Dawn Evensen Teaching Portfolio

Finding Forrester
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Finding Forrester

I found the movie Finding Forester to be a wonderful movie with plenty of valuable lessons which is why I give it four stars. The movie is about a African American, sixteen you old boy, named Jamal Waalce growing up in the South Bronx. The area of the bronx that Jamal lives in is a rough neighborhood. Jamal pretends to only be interested in basketball at the beginning of the movie. Jamal only does C work. This is just enough work for him not to stand out from the other students. Jamal's teacher find out he is capable of getting higher grades when Jamal is given a achievement test. Jamal gets a scholarship to a private school because of his athelic ability and high test scores. The movie in some ways pertains to real like in the way the professor teaches and also the way Mr. Forrester teaches Jamal. The one thing that I though did not pertain to real life is that Jamal and Mr. Forrester became friends after Jamal broke into Mr. Forrester's apartment.
     In the movie Saving Forrester there were two main teaching styles. The first was taught by professor Crawford. That teaching style is auditory teaching. Mr. Crawford's style of teaching is seen when he gives lectures in the classroom. The second teaching style is displayed in the movie is kinesthetic. Mr. Forrester displays this style of teaching when he tells Jamal to just type.
     Jamal is dared by his friends to break into a apartment of a person who looks out the window in binoculars. Jamal takes them yp on this dare and breaks in. Jamal is surprised by Mr. Forrester and Jamal runs out of the apartment leaving behind his book bag. Jamal is surprised later on to find that the books he wrote in were corrected by William Forrester.
     Jamal visits William Forrester quit often. Jamal does not realize who William Forrester is till he receives a assignment from his college professor to study and write a essay about William Forrester.Jamal does some research and realizes that William Forrester is the person that has been helping him write.William Forrester teaches Jamal how to write by telling him to write what he feels for the first draft and to use his intellegence for the second draft. Forrester makes Jamal promise that everything in the apartment must stay in the apartment.
     There are plenty of lessons that are taught in this movie by William Forrester and Jamal's friendship. The first lesson is that sometimes you learn things from people you wouldn't expect to learn fromJamal never thought that Mr. Forrester would teach him about writing when he broke into his apartment. Mr. Forrester never exspected to learn about friendship from Jamal. Jamal also taught Mr. Forrester to not be so withdrawn and isolated in life.
     Jamal makes some friends at school and also has problems with Professor  Crawford. Jamal and Claire become friends and it also developes into a romance. At the end of the first class Professor Crawford talks to Jamal insinuating that Jamal is only ther to play basketball and will probably do poorly in his class.  This is when you can see that this professor is bias towards people who come from neighborhoods like the South Bronx. Throughout the movie Professor Crawford takes it out on his class that his book was never published. It can also be seen by the way he talks to his students. Mr. Crawford makes it obvious that teaching English was not his first choice for a career.
     there are manu times throughout the movie that Professor Crawford and Jamal get into conflicts. The first main conflict they get into is when Mr. Crawford calls on a student to answer a question and Jamal tells the student to say his name. The students last name was the answer to the question. Professor Crawford is clearly upset that Jamal knows the answer to the question that he asked the other student. Professor Crawford tries to say some quotes that he thinks Jamal dons't know, but Jamal finsihes the quotess that Professor Crawford says. This upsets Mr. Crawford so much that he orders Jamal to leave the classroom immediately.
     The next main conflict between Jamal and Professor Crawford is when Mr. Crawford does not believe that Jamal's work could improve that much. He asked Hamal to write a essay in his office for the next assignment because he does not believe that Jamal did the work on his own. Jamal takes the blank paper with him and leaves behind one of the papers he wrote at Mr. Forrester. This leads Jamal to being accused of plagiarism. Jamal didn't realize that William Forreter had published the title in the New Yorker.
     Jamal went through alot of hardship in a short period of time. Mr. Crawford wants Jamal to write a apology letter to the class.Mr Crawford also wants jamal to read the letter in front of the whole class. Jamal winds up losing the championship game. Jamal asked Mr. Forrester to help him out with the situation with Mr. Crawford. Mr.  Forrester refused to help Jamal out and tells Jamal to write the apology letter.
     Jamal writes a letter to Mr. Forrester. Jamal's brother, Terrell, tells Mr. Forrester what a wonderful kid Jamal is and that Jamal does not deserve what is happening to him. To everyones surprise William Forrester shows up to Jamal's class adn gives a speech. The speech that Mr. William Forrester gives is a essay which Jamal wrote. This makes it where Jamal is not exspelled for plagerism.
     Mr. Forrester decides to go back to Scotland. For Mr. Forrester this is a big accomplishment because he never left his apartment before meeting Jamal. Later on William Forrester passes away and leaves the keys and the contents of his apartment to Jamal. Jamal opens the box that had the work that Jamal did and finds a novel by William Forrester had written. The title of the Novel is "Sunset". The novel is written by William Forrester and the forward is written by Jamal.
     The Movie was inspiring. It teaches you no matter what age you are you can learn. It also teaches you that sometimes the people you least expect to teach you wind up giving you the most valuable lessons.
 
    
    

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