The Daily Mail is reporting tonight that Harry Potter is now required reading for A-level students in the UK. The paper says that Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s (Sorcerer’s) Stone is one of the books students will be tested on in exams given by the Assessment and Qualifications Alliance (AQA), the largest exam board in the UK.
According to the paper, students “taking the English language and literature A-level next year will study Rowling’s first Potter volume – the 12th best-selling book of all time and the basis for a Hollywood film – along with one other book for the module Themes in Language and Literature. They will have to write a 1,200 to 1,500-word piece of coursework comparing the “approaches” of J.K. Rowling and the other writer.Examiners will mark students on how they relate story lines and the activities of Harry Potter and his friends to the context of the times. And students will have to show an understanding of J.K. Rowling’s use of language, described recently as gibberish by a High Court judge. They will also have to write their own 500 to 800-word story inspired by the book.”
While many here may view this favorably, apparently some in the English government are not as excited about the inclusion of the Harry Potter series along side other classic works such Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.
Professor Alan Smithers, a special adviser to the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, said: “The point of English literature is to provide works that have stood the test of time and that allow people to understand their place in the world as others have understood it.I don’t think Harry Potter is appropriate as a set text; I don’t see how it fits in with that. It may be an enjoyable read but I don’t think we are just trying to keep people occupied.”
Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, added: “This is all done in the name of relevance and popular culture, but it is not why children go to school.They should be encouraged to read and understand the great works of English literature. Harry Potter may be what children want to read, but that doesn’t mean it should be part of an A-level.”
Last night the AQA said: “Harry Potter is a genuine example of literature of our time and therefore entirely deserves its place in this unit. We believe that it will prove a popular and engaging inclusion.”
I think it’s entirely appropriate and recognizes the value of a great piece of literature that just happened to be written in our time. I wish the literary elite would stop looking down their noses at contemporary literature and just read it!
Hmmm. Interesting. This leads to debate as to what ‘great literature’ is. I dont know the answer. I know what popular culture is and I know underlying enduring themes – courage loyalty, hero quest etc. Interesting….I’d like to hear pottercast talk about this.
Posted by Bellatrix's parole officer on April 29, 2008, 07:00 AM
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That’s kinda cool. I’m taking English lang and lit next year so I might be studying it. Then again, I think Harry Potter is more GCSE level than A-Level. I think in way it’s to get more student to go to Collge/6th fom. It would be better if they switched Shakespeare and Harry Potter around, So you do Harry Potter at GCSE and Shakepeare at A-Level because it’s kinda step down the way it is now.
yay i was hoping this would get a mention. i have been doing enlish a level for the past year and i have been studying harry potter since september!
it has actually been amazing
I don’t mean to cause any offence by this comment, but I believe that the majority of the people opposed to this, are American. Not all, by any means, but a lot.
As a current GCSE student in the UK, hoping to take English Lit as an A-Level, I completely think this is a great idea. English Lit for A-Level isn’t just studing how the book is written, which I think is the main argument here, that Jo’s writing isn’t up to scratch. In the course, you look at plot details, how the author develops the story and characters and how that cope with certain situations, which, as we know, is something Jo is very good at.
You know what… I remember the set texts I had to read for my English A Level, and Philosopher’s/Sorceror’s stone isn’t anywhere near complex enough. By 18, the age at which you sit A Levels, you should be beyond children’s books. The later and much darker books in the series (Goblet of Fire onwards) I could really get on board with, but Philosopher’s Stone was a poor choice on AQA’s part. I have great respect for the intelligence and depth of Jo’s writing and I’m certainly no snob about studying Harry in schools (Lord I wish i could’ve, I’d have loved English even more…), but the first book is a text that A Level standard students should have long since moved on from… then again, I suppose if you start later in the series you have the problem of having to start students halfway in who may not necessarily have read the previous books.
I agree. Rowling writes wonderfull books but she herself said she wants them to deem themselves worthy to stand the test of time. this may get childrn reading them and pasing their a-levels, but not because they understand classic literature.
I just did this for my A-Levels!!!! It was actually so fun! we had to compare it with ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’.
Seriously though, it wasn’t an easy course. We had to compare modern school fiction with school fiction from over a hundred years ago. ‘Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone’ and ‘Tom Brown’s Schooldays’ are remarkable similar, and they’re both very, very well written books in their own respects. Any claims of the curriculum being ‘dumbed down’ is riddiculous – the course was by no means easy!
We had to read each book over and over again, and analyse almost every page. It took a lot of work! We’d also discovered so many things about the books that we would never have known before.
Personally I love reading, and so it wasn’t problem for me, and I knew Harry Potter like the back of my hand anyhow :)
Needless to say I got an A!
x
kidda, I think you may be correct about the UK vs US reaction, although I do think you are wrong that the issue is JKR’s writing.
After all, with the exception of the occasional troll (example, Bob on page 7 of this thread, and other ‘contributers” who crawl out of the shallow end of the gene pool occasionally), if we didn’t appreciate and enjoy JKR’s writing, why would we be here?
In my specific case, the hesitation about including JKRas a central texxt does come from my perception as a college teacher in the US that too many US students are totally unprepared for college, and lack basic knowledge in literature, critical analysis, writing and a list of fundementals. I prefer a first year college student to know a little Sophocles (and with him goes a little Aristotle, after all!), for example, over a little HP…. Including HP in a lengthy syllabus is one thing, and I’m all for it…but as a central text in exams as important as the A levels (or the US SAT and ACT), well, I am not convinced
Ron pulled out his own wand -- not knowing what he was going to do he heard himself cry the first spell that came into his head: [i]"Wingardium Leviosa!"[/i][br]The club flew suddenly out of the troll's hand, rose high, high up into the air, turned slowly
Woop I’m starting my a-levels,September 2009! Would LOVE to study HP.Especially later books,give me something to really get my literary teeth into ;)