A levels dumbing down? Surely not.
April 28th, 2008 by Vanessa
The daily book trade round-up email arrived this morning bearing this news. I’m all for having a wide range of literature as part of the A level English Literature but including Harry Potter? What on earth? As educationalist Alan Smithers says of the decision by the largest of the UK’s exam boards to add HP as a set text: “I don’t think Harry Potter is appropriate as a set text; I don’t see how it fits in with that. It may be an enjoyable read but I don’t think we are just trying to keep people occupied.” Part of the students’ study of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone will include writing their own story based on it – so fan fiction is now seen as suitable for A level study? I could just about accept it being adopted as part of the GCSE syllabus in order to stimulate the interest of 14 year olds but we’re constantly told that A levels are the “Gold Standard”.
By the way, the story linked to is in the Daily Mail (it was that or The Mirror – so the lesser of two evils) and the comments are a hoot. One classic is: “Quite right, that The Harry Potter novels are recognised. They are the great works of Shakespeare of our time”. Yes. Quite. So comparable in quality to King Lear or Hamlet.
And before anyone accuses me of being unfair, I am perfectly willing to accept that some children have started reading because of HP and will admit that Joanne Rowling is a great storyteller. It is great to get children in the shop whose parents tell me that they won’t read anything apart for Harry Potter books and to be able to introduce them to writers such as Alan Garner, Susan Cooper and our own Victoria Walker and have them come back to tell me how much they enjoyed them and see them really start to enjoy reading.
However, I cannot accept that it is literature suitable to be studied at A level and fear that it won’t be long before A level Eng Lit has the same credibility as Media Studies.
I’ve come to the conclusion that my English A-Level, gained a very long time ago, would be the equivalent of some English degrees today. We did Chaucer in the original Middle English. How can that compare on an intellectual level with what you describe as HP fanfic?
We did Chaucer too! The trouble is if you only do about 10 books for A level Eng Lit, and that is your pre-degree grounding, and then one is taken up by one of the Harry Potters you are losing 10% of your close reading of ‘classics’ prior to being hit with a degree level curriculum. I did (in 1991) 2 Chaucer, 2 Shakespeare, 2 books of poetry (1 modern, 1 not), 2 novels (likewise) and 2 plays, as well as the dreaded ‘unseen’ paper. This is a good starting point. HP, however enjoyable, is not. In fact I think that in order to write sensibly about Potter you probably need to be a post-grad: the easier the read, the harder it is to make truly original points. I am all for MAs in Children’s Literature, but not HP for A level study.
Okay everybody, calm down, calm down…
It’s only on English Lit & Lang (as Vanessa points out), is only on one unit and it has to be compared to/with Alice in Wonderland (which makes sense) and there are a number of other options to chose from. I suppose there was a time when Alice in Wonderland would have been considered unworthy…
Having said all of this, I think I’ll stick to teaching English Lit…
I’m all for the creative aspect of this Unit by the way(there is something similar on Lit A). It will encourage Creative Writing in older students which can only be a good thing.
If HP had to be compared with Lord of the Rings then perhaps?
At least you are better off than we are – here they study film posters and comic books and a few other such examples of outstanding literature at Matriculation level (rather like A level).
You are all missing the point somewhat. If you were discussing a text that would be studied for AS Literature then fair enough. However, Harry Potter is being used as part of a comparative Language/ Literature unit where students use linguistic and literary analysis skills to identify how children’s literature has changed over time. Therefore harking back to a time when everyone studied Chaucer is somewhat irrelevant. The Lang/ Lit A Level has only existed for a few years. IT ISN’T LITERATURE A LEVEL! It allows students to study a wide range of texts including Shakespeare and gives them scope to produce their own original texts.
Newspaper’s always miss out facts to exxagurate things, you should realise.
For the coursework we have to compare and contrast a section of both Harry Potter and Alice in Wonderland, with the theme fantasy, and how the author has used linguistic features.
I believe this is harder than comparing, for example Dickens, as they are modern texts with less obvious linguistic features. We have to talk about how the author deals with fantasy, not about the plots themselves.
And – another thing which the newspapers have convieniently ignored – Chaucer and Shakespeare are studied in the same A-level.