Activities Inspired by Harry Potter

Posted by Brian McCabe, brian@avko.org

Today, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince opens in theatres everywhere. Regardless of your opinions of the films or books, it's undeniable what they have done to re-instill a love of reading in our nation's kids. In the spirit of Harry Potter, I'd like to propose a few summer activities for reading and language arts:

The Importance of Names:
One of the great things about the Harry Potter series is the ubiquitous presence of names that have some deeper significance or reference: Argus Filch, Minerva McGonagall, etc. See these sites for more information on the names and possible references:

• Harry Potter names
• What's in a Name? - very detailed
• Veritaserum
• Resource Room Word Parts Exercises
  

Challenge your students to pay attention to names in the other books, movies, and pop culture they take in. Names carry a lot of meaning and can be in homage to many things, and can give rich, though subtle, contour to an oeuvre.

Summer Reading Contests:
Summer is traditionally a time for lots of pleasure reading. Challenge your students to read as much as they can over the summer months. You may want to have a reward system for them. Or, you can have them set their own goals. Or, you can contact your local library or school district to see what kinds of competitions they have in place for the students.

Mythology and Personification:
Throughout the Harry Potter series, many mythological creatures and characters are referred to. We have werewolves, giants, vampires, references to Minerva and Argus, etc. How about giving a lesson on the popular myths (Greco-Roman, Norse, Native American, fables, fairy tales) that are pervasive in our culture? Knowledge of these myths is important for the understanding of much classical literature as they are referred to time and time again.

Manytimes, mythological characters are the personified forms of inanimate objects or abstractions (love, war, hearth, wind, fate, etc.) It's interesting to see how different cultures have personified these different abstractions. You can challenge your student to compare various abstractions across different cultures' mythology or even create their own mythological characters personifying an abstraction of their choice. These can make great art projects or creative writing projects. You can also challenge your students to think of a "creation myth" for some object, event, place, etc. This is especially common in the Native American mythologies (e.g., the creation of the Sleeping Bear dunes in Michigan).

• Mythology on Wikipedia - Scroll down to the "Lists" section.
• D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths
• More Native American Mythology
  

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Getting Your Kids Interested in Current Events

Posted by Brian McCabe, Brian@avko.org

- Make a collage or découpage old maps onto the wall, a table, or a poster board.

See AVKO's previous post on collage or découpage (with words) for information on how to do these crafts.

If your students are surrounded by the images of countries, cities, and cultures -- and learn about them -- they will be more interested in learning more about them in the future. You can find maps in old issues of National Geographic (you can always find back issues at used bookstores, estate sales, antique stores, etc.).

- Take advantage of the news sites for kids and adolescents. Many of them have worksheets you can use for your homeschooling as well.

Check out:

Nick News
Channel One
Scholastic News Online
Time for Kids

- Teach your kids how to read the newspaper

About.com has a nice introduction to newspaper terms that will help in navigating the newspaper for the first time. Explain how there is a difference in perceived importance of the articles based on their placement in the paper. What's on the first page? Are there big pictures? How much space is devoted to the piece?

Explain the difference between news articles, editorials, letters to the editor, and op-eds. Explain bias. You may want to do some high order thinking exercises with your students in helping them parse out what in a piece is biased, how its biased, and what you may be able to infer about the author based on the slant that is taken in a piece.

Use the political cartoons as additional exercises in abstract thought and discussion starters.

- Assign news reviews at least once a week

Have your students write a little recap of a news article at least once a week. You can choose to assign a topic (foreign affairs, politics, op-ed, environment, etc.) or have it be a free for all of what interests them.

- Introduce the Fake News sources, if you wish, to make the news more fun. Obviously, there may be more discretion needed here to decide what is suitable for your individual setting / student. However, political satire and "fake news" programs are extremely popular in today's popular culture. You may decide to take a more intellectual / analytical approach with these and use clips or excerpts as examples of satire, parsing out what is sarcastic (or sardonic), etc.

The Onion
The Daily Show
The Colbert Report
Saturday Night Live's Weekend Update
Chocolate News

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Brain Rules

Posted by Brian McCabe, Brian@avko.org

Brain Rules, a new book, extolls the essence of what AVKO's philosophy is all about with psychological and biological research evidence.

AVKO recommends that you check out this wonderful and readable book about how we think, how we best learn, and what doesn't work in our present educational and professional systems for our own brains.

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Inspirational Quotes About Success and Literacy

Here is a collection of some of the most recent, great quotes I've come across -- for your inspiration, encouragement, or bit of whimsy for today :) These (and other pithy) quotes can also be used for Readings for Comprehension.

• "The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as that between lightning and the lightning bug. "-Twain
• "Cut out all those exclamation marks. An exclamation mark is like laughing at your own joke." -F. Scott Fitzgerald
• "A book is like a garden carried in the pocket." -Chinese Proverb
• "The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can't read them." -Mark Twain
• "A room without books is like a body without soul." -Cicero
• "The biggest block to any man's success is in his head." -Anonymous
• "Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." -Will Rogers
• "Don't agonize. Organize." - Florynce R. Kennedy
• "To escape criticism--do nothing, say nothing, be nothing." -Elbert Hubbard
• "Beaten paths are for beaten men." -Eric Johnston
• "The greatest pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do." -Walter Bagehot
• "The man who wins may have been counted out several times, but he didn't hear the referee." -H.E. Jansen
• "All glory comes from daring to begin." -Eugene F. Ware
• "To err is human, but when the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're overdoing it." -J. Jenkins

Do you have any great quotes that you want to share? Send 'em on.

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Banned Books

Books are banned and censored for many reasons -- language, themes, anti-religious content, content seen as immoral, etc. For whatever reasons a book is banned, it's interesting to see which books make the lists of most popularly banned books. Many of these books are considered great works of art and the highest form of literature by the academic and arts community at large. Some of them are much less well-known.

In the educational setting, controversy provides a particularly useful launching off point for discussion of ethics and morality, discussions about censorship, and discussions of the themes that are contentious.

Learn more about Banned Books from the American Library Association's website devoted to them. In fact, there is a Banned Books Week in September.

View the list of most frequently banned books from 2000-2007 (PDF)

We welcome your discussion as to particular books you think don't belong on the list, books you were surprised to not see on the list, or anything else related to banned books.

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Lessons from the movie "The Reader"

I recently watched the movie "The Reader" with Ralph Fiennes and Kate Winslet. Though this movie (rated R) is not suitable for all audiences, and may shock the sensibilities of some (due to its graphic sex scenes), it has some powerful messages about literacy amid the backdrop of the Second World War. There are also really powerful undertones of pride, shame, ignorance, and intent to commit crimes (mens rea).
Kate Winslet's character, Hanna, was a factory worker who became a Secret Service (SS) agent and was in fact one of those who would decide who died and who didn't. After the war, she carried on with her life as a worker on the trolley. She met up with the young Michael and began a love affair. He would read to her the books that he was studying in school before their trysts. Hanna disappeared and Michael carried on with his life, entering law school. On a law school field trip, they attend the war crimes trials for SS agents, of which one on trial is Hanna. Hanna gets scapegoated as the leader of the six SS agents because she was ignorant as to what was going on and wasn't really aware of the implications of her actions. In fact, we find out, she was illiterate and could possibly have written the documents and orders that they claim she did. Instead of submitting to a handwriting analysis and thereby exposing her illiteracy, she confessed falsely to all that they had accused her of. She was sentenced to life in jail.

Though everyday cases of discrimination and shame for illiteracy are admittedly less dramatic, much pain could be avoided if we all took steps to get involved, help our nation's children learn to read, and help those who have fallen through the cracks.

Get involved in the fight against illiteracy and dyslexia today!

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