For a week now I’ve been posting True/False quizzes with Discussion Points here at Hogwarts Professor. I’m doing this for three reasons.
(1) I have been asked ever since Barnes and Noble University shut down its Harry Potter classroom to lead an online discussion of the books, chapter by chapter. I have resisted this because it would be a full time job that wouldn’t pay and because I had no idea of how it could be done on my simple WordPress weBlog. I simply don’t have the means to create threads and monitor chatter the way we could at BNU.
(2) I am busy re-casting and re-writing both Looking for God in Harry Potter and Unlocking Harry Potter: Five Keys for the Serious Reader in light of the revelations we had in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. This labor of love requires my re-reading the seven books and reflection on what they mean individually and post Deathly Hallows.
(3) Last year, beginning with the last chapters of Chamber of Secrets, I gave my Fourth classmen cadets at Valley Forge Military Academy an accountability True/False quiz every day that they could ace if they had done their two chapter (or more) reading assignment. I found these quizzes on my external hard drive and wondered what to do with this pile of effort built up over a year…
The answer: use these quizzes to go through the books with the HogPro All-Pros wanting a guided, shared tour of the books post Deathly Hallows that will encourage my re-reading and reflections on the series during my re-writes and simultaneously satisfy my longing to put last year’s work to good use. Until the end of Half-Blood Prince, when I will have to write chapter quizzes for Deathly Hallows and Philosopher’s Stone, it should be a short, edifying morning exercise in writing.
I hope you will join me in this review! I will try to post on other subjects once or twice a week as time allows and the Spirit moves me but this promises to be my daily effort for a few months. Who knows? Maybe these quizzes and discussions could be packaged as a parasite publication someday — a ‘someday’ well after Ms. Rowling’s charity book has been released!
John,
Whatever you need to do to get the 3rd edition of “Looking for God…” rewritten, I’m all for it! Don’t stress yourself out and enjoy the process. I don’t know how you get everything done, except by God’s grace…
…but isn’t that the best way, after all?
Thanks for the explanation, John. I’ve been reading through them and mentally answering, but haven’t had the time to do more with it than that. I had wondered why you started with Chambe of Secrets–but it makes sense to start with what is already done.
My only problem is that I’ve decided to re-read the series and I’m just nearing the end of Philosopher’s Stone. I’ve been struck by how many things are included in that first book that later show up in every other book. She did a fantastic job of setting up the series without giving away anything she didn’t want us to know at the beginning. As I did with my later books, I’ve made my notes in the margins and in the back on the book on the few blank pages. So I’ll have more to say when you get to PS. By the time I get to COS, you’ll have moved on, I suspect–LOL.
Pat