People Who Have Made A Difference

Table Of Contents:

Introduction………………………………………………………………………………2-3

Biography and Timeline..…………………..…………………………………4-11

My Figure’s Influence On Me……………………………………………….12-33

Interview……………………………..……………………………………………..34-43

Report On Presentation………………………..……………………….……….44

Reflective writing………………………………………..………………………45-48

Bibliography……………………………….…………………………………………..49

Appendix……………………………………………………………………………..50-62

Introduction:

   Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live. J.K. Rowling is one of these people.

   I chose to prepare this research project on J. K. Rowling for several reasons. To begin with, after being a single mother and not attending college she became a bestselling author, known by almost every person which is very impressive. Secondly, as a trail-blazing writer, she is a role model for young people showing that nothing can stop you from achieving your dreams and goals.

   There are some things that I already know about J. K. Rowling. Firstly, I know that she wrote the Harry Potter series in 1995 on an old manual typewriter. Besides, I know her mother’s death affected her in describing Harry Potter’s feelings after losing his parents.

   I expect to learn new and interesting things about J. K. Rowling. First and foremost, I expect to find out what helped her keep going and continue writing even after her failures. Also, I want to learn more about her childhood and her life as a young adult. Also, I want to know more about her family, her early school life, etc… Finally, I would like to discover more information about her writing process and how she came up with the idea of a book full of fantasy and magic.

J.K. Rowling has left her mark on the world. I am looking forward to finding out more about her throughout this project.

J.K. Rowling’s Biography and Timeline:

  J. K. Rowling was born on July 31st, 1965 to Peter and Anna Rowling. She was born in Yate General Hospital, England. In her childhood, she grew up in Gloucestershire in England and Chepstow, Gwent, in south-east Wales. J. K.’s full name is Joanne Kathleen Rowling, Joanne- the name she was given at birth, Kathleen- a name she adopted to honor her grandmother.

Early life:

  Her father was an aircraft engineer at the Rolls Royce factory in Bristol and her mother was a science technician in the Chemistry department at Wyedean Comprehensive. When Joanne was a teenager her mother was diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis, which is a disease that damages the ability of the nervous system, and died from it later in 1990. Joanne also has a younger sister named Dianna.

  She grew up surrounded by books and was basically the biggest bookworm. She wrote her first story when being six years old! At just eleven, she wrote her first novel.

  After Joanne graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in English, she moved to London and changed jobs frequently. She came up with the idea for her successful book, Harry Potter, in 1990 while sitting on a delayed train from Manchester to London King’s Cross. Over the next five years she worked on forming the seven books, she wrote mostly in longhand and gradually built up a mass of notes, many of which were scribbled on odd scraps of paper.

  She moved to Portugal to teach English in 1990. In Portugal, she met Jorge Arantes, the Portuguese journalist, and married him. In 1993 they had her first child who was named Jessica. Unfortunately, their marriage ended later with a divorce, and Rowling

moved to Edinburgh to live near her sister.  At Edinburgh, she got a job as a teacher but continued writing at any spare moment. She sent the first three chapters to several literary agents, one of whom wrote back asking to see the rest of it. She said it was “the best letter I had ever received in my life.”

  The first book got published in 1996 and that’s where Joanne chose to use her grandmother’s name (J. K. Rowling). In 2001 after her books got adapted into movies the first one premiered- Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone followed by six more book adaptations, her books achieved record-breaking success.

  In 2001 J. K. re-married to Dr. Neil Murray and had two kids: David who was born in 2003 and Mackenzie who was born in 2005.

  In 2012 J.K. Rowling’s digital company Pottermore was launched, which changed to Wizarding World Digital in 2019. J.K. Rowling also published her first novel for adults, The 

Casual Vacancy (Little, Brown) in 2012, and the book has been translated to over 44 languages!

  In 2013, J. K. published her first book in private detective Cormoran Strike’s crime novel under the pen name Robert Galbraith. The first three books have been adapted for a major television series for BBC One and apart from them, there were two more books in the series.

  In 2016, J.K. Rowling collaborated with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany on an original new story for the stage. She wrote a play manuscript named “Harry Potter and The Cursed Child”, after the book came out at the end of July 2016, it instantly topped the bestselling list. In 2016, J.K. Rowling also made her screenwriting debut with the film “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them”, which is a further extension of the original Wizarding World. The movie was followed by a second one, “The Crimes of Grindelwald and will be followed by a third, which is now being produced.

  In March 2020, J.K. Rowling and Wizarding World partners launched the “Harry Potter at Home” initiative to entertain children stuck at home during the Covid-19 pandemic. The first Harry Potter book read aloud by celebrities on video and made available for free through audiobook and ebook streaming. In May 2020, she announced another initiative to help families in lockdown, “The Ickabog”, a story for younger children for free online, and an accompanying illustration competition.

J. K. had received many honors and awards in her life including:

Companion of Honour, for services to literature and philanthropy, 2017

PEN America Literary Service Award, 2016

Freedom of the City of London, 2012

Hans Christian Andersen Award, Denmark, 2010

Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur: France, 2009

South Bank Show Award for Outstanding Achievement, 2008

Lifetime Achievement Award, British Book Awards, 2008

James Joyce Award, University College Dublin, 2008

The Edinburgh Award, 2008

Commencement Day Speaker, Harvard University, USA, 2008

Blue Peter Gold Badge, 2007

WH Smith Fiction Award, 2004

Prince of Asturias Award for Concord, Spain, 2003

Order of the British Empire (OBE), 2001

Children’s Book of the Year, British Book Awards, 1998 and 1999

Booksellers Association Author of the Year, 1998 and 1999

Lumos Organization:

  In honor of the light-giving spell in the Harry Potter books, Lumos is an international non-governmental, non-profit organization founded by J.K. Rowling. Its mission is to help the eight million disadvantaged children in orphanages around the world to be returned to their families or placed in a loving family environment.

J.K. Rowling’s speech at Harvard Uny, 2008:

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single 

word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.

Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial 

importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was 

reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up 

to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, 

and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools. 

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

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.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a 

moment suppose 

that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had 

for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

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.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored,

and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is 

painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all 

invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture

 victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took 

my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics 

corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

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.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and 

your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. 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.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for

Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives.

Thank-you very much.

How the speech affected me?

  This speech was given to Harvard graduates on their graduation day, so if I’m not graduating you may ask what I find that “talks to me/ touches my heart”. In that case, I’ll begin by telling you exactly that followed by examples of the importance of the speech to me.

  Her speech has two main parts-the first one is about failure, being at a “top-class” like our school’s special classes- robotics/ computers, etc.. means what counts as a failure for us is usually other people’s success and of course not to be arrogant about it but people in classes like mine are usually “top-level” and are taught from a very young age that failure is a weakness and that we cannot fail because failing will ruin our future. That leads me to my favorite quote from this part- “You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you live so cautiously that you might as well 

not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.” I loved this quote so much because it showed how 

important it is to fail to move forward with your life and to learn about yourself. More than that it also taught me that in life we will fail sometimes no matter what, and that’s okay. Instead of beating ourselves up over a D in a test, or overdoing something that we knew from the beginning we might fail at, we should reflect on it and try our best to learn from it as much as we can.

  Now I’d like to refer to the second part of her speech- the importance of imagination. This part talked about how much effect, we – as humans – have on one another. My favorite quote from this part is- “Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read. And yet I also learned more about human goodness at 

Amnesty International than I had ever known before.” I personally related to this quote so much because as part of our process of maturity, we teenagers experience many evils such as when mean students or strict teachers, as well as a lot of personal fights between ourselves in which we are considered “evil”. Now of course we can always complain about how rough our lives are and remember only the “evils”, or simply give up. But we can also see and “learn” from those things about human goodness- that one girl who stood up for you when you were bullied, or that one person who cared when no one else did, or that teacher that said a kind word on a hard day. In every tough situation, there are also a few acts of kindness and I think that this is what J.K. tried to teach- every kind of action you do can affect someone’s life entirely and sometimes more than we can imagine.

  After that being said I hope you’ll take your time to read this speech, or listen to it as I did, and try your best to capture every little piece of information that “touched you” because as J.K. said, we – as humans – can understand or relate to something even if we never experienced it and in my opinion that’s the biggest attribute we can have.

Interview section:

  I chose to interview Eliza Vasquez, a writer and development manager in MuggleNet, a fan-site for the Harry Potter wizarding world. I interviewed her because looking through fan sites she seemed like a person that will enlighten me and might share similar beliefs with me. I wasn’t wrong and she’s indeed a sagacious person and I had a great time talking to her and reading her real, honest answers.

Without further to let’s move to the actual interview:

Q: What was your first impression of J.K?

A: As a child reading her books, I thought she was amazing and magical

Q: Have you ever (as a child or adult) took the time to learn about J. K’s past?

A: Oh yes. As someone who looked up to her as a role model, I looked up her past and read all the things I could about her. Her life’s story was inspirational to me.

Q: As a journalist have you ever met/spoke with J.K or any relative of her?

A: I was only a journalist in high school. I’m actually a writer (novelist), and my job on the site is to manage facts and figures, and descriptions. To answer the question, no, I’ve never spoken to or met anyone relating to her nor met her myself. 

// Editor’s note: As I wrote her the questions I have mistaken

her to be a journalist, even though a few questions refer to her that way, her answers are still interesting…

Q: Do you have any quote/ speech of her that inspired you to be the person you are today?

A: I have two; Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home, and her Dumbledore quote “Words are our most inexhaustible source of magic”

Q: If you could meet J.K now would you have anything special to tell her?

A: Considering she has extremely harmful beliefs, I don’t think I’d actually want to talk to her. If I did, I do have some words I’d want to say, but it’s not appropriate to say in an interview, even though I’m speaking as myself right and not as a MuggleNet.com representative. 

// Editor’s note: I hoped I wouldn’t need to address J.K.’s scandals(about her extreme beliefs), simply because I’m not educated enough on the topic(and there isn’t that much 

information on it online) but now I will address it after the interview questions.

Q: Did her books changed you? If so, how?

A: Inexplicably, yes. I grew up with them. I wanted to make writing my career because I found out she did, and I wanted to write something as magical as she had.

Q: What made you choose to base your entire career on J.K’s creation?

A: MuggleNet.com, LLC is not actually a paid job, and it’s not 

my career. We are all volunteers and we work for the site because we have a passion for Harry Potter and the community. I joined because I found like-minded people and it’s become an experience of a lifetime. Writing/Editing is my career.

Q: Are there any decisions in your life based on J. K’s inspiration on you? (besides choosing to work on MuggleNet)

A: I have two Harry Potter tattoos, but I don’t count them as 

based on her influence in my life. Even now, they are my connection to the series, not her. 

Q: Can you elaborate on the effect J.K had on you as a teenager/child?

A: She was a role model. (Extra emphasis on was) She had been a philanthropist, and she wrote a series that changed an entire generation. Rowling’s career, her creation, impacted me as any other massive fan, and her backstory was incredibly inspiring, but that’s about it. It was Harry Potter that influenced me, not Rowling’s actions. 

//editor’s note: though I, can completely relate to her opinion on this answer, I still chose her for my project because I remember how much of a magical person she seemed to me growing up. To be honest, after losing a bit of my respect for her, I wanted this project to help me “see” her as the person I fell for as a child.

Q: Do you believe in the saying “J.K Rowling is a world-changing person”?

A: I believe she changed the world. 

//for the final note I am going to address the whole situation around her extreme beliefs and will probably give more explanation on why she’s still my choice for a world-changing person.

  At the beginning of 2020, J.K. retweeted a tweet referring to transgender women (men to female) as men that dress up to abuse women. This extreme belief causes a lot of sensation since even though she has the right to free speech, as a famous writer with over 14 million fans on Twitter her words could affect her fans’ opinion on the topic. Not only that but in my opinion attacking an already hated community can cause a true danger to them (such as rules against them, lack of rights, etc..). Moreover, as a women’s rights activist coming out on a trans-women, women at any aspect or shape, makes it problematic for her, how can she stand for women rights when they were born women but she can’t stand for trans-women, women who were born in the wrong body? 

  After reading about this scandal, I lost respect for her, even more after reading her lame apology for that, stating she “liked the tweet because she writes about a character with gender

 identity issues”. But during the project, I chose to put the situation aside and focus on J. K.’s actions in the past (her books, her old speeches, etc..). Like I said before she WAS a role model to me and I chose to focus on that, on why I started liking her.

  I hope this clarifies the situation a little bit for you and I’m sorry for not addressing it in my project earlier but after Eliza’s words, I realized I have to talk about it if I want my project to be as real and honest as possible. p.s. I still like J.K. and her work but the situation made me realize that sometimes even the most inspirational influencers can be hateful towards different communities.

If sex isn’t real, there’s no same-sex attraction. If sex isn’t real, the lived reality of women globally is erased. I know and love trans people, but erasing the concept of sex removes the ability of many to meaningfully discuss their lives. It isn’t hate to speak the truth.

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling)

Blue Ocean Photo Summer Instagram Post by Maya Bekerman

Report on Presentation:

J. K. Rowling by Maya Bekerman

Reflection:

   I found the preparation of this project worthwhile for several reasons. To begin with, during this project I got to learn a lot about J.K. Rowling, the person I’ve prepared the project on. Furthermore, I gained technical skills and learned how to work better with a computer. Besides, I enjoyed learning about J.K. because she truly is a role model.

   I learned many things while working on the project. For instance, I learned a lot about J.K.’s past, mainly her two marriages which I haven’t known about before. Moreover, while writing the biography I learned about her depression, which also was a new thing I learned about her. AS a person that doesn’t give many presentations, and usually rather sits quietly in class, during this project I learned that I CAN give presentations despite what I thought before.

   I developed several skills during my work on this project. First off, I improved my time management skills and learned 

how 

to make sure my projects are handed in on time. Likewise, during the biography section, I gained research skills and learned how to pick the important information in the right order. Additionally, I learned how to gain motivation easily, and encourage myself to continue even when I lack motivation and ideas. 

   I enjoyed working alone for a number of reasons.  To begin with, I usually rather rely on myself instead of trusting other people, especially when it’s an important project. In addition, I work better when I’m alone since I can write my ideas freely without having to convince another person to agree with my opinion. Finally, working alone allows me to work whenever I’m free and feel like it.

   On the one hand, there were things I enjoyed while preparing this project. For starters, I enjoyed learning more about my inspirational figure, J.K., during the process of

writing the biography. In addition, I enjoyed writing about J.K.’s speech because it encouraged me to pick myself up and turn my failures into learning experiences. Last but not least, I love writing, especially about emotions, and the project allowed me to express my emotions through the pages and motivates me to write more.

   On the other hand, there were things I enjoyed less while working on the project. Initially, as thankful as I am that I got to present only to the teacher, presenting still is my least favorite part of this project. Apart from that, as I said in my presentation, learning about my figure’s behavior was something I’d rather not know about if only we could erase memories LOL.

   In conclusion, I am grateful that we had the opportunity to prepare this project. If I hadn’t done this project, I wouldn’t have learned so much about J.K. I believe this project 

changed my perspective about the way I look at failure, and I’m thankful I got to choose J.K. as my figure.

Bibliography:

1. https://www.jkrowling.com/about/
2. https://metro.co.uk/2020/09/15/jk-rowlings-transgender-tropes-are-damaging-and-dangerous-heres-why-13275356/
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QnyKZe6VBA
4. https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/j-k-rowling-writes-about-her-reasons-for-speaking-out-on-sex-and-gender-issues/
5. https://www.jkrowling.com/enquiries/
6. https://www.jkrowling.com/links/
7. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling
8. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/10/01/mugglemarch
9. https://www.mugglenet.com/site/meet-the-team/
10. https://www.mugglenet.com/site/contact-us-faq/
11. https://www.wearelumos.org/contact/
12. https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/j-k-rowling-c14f31f0-b1ff-4fa1-a318-2f6ea0a4b6a1
13. https://www.biography.com/writer/jk-rowling
14. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_sclerosis
15. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._K._Rowling#Inspiration_and_mother’s_death

Appendix:

In this part, I am asked to put materials I’ve used and the project’s manual…

my interview options: by Maya Bekerman

J.K.’s portrait from Time magazine:

ENGLISH PROJECT

TOPIC :  “PEOPLE WHO HAVE MADE A DIFFERENCE”

DUE DATE:  FECRUARY 1ST.

Throughout history, there have been people who have influenced the way we live and who left their mark on the world.  What would our world look like today without famous figures such as Albert Einstein, Steven Spielberg or Christopher Columbus?

In this project, you are going to choose a famous personality who has left a mark on the world and who you are interested in finding more about.    

You will gather information and do research in order to prepare your project. 

 You can prepare your project alone or in groups of two or three.

Your project will be typed and organized in the following way:    

1) THE COVER PAGE

  It will state the name of the figure you have chosen. You should include a picture.  You will list the names of the people in your group, the name of your teacher and the date on which you submit the project.  The cover page should be prepared in a neat and aesthetic way.

2)   TABLE OF CONTENTS

 You will prepare this page after you have completed the project.  Next to each unit, you MUST write the member of the group who was responsible for its preparation. (See the example below.)

3)  INTRODUCTION 

 In this section you will do the following.

(a) explain why you chose this figure

(b) explain what you already know about this figure 

(c) explain what you expect to learn.

 Each member of the group must prepare his/her own introduction on a separate page in which his/her thoughts are expressed.  This must be written in paragraphs, with an introduction, body and conclusion.  Use the following structure.  

4)  BIOGRAPHY 

 In this section, you will write the BIOGRAPHY of the person you have chosen.  A biography is the story of a person’s life.  This story should include the important events in the person’s life beginning with his or her birth and include information about the early life, family, education, what inspired him or her to make their mark on the world, his or her achievements, how he or she contributed to our society, ending with their death (if applicable).  The Biography should be at least two pages long. 

All the sources you use MUST be recorded in the BIBLIOGRAPHY section of your project, SO DON’T FORGET TO RECORD YOUR SOURCES AS YOU WORK !!!!

5) MY/OUR FIGURE’S INFLUENCE ON ME/US

  In this section, you will look for a famous quotation that your figure said (or that was said about him or her) and that you connect to. Print a colored picture (A4 size) of your figure.  Prepare a “bubble” of the famous saying of your figure that you especially connect to and print it as well.  We will hang both the picture and quotation on the wall of your classroom.  

6)  INTERVIEW 

In this section you will meet with a person who can enlighten you with their opinions, thoughts and knowledge regarding this figure. This person MUST be knowledgeable regarding your subject. You will write an introduction in which you explain… 

 (a)  who you are interviewing

 (b)  why you decided to interview this person. 

Then you will then write out the questions and answers in the following manner: 

Q: …………………………………………………………………………….?

A: ……………………………………………………………………………..?

You can ask as many Yes-No questions as you wish, however, you must make sure that you have at least 8 WH questions.  You can include a photo of this event. Use the following structure.

7) PRESENTATION

 In this section you will make this person better known among your classmates by preparing a presentation for them.   This presentation should be approximately 10 minutes long.  You will give a lecture to the class in which you will tell about the major events in your figure’s life, how he or she contributed to society and why you chose to do your project on this person.  You can prepare a poster or a power point presentation with the main events in your figure’s life as a visual aid.    

8) REFLECTIVE WRITING

This is the final section of our project.  In this section you will reflect upon all the work you have done and prepare a reflection.  In this section you will work together and do the following.

(a) express your feelings about the project

(b) express your feelings  about working together in a group

(c) express your feelings about what you learnt

(d) describe what you enjoyed more and enjoyed less.

Use the following structure to prepare the Reflection.

9) BIBLIOGRAPHY

 In this section you will list the sources you used. You will number each source separately, giving the name of the book, the name of the author, and the name of the publisher. If you have used an Internet source, then give the site and the name of the article.  You MUST have at least THREE sources.

10) APPENDIX

 This is the section in which you put all the material that you used to prepare your project. You must include…

a)  the drafts of your work with my corrections. 

b) material and photos that you didn’t put into the body of the project but that you want to include.

I hope that you will enjoy working on this project.  I am sure that I will enjoy reading it!!

HAVE FUN!!!!

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