Dead Poet's Society Testament
This is your last writing assignment. If you would rather that I NOT post your response, then you must turn in a paper copy before the end of school on Friday.
All of the prompts require at least 250 words of response. That's not asking too much, is it, at this time of the year? All of the prompts are inspired by the
Dead Poets Society movie.
I am looking forward to the last words of wisdom that you'll impart at S-Ville.
"Sucking the marrow out of life
doesn't mean choking on the bone"
I cannot grade you on your opinion.
You will be graded on your clarity of
expression and your ability to support your opinion using specific ideas and
examples.
Choose any one lower case
"letter"
as a writing prompt. NOT one in each Part!! Just any ONE!
Part 1 People Can Change (minimum of
250 words)
a. Give me an example of how your opinion about something or someone changed
as a result of
changing YOUR point of view.
b. For you, what's the most "different" school or extra-curricular
activity in which you've participated during your high school career, one that
you would have never imagined yourself doing in a few years ago?
c. What person in the Class of 2013 has undergone the most positive change
during his or her four years at St. Mark's? You need NOT mention a name.
Part 2 Institutions Can Change (minimum of 250 words)
d. What pages from what text that you had in high school what you like to
rip out?
e. What's the most different, yet most powerful/significant high school
class (period, activity, etc.) in which you took part?
f. What one thing would you change about St. Mark's to improve the school that
would not change the basic educational and philosophical fabric of the school
(e.g. in Welton, Charly wanted to admit girls)?
g. How can St. Mark's best discipline its students in order to promote
proper behavior?
Part 3 "These are the things we
stay alive for " (minimum of 250 words)
h. Words ARE important. What are the nicest words that someone ever said to
you? Explain. Please, be able to quote, at least partially, these words.
i. What are the last
words to live by that you wrote to
yourself in a journal or otherwise?
j. How does your favorite song, band, singer etc. affect you (emotionally or
rationally or both) in an important way?
Part 4
Poetry as Inspiration (minimum of 250 words)
k. write
about any one of the works below, all found in the Dead Poets Society movie, praising
or criticizing it for its meaning or merit. No Pritchard scale ratings, though.
O
me! O life!
O
me! O life! of the questions of these recurring.
Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill'd with the foolish.
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who
more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever
renew'd.
Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,
Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined,
The question, O me! so sad, recurring -- What good amid these, O me, O life?
Answer That you are here--that life exists and identity,
That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
An Excerpt from
"Walden"
by Henry David Thoreau
I went to the woods because I wished to live
deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not
learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had
not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did
I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live
deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike
as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close,
to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it
proved to be mean, why then get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and
publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by
experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion
