Disney's Iron Will

Today we are finishing up a movie started a week ago.

It is captivating the classroom audience. One of the paras that helps one of the students in my class was particularly interested in me finishing up this movie today.

She is going to be gone tomorrow and certainly wants to know what happened. One of my students thought about not coming today.. but remembered that we were finishing up the movie and decided to come.. there you go

Its one of those classics that was created by Disney in 1994. It stars Mr. Kevin Spacey, the same actor that plays the teacher in the last class movie, "Pay it Forward." In this movie he plays the reporter reporting on a dog sled race in 1917 from Winnipeg, Canada, to St. Paul Minnesota. This is a distance of over 500 miles.

There is some dramatic action sequences which results in some situations. Some critics on line call it a sappy Disney melodrama.. but it introduces students to a different way of life in a different era than there own. It promotes some good "stick to it" kind of morals and the hero barely wins at the end.

There are lots of things to talk about in this movie, so there is plenty to stimulate predictive thinking and choices to be made. Most adults that have seen this movie walk away pretty uplifted. The students love the dogs. The are fascinated by the big white dog that is the dog leader,Gus. He was his dad's dog, and has first loyalty to Will's dad who dies unceremoniously at the beginning of the movie. Will must then overcome his fear of the frozen river that took his father. He finally does this in the final scenes of the movie.

There are many scenes of the rich following the race from the comforts of the train. There is some attempted bribery. Will hangs tough with his principles.

Will initally is in to get money to go to college and pay off the debt on his family farm. The prize for winning is 10,000 dollars. In the process he helps others and learns to keep a straight keel and in the end wins.

So tomorrow its fruitcake to try, and hopefully a look at my experience with sled dogs in Alaska. We will also talk about what they may write about on Wednesday.. writing day of course.

Finals for the first semester are next week.

Love
Pat