Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Kelsey Jo: Step 3

Butler, Rebecca P. “The Literature Continuum: The Harry Potter Phenomenon.” School Libraries Worldwide 9:1 (2003): 64-77. LISTA. EBSCOHost. U of Wisconsin-Madison Libs., Madison, WI. 24 Oct 2008 .
This article tells the story of a professor at Northern Illinois University who observed (and participated in) the Harry Potter craze and saw a need to construct a course that would teach graduate students how to incorporate the series into educational settings. The course had several important elements to help enhance a general reading community: 1. It discussed the “evolution of the Harry Potter literature from children’s work to young adult;” 2. It encouraged the development of interactive activities that could be used in a classroom or media center setting; and 3. It complied a bibliography of suggested reading materials to encourage interested readers to explore other titles and authors. The mere fact that Butler recognized a need for such a course speaks volumes about the influence of Harry on our intellectual community.

Cart, Michael. “Teens and the Future of Reading.” American Libraries 38:9 (2007): 52-54. LISTA. EBSCOHost. U of Wisconsin-Madison Libs., Madison, WI. 24 Oct 2008 .
Cart discusses the supposed decline in young adult reading. He offers statistics from various studies that support this thesis, but also suggests this crisis in not as dire as the statistics suggest. Cart suggests that the surveyors are not including alternative reading materials in their studies. A portion of the article is devoted to discussing the “Harry Potter Effect,” defined as “getting kids to read for pleasure.” A survey by Yankelovitch-Scholastic is discussed as well. It focused on reading habits of children and young adults. Generally Cart and others cited in the article felt Harry Potter has had an impact on the reading habits of young adults.

Yuankai, Tang. “Appetite for Reading.” Beijing Review 50:23 (2007): 26-28. Academic Search. EBSCOHost. U of Wisconsin-Madison Libs., Madison, WI. 24 Oct 2008 .
Yuankai reports on the effects of Harry Potter on the Chinese children’s literature market. Also, this article explains how Harry Potter influenced Bian Jinyang to write The Magic Violin at the age of nine, another widely read title. Yuankai concludes with a commentary on the tendency of Chinese parents to forbid reading for entertainment in favor of educational reading. Uin Wenjun states that this “pragmatic” approach squelches the imaginations of young people, a quality encouraged by the Harry Potter series.

2 comments:

Karly said...
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Karly said...

Everything looks good to me. Your annotations give a clear overview of the content of each article. I guess our citations differ in the fact that I, as you mentioned earlier, did not abbreviate the names of the databases. Also, I noticed that I underlined items that you had italicized, but I know that is okay according to MLA citation standards.