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Thinking Activity Harry Potter : Worksheet

 What is webQuest ?

WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which students get all information from the web. Teachers provide their students with the documents that include links to websites to use the information, according to the activity. 


The purpose of using WebQuest is to encourage students to use information rather than gathering it and participate in meaningful classroom discussions. WebQuest supports critical thinking through analyzing, creating, and evaluating.


Web quest: Harry Potter (Students’ Handout)


 Wwyp, carry out following tasks with the help of internet search engines:


1)      Find at least three good web resources for the following topic/s.


2)      Find key arguments for the discourse on the given topic/s 


3)      Note down illustrations from Harry Potter for the arguments



Topics for web quest:


Think critically and develop an argument on any three of the following topics.


1 ) Feminist reading of Harmione’s character in Harry Potter: How do the character portrayal of Harmione and other female characters support feminist discourse?


Portrayal of female characters in the Harry Potter series is very significant. J.K Rowling has minutely observed and portrayed real life characters. There are so many female characters in the series which are different from each other. Like some are strong, some are soft, girlish, fearful.


Here are some links...


https://www.womensweb.in/2016/07/feminism-in-harry-potter-books-or-lack-of-it/


Editor of women's web. Women's web. 29 July 2016. 2018


https://feminisminharrypotter.weebly.com/hermione-granger.html


https://hp-essays.livejournal.com/115051.html


Arguments :


# Hermione is Not Static


illustration : Hermione is one of the main female characters of the Harry Potter series. She is intelligent, fierce and a loyal friend The portrayal of her character is not static in all series. The character is changing from very beginning to the end. Like in the first part most of the tasks were done by Harry only and she remains behind the wall. 


# Other female characters like Professor Mcgonagall :


 The strict but fair teacher, Molly Weasley the caring yet brave mother, Ginny Weasley for transforming from a shy little girl to a fearless warrior etc scattered throughout the series.

The author's context and intentions are completely irrelevant and are considered only to the extent to which they confirm the negative position of women within the patriarchal structure of power.


# Hermione can be seen as another main character in the series.


Illustration : Researcher Michele Fry states that “readers can see Hermione not only as a strong female character, an essential part of Harry's life, but also as a feminist protagonist in her own right”.


 # Throughout Harry Potter “we see Hermione the giggler, Hermione the helpful and capable, Hermione the emotionally expressive, and Hermione the clever”


Illustration : Meredith Cherland states that Hermione is depicted in many different ways, and this shows that all of these distinctive attributes put together make her a strong female, because she can be all of these things without losing herself.


2 ) Children’s Literature and Harry Potter: How far does J K Rowling transcends the canonical confines of children’s literature and claims the heights of ‘real’ literature?


https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/17467335


Mattson, Christina Phillips. 2015. Children's Literature Grows Up. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.


https://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/tel-02014024


Eleonore Cartellier-Veuillen. À travers le monde-miroir de Harry Potter : littérature, langage et

histoire. Littérature. Université Grenoble Alpes, 2018. English. FFN : 2018 GREAL019ff. fftel-

02014024ff


https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/college-inc/post/is-harry-potter-classic-childrens-literature/2011/07/16/gIQA0RS1HI_blog.html


Vise, Daniel de. Is Harry Potter classic children’s literature? 16 july 2011.


Arguments : 


# children’s narratives that are equally complex, multifaceted, and worthy of the same kind of academic inquiry that is afforded to adult literature. 


Illustration : J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels for example, critical inquiry, has never enjoyed the same kind of intellectual attention as adult literature because children’s literature has not been considered to be serious literature or “high art.”


Children’s Literature Grows Up A new kind of contemporary children’s fiction is a culmination of two traditions : the tradition of the readerly children’s book and the tradition of the writerly adult novel. These new fictions display the realism and seriousness of purpose which have become the adult novel’s defining features. 


# children’s

literature and classical literature. 


Illustration : The authors of the canon of children’s literature such as Lewis Carroll or Roald Dahl say that Harry Potter books to be

studied in the same light as classical literature. In order to categorize Harry Potter as a

“classic” or as a “masterpiece”  In this thesis I will argue that children’s literature is not “simple, easy,

or not very valuable” but that it is literature in its own right and that it can be judged by the

same literary criteria as literature written for adults. 


# Children's literature we found a quest of Hero, Hero rescuing his princess, Magic, fantasy, happy ending, good vs evil, ideal hero etc. 


Illustration : Harry Potter series does not fall under the classic children literature because of its deep moral and philosophical lessons, political meaning.


"When you first start reading the books, they're just kids. But as she(JK Rowling) develops them through happy and sad moments, they feel more and more real," says Marine Davidson.


3 ) The theme of Love and Death: How does Harry Potter make use of the age old theme of Love of the dead as well as living as protecting armour? How does Harry Potter deal with the concept of Death as something inevitable?


https://www.hp-lexicon.org/2006/04/03/love-and-death-in-harry-potter/

Spilsbury, Paul. Love and Death in Harry Potter. 3 april 2006. 


https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/37736746


Park, Johannah Katherine, Master of Death: Love and Spirituality in the Harry Potter Series. November 2017.


https://cupola.gettysburg.edu/student_scholarship/587


Brown, Harrison D., "Harry Potter and the Meaning of Death" (2017). Student Publications. 587.



Arguments :


# There is the death of Harry Potter's parents by Voldemort, after which the revenge motive came in the mind of Harry. From the very beginning he is in search of finding the truth and in search of Voldemort. He wants to destroy him and that is possible only if he destroyed all the horcruxes. In between this process of destruction, many innocent people die. 


# Theme of love is also going parallel. 


From the very beginning we can see the interest of Ron and Hermione, the way he get jealous with the partner of Hermione in Ball party clears the illusion that Ron hates Hermione. In Spite of it, he loves her a lot. Harry steps towards his adulthood then he develops a strange affection for Cho. Later on Ginny and Harry becomes love birds. In this way Death and love theme is significant in Potter series.


# She shows the reader how the lines between life and death are blurred. 


Illustration : 

J k. Rowling presents the reader with a clear idea about what happens to the soul after death: morally good souls have a chance to go on to another space after death, while souls mutilated by evil simply cease to be. 


 "Death is not something to be feared, but rather we should fear a life lived without love."


Here is my Activity Table on the Harry Potter series


"Click here to visit my Activity Table"


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