Harry Potter and the Value of Literary Criticism

[heidi.h.tandy.c92 at alumni.upenn.edu]

No: HPFGUIDX 11884

(aka Harry Potter For Grown High Schoolers)

http://www.star-
telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:AOLNEWS5/1:AOLNEWS50207101.html
It's an article about the inclusion of SS in the Texas University 
Interscholastic League, among their 2001 reading selections for high 
school literary criticism competition.

"I thought, `Harry Potter is getting a lot of attention, it has the 
potential to be a classic, so for once, why don't we choose something 
not written by a dead person?' " said Fred Tarpley, a professor of 
literature at Texas A&M-Commerce who is the contest director.

<SNIP>
Literary criticism is not mandatory for high-school students. Like 
band or volleyball, it is an extracurricular activity, and, as in 
better-known UIL contests, a student can win a state title. But in 
literary criticism competition, students take tests and write essays 
analyzing the work they have read.

And two divergent persepctives:
A sampling of professors at the University of Texas, Texas A&M 
University and Rice University considered the books 
beneath "challenging" literature. They doubted that they would ever 
show up in a college class.

Lisa Salyer, an English teacher at Carroll High School in Southlake, 
worried that the UIL had lowered the competition's standards.

"But then I thought, `Why not?' " Salyer said. "It's not old-school. 
It's never going to be a high school classic. But I don't have a 
problem with it. For one thing, you can analyze a book, even a 
simplistic book, to the highest level of cognition.