Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Pen

Okay, so where do I begin. I like what the Lawver girl did, and has been doing. Her activities and the subsequent activities and involvement of Harry Potter Readers from all over the world are inspiring and give educators another view into how we might approach the teaching of writing and literature and the application of literary elements and writing to other-than-school activities.

I don't think that our appropriation of this approach would be a bad thing, but simply another way to reach our students. I did get a kick out the author mentioning appropriation of Harry Potter in the Hogwarts Newsletter. Appropriation is such an natural act. Good stuff.

One lesson that we learn from Warner Bros. is that if we stand and fight for what we believe, then we can succeed. Who would want to fight that public relations battle?

So, intellectual property rights. Difficult to deal with. Original ideas? I am not sure. Most every author is influenced by another. How can he/she not be? If media is a business, then you can't argue with the attempt to block others from ruining your company's reputation or profiting from your work. However, the question arises, won't this stifle creativity and the possibility for new and innovative material? Hmmm....

The controversy with values and fundamentalist christian views of Harry Potter really intrigues me. As the grandson of two preachers, and the nephew of many down home hell fire and brimstone Christians, I can safely say that Christianity lends itself to intolerable intolerance of other beliefs and religions and of movements they deem a threat to their religion. This obviously can be easily refuted. However, I am not impressed with the arguments to ban Harry Potter, or any other literature of the like.

It seems that when it all comes down to it, media tends to be considered a vehicle for commercialism as well as a purveyor of cultural values. The question of when a child becomes an active participant and member of a particular culture got me to thinking. It seems that if a child makes connection upon connection and can think critically enough to form a coherent and relevant thought that applies to his or her view of the world, then he or she can certainly be said to become an active participant. I love the idea that a child reads and then looks at his world and says something about the two. My son, who is 12, says things about his books and our world all the time. That active participation doesn't necessarily begin when something is done, but can easily begin with at thought or a word.

I enjoyed the presentation in this article, because in the end, it affirms what I like to attempt in my class in relation to connection to literature and writing and the world, and it gives me some great ideas to attempt in the future. By the way, the writing prompt today for my PEOPLE class was to write a comparative paragraph addressing in-school writing and out-of-school writing. I wonder how they would have responded to this article...