Koji Morinaga, Part-Time Lecturer, Doshisha University, Ritsumeikan University

Abstract

Dead Poets Society is a moving and inspiring movie, in which English professor John Keating encourages his students to ‘seize the day’ (carpe diem) and live life to the fullest by introducing poems and essays to them. In my attempt to develop my students’ critical thinking, I gave an assignment consisting of following four questions: (1) Discuss the following quote by Professor Keating ‘We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. . . But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.’ (2) Discuss the following quote by Professor Keating ‘I stand upon my desk to remind myself that we must constantly look at things a different way. . . When you read, don’t just consider what the author thinks, you must consider what you think.’ (3) Relating to Neil’s suicide, Write a letter to one of the following; a. the headmaster of the school b. Professor Keating c. the parents of the pupils. (4) Evaluate the movie on a scale of one to ten and make your brief comment. I will report the results of the assignment and discuss them in my presentation.

Biographical data

Koji Morinaga teaches English as a part-time lecturer at Doshisha and Ritsumeikan Universities. He graduated from the graduate school of English language and literature department at Doshisha University and obtained Master of Arts for his master thesis, ‘Wordsworth’s Imagination and Nature.’ He also graduated from the graduate school of Language Education and Information Science at Ritsumeikan University and obtained Master of Language Education and Information Science for his master thesis, ‘A Method of Teaching Present Perfect Tense Utilizing a Visual Image.’ His present interest is in methods of teaching grammar and close reading, learning strategies, vocabulary learning and teaching English through movies. He planned and cooperated to compile a university reading textbook, Cultivating the Ability to Read English Correctly by Parsing Choice Passages from Modern Classics, published by Kenkyu-sha.