shakespeare,

this will greatly improve their grades without a doubt, not to mention encourage them to work harder.