English EE

[zaid93]

i am considering writing my ee on the harry potter series by j,k rowling. I need ideas of a question to analyse in my ee...

any suggestions??

[sweetnsimple786]

Once you come up with some ideas, we can help you. Have a look at this thread. It'll help you get the most help here. =)

Also, Harry Potter has been done a lot. You want to think of a somewhat original topic or spin for your EE. Are you picking the book because it seems easy or because you're passionate about it?

[idIB]

I agree with sweetnsimple786. The Harry Potter series seems to be very over done and since it is so long, I think you find it very hard to stay on topic within the word limits. I did my EE on the second book in the Alice in Wonderland series which is only around 100 pages long, and I still found so much to talk about that I was bordering the maximum word limit. If you do choose the Harry Potter series, I suggest you choose a very specific topic and focus on only one or two books, or a few parallel/necessary scenes.

[DeStijl]

If you read the IBO guide for extended essays, you'll realise that 2 of the 36 possible marks are devoted to the student choosing a focused research question. Therefore, it's your responsibility to at least come up with some ideas, from which we can help you decide.

Furthermore, I agree with the above posters...Harry Potter is a road frequently traveled when it comes to the EE. As the writer, it's your job to maintain the interest of your reader - and considering some marks are alloted for holistic enjoyment, you're definitely going to want to rope them in. So if you REALLY want to do HP, I highly suggest you think outside the box so that it's not "just another Harry Potter EE." Try and do some brainstorming on your own, and then we can step in and help you narrow it down rationally.

[zaid93]

If you read the IBO guide for extended essays, you'll realise that 2 of the 36 possible marks are devoted to the student choosing a focused research question. Therefore, it's your responsibility to at least come up with some ideas, from which we can help you decide.

Furthermore, I agree with the above posters...Harry Potter is a road frequently traveled when it comes to the EE. As the writer, it's your job to maintain the interest of your reader - and considering some marks are alloted for holistic enjoyment, you're definitely going to want to rope them in. So if you REALLY want to do HP, I highly suggest you think outside the box so that it's not "just another Harry Potter EE." Try and do some brainstorming on your own, and then we can step in and help you narrow it down rationally.

the thing is that im already at liek 700 words but thats just inrodtroducing....i dunno wether to talk about it in a religious standpoint, or talk about the names of character adn what they represent??

[Ruan Chun Xian]

You wrote a 700 word intro without knowing what your EE is about?!

The introduction usually is the last thing you should write in an essay, or at least it should be written in rough but edited last because it's supposed cover the scope of the essay. You haven't written the essay - you can't write the intro fully yet.

Apparently by now HP is the "cliched" thing. How odd and I feel old. When I wrote my EE, HP was a novel idea.

You have to remember, this is a literature essay. If you want to talk about religion, you're going to have to look at religious themes or symbols or images throughout the text and see what impact or effect they have on the text as a whole. You can't try to pick up religious themes from the text just for the sake of listing them. You have to explain the literary significance of it.

HP might seem like a simple premise but honestly it's not. It's a series of seven books, and there are just so much material. Each book has a theme of its own and then there are over-arching themes and images. You will have to be very specific regarding what you want to explore.

About your names idea - while I'm sure Rowling didn't choose characters' names arbitrarily, the meaning of the names don't have that much significance to the plot. I mean, ok Sirius is the Dog Star and he turns into a black dog, but knowing that doesn't help you in the bigger scheme of thing. Severus obviously means severe but so what? It doesn't contain any hidden meaning about his motives for protecting Harry. Dumbledore apparently means bumble bee. Completely random. So the name meaning idea is rather pointless.

[Charizard]

Wow, I had no idea HP was such a popular choice; nobody in my school seems to have considered it. There has been a lot of analysis of the background behind the series, though, so it'd be difficult to find something to explore that would be in-depth but also original. I once bought this book called something like The Magical World of Harry Potter and it listed a lot of references, mythology and symbols in the books, so they're definitely chock-full of references, religious or not - it's just a matter of whether you can find something new.

[Ruan Chun Xian]

The Magical World of Harry Potter is a very old book. I got it in 2003. And while it's an interesting quick read if you want a quick glimpse of things that may or may not have influenced HP, it's not in any way exhaustive or detailed. It was published before book 5 came out so it only contains things that appear in books 1-4. I don't think it's going to help you much with research unless you use the references that book used to start your research.