Teaching ‘Harry Potter’ With The New York Times

Center, Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Brothers Pictures; other film stills from Warner Brothers. Clockwise from top left, Tim Boyle/Bloomberg News; Hiroko Masuike for The New York Times; Kevin Kolczynsk/Reuters; Keith Bedford for The NYT; Getty Images; Chip Litherland for The New York Times Go to related article »

_________

Update, June 26, 2017:We now have an all-new edition of this post.

_________

“All was well.” Those are the final words in the last of the Harry Potter books. Since 2007 — when the seventh and final volume was published — we’ve known how the series ends. This Friday, legions of Harry Potter fans will witness his struggle to make all well again when “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2” opens across the universe.

…The series begins when Harry learns, at age 11, that he is not, by Muggle standards, normal. The beauty of the saga, in the search for a new normality, is discovering that what matters, among all the supernatural effects, are things that Muggles experience — happiness, peace, and good feeling among friends and family. J.K. Rowling’s wizardry has been to show us these truths in the most magical of places.

— From “Long Live Harry Potter,” an editorial by Verlyn Klinkenborg published on July 10, 2011

To celebrate this beloved series, we’ve collected everything “Harry” we could find, from Learning Network lesson plans to archival Times articles and multimedia to resources of all kinds, including parodies, from around the Web. And we’ll keep updating this page, because we don’t expect Pottermania to end just because the movies and books have.

We’ve gone through 13 years of Times archives to choose content for you, but if you’d like to see everything The Times has ever published on Harry Potter, and sort it by “oldest first” or “newest first,” visit the Harry Potter Times Topics page.

Meanwhile, if you teach these novels, please tell us below about what you do, how and why.


Harry Potter Fill-In

Can you supply the missing 25 words from the 1999 book review of “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone,” the first-ever mention of “Harry Potter” in The New York Times?

Learning Network Lesson Plans

On “Harry Potter”

Literary Wizardry: Re-Imagining a Day at School With a Dose of ‘Harry Potter’-style Magic (2000)

Making Magic: Incorporating Elements of ‘Harry Potter’ into Short Films (2001)

Get Set! Describing and Creating Sets for ‘Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban’ (2004)

The End? Sharing Predictions for the Latest ‘Harry Potter’ and Writing Your Own Book Endings (2007)

Related Themes, Characters and Literature:

Imagine That! Using Fantasy Themes to Create a Role-Playing Game (2000)

Characters’ Coming of Age: Developing Older Versions of Child or Teen Characters From Favorite Works of Literature (2003)

Kid Lit Crit: Learning About Genres of Children’s Literature (2004)

Left to Their Own (Literary) Devices: Writing Scenes for Stories Using Devices From Lemony Snicket (2006)

Get Down and Book-ie! Sharing Favorite Books Through Presentations and Posters (2006)

We’re Booked: Sharing All-Time Favorite Books With Peers and Writing Reviews (2007)

It’s the Same Old Story: Finding Elements in the ‘Twilight’ Series Common to Classic Literature (2008)

Out Loud: Practicing and Performing Oral Readings (2009)

Join the Club! Supporting Independent Reading With Book Groups (2010)

Print vs. Digital: Analyzing and Designing Book Apps for Works of Literature (2010)

10 Ways to Celebrate Banned Books Week

10 Ways to Use The New York Times for Teaching Literature

Film in the Classroom

Books, Readers and Teachers: A Wrap-Up

Learning Network Student Opinion Questions

All of the following are still open to comment by students 13 or older:

What Would Your Favorite Literary Characters Be Like if Their Stories Never Ended?

Are There Books That Should Be Banned From Your School Library?

What Are Your Favorite Children’s Books?

Do You Read E-Books?

Times Multimedia

2011 timeline | Harry Potter and the Billion-Dollar Franchise

2011 Reader Photographs | Harry Potter and the Devoted Fans

2011 slide show | Muggles Up Close

2010 video | Anatomy of a Scene: ‘Harry Potter’

2010 video | A Wizardly Getaway

2007 interactive | Harry Potter, Dissected

2011 slide show | The Sorcerers of Stagecraft

Times Reviews of the Harry Potter Books

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows” (Michiko Kakutani)

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Michiko Kakutani)

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (Michiko Kakutani)

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (John Leonard)

“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (Janet Maslin)

“Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” (Stephen King)

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (Gregory Maguire)

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (Christina Cho)

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (Michael Winerip)

Times Reviews of the Harry Potter Movies

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2″ (Manohla Dargis)

“Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1″ (A.O. Scott)

“Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” (Manohla Dargis)

“Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” (A.O. Scott)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Manohla Dargis)

“Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” (A.O. Scott)

“Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” (A.O. Scott)

“Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” (Elvis Mitchell)

Selected Times Articles

Why I Paid So Much (1999)

Don’t Give Us Little Wizards, the Anti-Potter Parents Cry (1999)

Books’ Hero Wins Young Minds; An Apprentice Wizard Rules the World (at Least Its Bookstores) (1999)

Wizard vs. Dragon: A Close Contest, but the Fire-Breather Wins (2000)

On Language: “Muggles” (2001)

Harry Potter’s Sorcerer Lived Here! He Really Did (2002)

The Split Verdict on Harry Potter (2003)

Young Potter Fans See Hero Maturing Along With Them (2003)

Harry Potter and the Half-Crazed Camper (2005)

Harry Is Bigger Than Ever, It Would Seem, and His Fans Are, Too (2005)

The Genetic Theory of Harry Potter (2005)

Potter Has Limited Effects on Reading Habits (2007)

Is Dumbledore Gay? Depends on Definitions of ‘Is’ and ‘Gay’ (2007)

Even After the Books, Potter Mania Rocks On (2008)

Harry Potter Is Their Peter Pan (2009)

The Woman Behind the Boy Wizard (2009)

Muggles Take Flight at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (2010)

Pottermore: What’s Next for Harry Potter (2011)

Harry Potter Sang Bass, Hermione Sang Tenor (2011)

Bittersweet Feeling Among Fans Awaiting Final ‘Harry Potter’ Film (2011)

The Fans Own the Magic (2011)

Selected Times Opinion Pieces

Is Harry Potter Evil? (1999)

The Dark Underbelly of Writing Well for Children (1999)

Harry Potter Minus a Certain Flavour (2000)

Harry Potter and the Childish Adult (2003)

Harry Potter and the Errant Golf Cart (2003)

Growing Up With a Dose of Magic (2005)

Five Ways to End Harry Potter (2007)

Taking the Magic Out of College (2009)

Long Live Harry Potter (2011)

Harry, I Hardly Knew Ye (2011)


Harry Potter Web Sites

J. K. Rowling Official Site

MuggleNet.com

The Leaky Cauldron

thesnitch.co.uk

veritaserum.com

immeritus.org

potterish.com

Harry Potter Lexicon

Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator

Scholastic’s Harry Potter site

Potter for the People

The Harry Potter Alliance


Selected Harry Potter Tributes and Parodies From Around the Web, Plus a Little J.K. Rowling

Harry Potter Fan Fiction

Figment | The Harry Potter Fan Fiction Contest

Fig Frags Tumblr | Harry Potter

The Summharry: A Parody Comic

Second City | Hogwarts: Which House Are You?

Guardian Contest Results | Write an account of the death of Albus Dumbledore in the style of another author

Harry Potter World Cup: Snape, Snape, Severus Snape!

Cake Wrecks | Sunday Sweets: Potter Mania

Instructables | Harry Potter DIY

Quiz Farm | Just How Obsessed Are You With Harry Potter?

Nerd Fighters | Harry Potter Nerds

Cap’n Wacky | Titles of Harry Potter Fanfics We’d Rather Not Read

Potter Puppet Pals

Harry Potter Like a g6 Parody (Like It’s Quidditch)

Harry Potter Friday Parody by The Hillywood Show

The Dungeon Bulletin Board

Harry Potter Look-Alikes

Tech Land | 10 Technologies We Want to Steal from Harry Potter

Vulture | Eight Ways to Spin Off the Harry Potter Movie Franchise

Welcome Back, Potter

TED Talks | J.K. Rowling: The fringe benefits of failure

J.K. Rowling’s Plot Spreadsheet for ‘Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix’


For a list of other novels for which we’ve made similar lists of resources, see 10 Ways to Use The New York Times for Teaching Literature.

Comments are no longer being accepted.

Wow great collection of information, thanks for sharing!
What was the very first article about the series every published?

Liz-CoolProducts

According to what I was able to find via a Times site search, for this newspaper it was the first book review in 1999. –Katherine

7/13/11
Hi, Bryan–
Thought that you might be able to integrate this in Economics. Hope you are having a good summer! See you next month.

Kris Helms

I have had great success using HP to teach Developmental Psychology, especially in discussions on Attachment Theory. Most college students today have grown up with the series and know the characters well, which makes the material very understandable and personal to them. They also get a great lesson in critical thinking, as they discover they’ve never thought about this side of the characters.

I am amazed at the depth and breadth of your collection!! It will be fascinating to explore. I guess my sister’s new book, The Riddles of Harry Potter, Secret Passages and Interpretive Quests, Palgrave, Macmillan, NY hasn’t surfaced yet. I hope you read it, too!

May be coming soon, Harry Potter 8 //hpnext.com/
It is possible to influence the process of creating of saga about Harry Potter

I found a wonderful curriculum for Harry Potter that a group has put together. I just posted it yesterday on my blog.

//homesteadingpaganstyle-penny.blogspot.com/