1. What is your current
thinking about the questions, “What is literature? And what qualifies a work as
literature for young adults (or YAL)?” In your discussion, be sure to discuss
whether HP#3 qualifies as literature and/or as YAL.
Be sure to discuss in detail at least several “narrative elements” of the text
as part of this essay (characterization, plot, conflicts, language, point of
view, and so on)
- I must remove my fanboy lenses
for this one. I wasn’t a Harry
Potter fan although I was exactly the right age, (7 when the first book
came out) but I still found this book to be one of the most engaging and
delightful reads I’ve had since The
Stranger. My current position
on young adult literature is that it’s a concoction by publishers,
researchers, and capitalists to better train young people into
standardized market genres.
Mainly, it’s a way to infantilize young people’s taste and then
pigeon-hole them as they grow up to consume this or that. Writers, growing out of this cycle of
targeted consumption, write books that use young people as main
characters because childhood and/or adolescence is usually a time of
strong feeling. Publishers, in
turn, take these books and market them as the next big fad for wealthy
Western parents to purchase for their children. Ultimately, it hurts everyone to
further charachterize some books as children’s or young adult literature,
because there is a stigma that adults, in order to remain mature, cannot
enjoy or partake in young adult or children’s literature, but if the
definitive years of our youth really do provoke strong emotions when we
read about other young people fiction or non-fiction, then it’s only a
harm to adults, an alienation of them from their youth. With that, said HP#3 qualifies as
literature because I see mainly harm in the Young Adult qualifier. This book takes place in a school which
many in society associate with youth, but that’s not beneficial for a
free and democratic society if schools have a monopoly on education which
I believe they do in the US. If
education is for the young then the old will become Republicans and/or
fascists. Harry’s parents are
dead, murdered when he was a child.
This trauma and the love and consolation that Rowling offers the
reader through Dumbledore (p. 427) knows no age limit. Anyone who has lost a loved one can
benefit from this conversation. My
question then I why restrict any book to a certain age group? (Again, my answer is to better sell
it.) Dr. Seuss can teach us
lessons that Dostoevsky cannot and any attempt to sway me from any book
is more or less a form of censorship, and therefore unacceptable.
1. Given the novel’s primary
setting at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, representations and
evocations of teaching abound in HP#3. Trace out in the text some aspect
of pedagogy or teaching presented in the book, being
sure to take your own stance in relation to it.
- Obviously, Dumbledore is the
golden standard for educators and administrators, but the rest of the
teaching staff at Hogwarts tends to humanize those in the education
profession. Snape is a trite and
brutal character actively targeting students. Professor Trelawney is a bit
over-the-top and fatalistic, whereas Professor McGonagall sort of
balances the energy out and reveals to student’s the inconsistent and
reckless nature of the Divination instructor (109). Hagrid reveals to us the nature of an
educator under scrutiny and what a little bit of pushback from connected
parents can do to exciting and cutting-edge educators. Professor Lupin is the most intriguing
case at Hogwarts and the one I most identify with not because I am a
werewolf but because I understand the precarious identity I will bring
into a classroom being a social critic and activist. There are times where I must downplay
my political positions and criticisms of capitalism, the federal
government and even education in order to better prepare students against
the dark arts of propaganda, power, and privilege. I appreciate the diversity and flaws of
the educators at Hogwarts. All in
all, the teachers bring their personalities into their classroom and this
shapes their pedagogies. This is
true in HP#3 and in the world at large.
Often times we position teachers as simply teachers, but it’s
becoming obvious that no one can be neutral anymore in the US as
injustices, oppressions and inequalities pile up like bullet
manufacturing during war time.
Lupin takes the time to covertly teach Harry a challenging spell
in order to defend himself. The
battle against evils in this world do not require weapons training, but
that is entirely what happened in Harry Potter. The battle against evil in the world
today requires hyper-critical vigilance, exposure to social movements of
the past and present, and a willingness to create waves. Perhaps the standardized classrooms of
the US are not the place for training against tyrannical politics as the
traditional classroom is designed to mitigate any waves. Howard Zinn said it best when he noted
that the worst atrocities in the world have been as the result of
obedience. Even Dumbledore advises
students to break the Ministry of Magic’s laws in order to do the right
thing (395).
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