These examples illustrate how an interesting story may lead to
a topic.
Harry-Mania
The Harry Potter book series by British author J. K. Rowling has
earned devoted fans worldwide. The title character is a young,
orphaned wizard who experiences a series of adventures at Hogwart’s
School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and must confront his nemisis,
Lord Valdemort. The first five books have sold over 103 million
copies globally, and the initial print run of the sixth book, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was an astonishing
10.8 million copies. The series has been published in 75 countries
and translated into 54 languages, including Hebrew, Gaelic, Hindi,
and Bulgarian.
Thinking Questions: When many lament the decline of reading,
what is it about the Harry Potter books that captured imaginations
all over the world? What other books or authors have earned similarly
devoted fans, and why? What makes a story universal, regardless
of its origins or the language in which you read it? What does
the popularity of a book say about the society in which it was
written? What makes a story endure over time to become a “classic”?
Other Possible Categories: Arts & Entertainment; Philosophy,
Religion & Mythology; Social Sciences & Culture
Writing Systems Around the World
Many languages have an alphabet of 20-50 letters that can be combined
to create words. Letters are symbols that represent the individual
sounds of a language. The letters in a word must be read together
in order to be understood as a concept. One language that does
not use an alphabet is Chinese. Individual Chinese characters
represent concepts, not sounds. For example, two different Chinese
characters could have the same sound, but different meanings.
In order to read a Chinese newspaper, a person should know a minimum
of 3,000 characters. Although only about 6,000 characters are
used in common everyday language, the largest dictionaries contain
40,000 to 50,000 characters! In addition, there are two separate
forms of Chinese characters. Traditional Chinese characters are
mainly used in Taiwan and Hong Kong, while simplified Chinese
characters, officially issued by the Chinese government in the
1950s, are used in mainland China and Singapore.
Thinking Questions: What other writings systems are used by people around
the world? What are the origins of a particular writing system?
What are the commonalities between different writing systems?
Other Possible Categories: Social Sciences & Culture
Citations:
- Benson, Heidi. “MIDNIGHT BOOK RELEASE
There’s Something About ‘Harry.’” San
Francisco Chronicle. 14 Jul. 2005. <http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?
f=/c/a/2005/07/14/MNGR7DNPPE1.DTL&hw=harry+potter&sn=002&sc=856>.
- “Harry Potter.” Wikipedia. 14
Jul. 2005.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Potter#Accusations_of_
promoting_witchcraft>.
- Galambos, Imre. “The Chinese Alphabet:
Where is it?” Logoi.com. 2000. 26 Jul. 2004 <http://www.logoi.com/notes/chinese_alphabet.html>.
- Shan, Jun. “The Basics About Chinese
Characters.” About.com. 26 Aug. 2004
<http://chineseculture.about.com/library/symbol/blccbasics.htm>.
- “Simplified Chinese Character.”
Wikipedia. 13 Aug. 2004. 26 Aug. 2004 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simplified_Chinese>.
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