“Dead Poets Society”

This blog will give you a survey of what we are doing in a project which is carried out with a class of chemical laboratory assistants from the BBS Naturwissenschaften in Ludwigshafen/Rhein. Let me give you a small synopsis of what we are planning to work on during our project, which started in December 2006 and will prospectively end in June 2007. The version of “Dead Poets Society” we chose was written by Nancy H. Kleinbaum and can be ordered under ISBN 1401308775.

Besides reading the book on “Dead Poets Society” we are going to shed some light on topics, which are related with it. The survey below will give you an idea of what is to come:

1) Introduction and background

*The year 1959

• Important political events
• Important social events
• Important scientific events
• State leaders in the US/Europe
• Literature, music and TV

*University preparatory schools (in general)

*Welton Academy in Vermont (fictional) in contrast to real prep schools

• www.deerfield.edu
• www.suffieldacademy.com
• www.choate.edu
• www.exeter.edu

*Freethought

*Realism versus romanticism

*Define the terms

2) The Ideal Teacher? 

Silent written communication, mind-mapping, analysing scenes from the book: 

• p. 1-8: About Welton Academy
• p. 20-27: Keating’s first lesson
• p. 37-42: The Pritchard lesson
• p. 69-71: The soccer lesson
• p. 72-77: The YAWP lesson
• p. 85-87: The marching lesson
• p. 111-115: The college lesson
• p. 163-166: Nolan’s lesson on Pritchard

3) The Characters

• John Keating
• Todd Anderson
• Neil Perry
• Knox Overstreet
• Charles “Nuwanda” Dalton
• The staff: Dean Nolan, Mc Allister, Dr. Hager

4) Test

5) Evaluation of the project

Because some lessons have been cancelled spontaneously we have to do without the aspects of Individualism versus conformity and, most deplorable, Poetry in Dead Poets Society. Maybe at some other time this will be possible with another class.

The really important information can be found at

• http://bridgingcultures1.blog.com (Background information)
• http://bridgingcultures2.blog.com (The ideal teacher?)
• http://bridgingcultures3.blog.com (The characters in Dead Poets Society)
• http://bridgingcultures4.blog.com (Examples from the classroom-test)
• http://bridgingcultures5.blog.com (Evaluation of the DPS-project)