Personal Essay -

Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages

Learning Intentions

1. To learn about a new form of non-fiction writing: the personal essay

2. To read, annotate and discuss the esssay, Harry Potter and the Disappearing
Pages by Olivia Muscat
Finding out about the author

1. Do some research into Olivia Muscat’s life here:

https://oliviamuscat.com/

2. Judging from her website, what appear to be her main interests as

a writer?

3. What kinds of advocacy and volunteer work has she done?

 Harry Potter
and the
Disappearing
Pages
https://
www.killyourdarlings.com.au/
article/harry-potter-and-the-
disappearing-pages/
What is a Personal Essay?
Personal essays are not like formal academic or analytical essays.

They are aimed at an audience who are interested in reading about some
aspect of life from the perspective of someone who has lived through
that experience.

They are written for a specific purpose. This is often to give an insider’s
view on an important value or idea. You do not have to be a professional
writer to write a personal essay, although writers often do try their hand
at this form.

They exist within a context that is important to understanding the essay

itself. So they may appear on websites, periodicals, industry-specific
magazines, etc.
The three parts of the personal essay
1 The Hook
Personal essays nearly always
employ a hook of some kind.
This could be an anecdote - e.g.
some incident in the life of the
writer - or an analogy or
extended metaphor. The hook is
intended to draw the reader into
the essay and make them want
to read further.
2 The Body
The body of the essay needs
to build from the hook, but
take the essay in a new
direction - one that will allow
the author to explore and
build upon the theme of the
essay.
3 The Conclusion
This is not a restatement of
the argument, like you might
find in an analytical or
persuasive essay. Instead the
conclusion should return to
the hook but offer a new way
of thinking about it that has
changed as a result of the
ideas raised throughout the
essay.
Reading Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages
– Opening –
The essay is unusual in that it starts not with a hook, but with a preamble. This
positions the reader to understand that the essay will be about the author and deal
with a formative time in her life, just as she started year 7 at a new high school. It
does however introduce the hook - one that is suggested in the title of the essay.
Can you tell what it is?

What is the effect of the final one-line paragraph that ends this section?

The hook really is developed on the second page after the asterisk. In the originally
published version on KYD website, this was the opening of the essay.
Reading Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages
– The Hook –
This is where the young Olivia’s love of Harry Potter really starts to give the essay
shape. Consider some examples:

● …flowing like butterbeer at the Leaky Cauldron.

● …no strange letter from an unknown school arrived to tell me I should purchase a
wand and catch the train from platform nine-and-three-quarters.
● …thanks to our good old friend Harry and his quest to vanquish the Dark Lord.

How do these readily identifiable references to the Harry Potter novels help the
reader to understand Olivia’s state of mind?
Reading Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages
– The Body –
From the slow realisation that Olivia is going blind, the essay encourages us to
empathise with the situation she finds herself in as a young teenager. But this is not
really the purpose of the essay. It is on page 66, that the essay starts to shift its
focus.

● When that fight was lost, a new fight began…. The fight to not be ashamed

Remember how Olivia Muscat defines herself on the home page of her website as
a disability arts advocate. How does she begin to pursue this idea in the body of
the essay? Find as many examples as you can. Which rhetorical device is being
used here?
Reading Harry Potter and the Disappearing Pages
– The Conclusion –
Notice how the writer returns to the ideas of the opening of the essay on the last
two pages (70-71)

● If I could go back in time to 2007, and give thirteen-year-old Olivia some advice, I’d
tell her not to do anything differently.

How does this reflection help us to understand the message of the essay up to this
point? She later goes further, suggesting that her 13 year old self would never have
needed this advice in any case. Here we see one last reference to the world of
Harry Potter and a somewhat less central character, Neville Longbottom. Why do
you think she leaves us with this comparison at the end?
A note about layout

In the online published version of the essay found here, the editors have added a
number of pull quotes. These are short quotations pulled from the essay in order
to draw the reader’s attention to specific ideas raised in the body of the article.

What do you notice about these pull quotes? How do they contribute to shaping
your understanding of the theme of the essay?

Take some time to examine these and try to frame their message in a simple
sentence or two.
Annotating the essay

Spend some time drawing attention to specific language features in the essay. You
might like to look for and comment on the effect of the following:

● Emotive language
● Anaphora
● Allusion
● Pronoun use
● Use of italics
● Use of questions
● Irony/Sarcasm