“Famous Quotes” Research Project – Informational Essay
Name______
Directions: Using the information you have collected, please classify it into the following categories. These categories will eventually serve as the potential body paragraphs in your informational essay. REMEMBER: YOU ARE NOT ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YET. YOU ARE JUST PUTTING YOUR RESEARCH INTO CATEGORIES.
**Please highlight what you consider the strongest piece of evidence of each category.
**Please star the category that needs the greatest amount of improvement in terms of research.
Name of Person: JK Rowling______
Quote: We do not need magic to change the world. We carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.
What information from the speaker’s background had an important role in his or her life? / Joanne Kathleen Rowling played make believe with her sister, Di about murder mysteries and put on plays as a stage manager growing up as a child (JK Rowling official website).JK Rowling’s best high school memory was riding in a Ford Anglia with her friend Sean Harris (dedication in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets). She confided in him on how much she wanted to be a writer. (JK Rowling official site)
JK Rowling’s mother was diagnosed with MS (JK Rowling Official Site)
1990 – JK Rowling’s Mother died.
(JK Rowling Official Site)
JK Rowling had her daughter and wrote at any point she could. The book was rejected numerous times. (JK Rowling Official Site)
How did his or her background get to them “to the point” of saying this quote? (What events led up to this point?) / Joanne Kathleen Rowling played make believe with her sister, Di about murder mysteries and put on plays as a stage manager growing up as a child (JK Rowling official website).
JK Rowling had her daughter and wrote at any point she could. The book was rejected numerous times. (JK Rowling Official Site)
Christopher Little Publishing took on JK Rowling as a client (JK Rowling official site).
“Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.” – Speech, Harvard Commencement (2008)
“I was jobless, a lone parent and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain without being homeless,” Rowling told the crowd of soon-to-be Harvard alumni.” (Ode Magazine)
“At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.” – Speech (Harvard Commencement – 2008)
What impact has the quote had on:
1. The speaker themselves
2. Other people involved
3. People as a whole today. / Speaker – “That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.” (Speech – Harvard Commencement, 2008)
Other people – “That’s not a message we hear a lot about these days. Saunter into the self-help aisle of the average bookstore and it’s clear just how success-obsessed we are. The shelves are crammed with books purporting to reveal, in flowery language and pastel colours, how we can lose weight, make money, go green” (Ode Magazine).
People as a whole today: “The stories of the world’s most successful failures suggest that what matters most is not whether you win or lose, but how you fail.” (Ode Magazine).