Week 4 - Legacy

[Sky Alton]

The festival has gone very well. The last panel has just finished and you’re allowing yourself to relax over a large Butterbeer at the bar of the Three Broomsticks. Just as you wonder if you could sneak off for an early night, the mayor sidles up to you and begins gabbling about a legacy for the festival. These events and sales figures are all well and good but what good will it do his community in the long term?

It seems that your final job is to make sure that the festival has a lasting impact on fostering a love of reading in the wizarding community. In the spirit of that, you decide to devise a fun and interactive project to get Hogwarts students reading for pleasure.

Things to consider:
-A theme
-How it will work
-Why you think it will appeal to Hogwarts students
-Above all, this should be fun enough to convince students that reading isn’t just for school

To earn 10 points, please send us a proposal of 150 words or more for your new bookish programme. We’ll be sharing all the ideas we receive in this thread after the deadline; if you’d rather we didn’t post yours publicly, just let us know in your email.

Send all proposals to hol.bookclub @ gmail.com (without the spaces) with the subject ‘Week 4-Legacy-HOL ID’ by 26th November, 11.59 PM HOL-time. Remember to include your HOL name, ID and house in the body of your email.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Submissions have been received from:

Bull J. Johnson
Gail Allen
Maxim Trevelyan
Polaris Black
Prof. Gustavo Flores
Shiloh Adler
Sirius Fudge

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Bull J. Johnson submitted:

Maybe we should have something like a read through the alphabet where people have to read a book starting with each letter a through z. They would also have to write a hundred words for each book. Any book should be allowed (even kids books ) as long as each book starts with each level. The prize for the first person done with their list could be tickets to the next Quidditch Championship Finals. The second person done would get one hundred galleons. The third would get fifty galleons, and the fourth and last person would get ten galleons and a scarf with letters on it. Anyone else would also get a scarf and some rulers with alphabet stencils.

The theme would be of course the alphabet, because you couldn't read a book nor anything else without the alphabet.

I think that this would interest students, because it would be open for all people since they can read kid books if they wanted to as long as they read, and isn't that what matters.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Gail Allen submitted:

Reading books is often a lonely experience, which to new and inexperienced readers can also seem a dry affair because you have to imagine everything yourself and create the mental imagery, which can be difficult if you're not practiced at it.

Therefore we will create a book club where all the students participating will pick a book and then meet regularly to enter the books they're reading. Through magic they will be transported into the book they're reading, and either simply observe and be able to walk around inside the world and see, hear, taste, smell and feel everything for themselves, or if they choose, they can use a slightly different spell to take over the role of one of the characters and experience the action in the book first hand. To do this safely though (and at all, since the magic will only work if the mind already knows what to expect) they must first have read the corresponding parts of the book. I think this would greatly appeal to Hogwarts students, since it both involves magic and allows them to interact with books.
And hopefully by experiencing first the written description and then seeing it for real, they will improve their abilities to create mental images, and be more avid readers for it.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Maxim Trevelyan submitted:

Theme of the legacy project will go hand in hand with the theme of Hogsmeade Literary Festival. While the project itself will not be limited to Muggles’ understanding of magic, such as the Festival had been, it will put great emphasis on Muggle works of literature. For better understanding of the material (for those who do not take Muggle Studies or are Muggleborn), fantasy and older literature is appreciated, but not mandatory.

The project itself is pretty straightforward. Anyone at Hogwarts, who frequently partakes in Muggle literature, will have a window of time to propose one, or more, books that will be read during the project. Out of all the books suggested, professors (or other people in charge of the project) will choose appropriate books, but still leave a lot of them choose from. It is imperative that books are not strictly assigned, as we want students to choose the books themselves based on their taste in genre.

After the students read the books they have chosen, they will have the option to do something creative with the story. They can either write a story based in the universe, write a poem, make a choose your own adventure, a podcast to be broadcast on WWW or, to make it more interesting, even make something with Muggle technology, such as a ‘movie’ trailer or anything else to their creative heart’s desire.

I think it will appeal to the Hogwarts students, because it will not be mandatory to do, though one might get some extra credit on Muggle Studies or in any other class, if they appropriately connect the subject to it. So there will be some incentive for them to participate, but not restrictive so they will not view it as homework. It will also appeal to their curiosity about Muggles, while also letting them know just what makes Muggles tick.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Polaris Black submitted:

The theme of the project is a Festival Book Hunt. Fortunately, Hermione Granger-Weasley is on board. Since she almost never met a book she didn’t like, she was quick to volunteer her services.

She went to Flourish and Blotts and purchased several copies of award winning books that were introduced at the festival. She then proceeded to hide the books in various locations in and about Hogsmeade. Students who were lucky enough to find the books could keep them as long as it took to read them. When they were finished, they too would hide the books for other students to find and read.

The project was very successful. Hermione Granger-Weasley was surprised at just how many students actually showed up to discuss the books at a book club meeting she hosted at the Three Broomsticks. In addition to some lively discussions, she learned that the students who were not old enough to visit Hogsmeade also wanted to participate in the fun.

So we obtained permission from Headmistress Minerva McGonagall to hide books in various locations in and about Hogwarts as well. Hermione Granger-Weasley is looking forward to hosting many more book club meetings in the Great Hall and the Three Broomsticks!

Note: Any similarities to Emma Watson is purely intentional!

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Prof. Gustavo Flores submitted:

The name of the proposal is called “PICTURE THAT BOOK!” This proposal is not limited to just one theme because not all students like the same genres, subjects, readings, or themes, and since this proposal wants to be inclusive, it wants as many students to participate. But what this proposal has in common is MAGICAL PICTURES!

The way this proposal will work is the following: Students will work in teams according to their house and year, and they will agree on choosing a book. Once they have chosen it, they will have to read it and then will have to represent that book through magical pictures! It will be fun because students should be very creative and think about their costumes, settings, and how to portray a book in series of pictures. Once they have the pictures, they have to place it in a creative album, and once they finish with one book, they should start with another one.

I think it will appeal students because it will be a way to be with their friends, working on a fun project, and putting their creative minds to work.

In order to motivate students more, I figured that if Hogwarts had a House Cup, and a Quidditch Cup, then it could also have a Literary Cup! The winners would be the ones who produce the most albums (that represent all the books they read through the school year), along with how creative the pictures and albums are. It will be a honor to win the Literary Cup! Plus, every new album created would give their house points to win the House Cup! It’s win-win!

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Shiloh Adlar submitted:

I think it would be a great idea to implement a sort of book club at Hogwarts. Reading can sometimes be difficult to get students interested in when they read so much for their classes. Students like to be actively doing something fun. So what I have devised is a club more similar to a drama club but also heavily involved with books. For this club, the students will group read a book by acting it out. Each student involved will pick a character to play and speak that character's line. There will also be a narrator to read the parts that are not dialogue. This can be done in front of other club members so they get the benefit of hearing the book read out loud while seeing it acted out live.

I think this sort of thing will appeal to Hogwarts students because it gives them a chance to do something different. Imagine bringing a book to life by actually using magic that's used in the books (within reason of course). We don't want anyone casting any unforgiveables around here. It could also turn into a sort of touring club. Club members could go to Hogsmeade and read to the patrons of the Three Broomsticks. It could turn into a performance night and they could get the community involved.

This will be a great legacy left behind by this wonderful Hogsmeade Literary Festival.

[Prof. Amy Lupin]

Sirius Fudge submitted:

The legacy project that I will propose is the "Country of the Month" project. Each month, a country will be picked from a jar filled with parchments rolled containing names of countries. There will be a Cultural Week wherein everyone is to show something, any thing, from that specific country of the month. It could be a fruit from the country, or a dance, or an artifact, whatever that represents the chosen country.

A book will then be chosen for the monthly discussion. The Book Week will be the next event of the monthly project wherein a book written by an author coming from that country or a book where the setting is that of the chosen country. Discussions will be shared by and for everyone, focusing on the similarities and differences of the chosen country and that of UK or US.

I think it will appeal to the students because it will be new to them. They will be introduced to a new world, a more dangerous world. It will be interesting to them since they have not experienced them yet. Fun things can also be introduced in the program, depending on the chosen country, such as a ride on a carpet on Asian countries, or wizarding technology discussion when it comes to US books, and more examples.