Dead Poet Society

Sorry about the lateness of this post, the first time that I had a chance to check my email was at 6:30. I was at the play all weekend.

I would give the movie a ten out of ten. It was an amazing story about teaching and thinking. The characters were dynamic and believable. The situations that the students find themselves in were relevant to teenagers today. The talk about English was kept to a bare minimum. I think the message was also very potent.

I think that there were two ways that this movie was relevant to studying poetry. One is that poetry cannot be defined my graphs or mere relevance. This was seen when the class is told to rip out their intro to poetry.

The other way that it is relevant is that it shows poetry's power to change people's lives. Handersen loses his fear of speaking. Neil confronts his father and follows his dream to be in theater. Osman (i think) uses poetry to help him get the girl of his dreams.

I would argue that if the focus is on poetry that you only show the clips that are relevant. The movie was not all about poetry. It was definitely about the fulfillment of teaching and learning to think for themselves. But i don't think that the whole movie was about poetry.