Blog 10

Finding Forrester, directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Mike Rich in 2000, describes the story of a typical black American high school student, Jamal Wallace, who shows talent for playing basketball and writing. In this movie, Jamal unavoidable involves plagiarism and six related controversial survey questions are brought out.

For the first question, Jamal does plagiarize with no doubt as he copies a paragraph from a Forrester’s publish article without giving the credit. In the second question, considering his different background, I defend against the plagiarism charge. Jamal comes from a poor public high school, which students even do not listen to class carefully. Therefore, Jamal is not familiar with the rules of plagiarism and his charge is forgivable.

Another question is about Forrester’s consent to Jamal. The consent is very necessary because it is Forrester’s appearance in the classroom and his speech persuade faculty of board to withdraw the plagiarism charge. Another controversial question is whether Jamal’s high-quality writing affects the final decision. Although the data shows that there is 70% students deny that Jamal’s good writing is necessary to the decision, my answer to the question is positive. Jamal’s article for the competition is the most important part in Forrester’s speech to persuade people in the classroom. Thus, the high-quality writing of Jamal is important in the decision.

In the fifth question, Jamal do not understand why Forrester told him to stay any writing which was created in the apartment. The data, about 72% students responding that Jamal do not know the reason, in the column supports my opinion as well. If Jamal could understand Forrester’ positive intention, he would not hand in his article, which brings tons of trouble to him. In the last one, the movie drops several hints showing Jamal miss the two free throws in the basketball championship game on purpose. One of the most significant hints is the time out before shooting, Jamal’s coach tells him about using the victory to exchange the withdrawal of his charge, but Jamal keeps silent for it. When he prepares for shooting the throw, he stares to Claire and Professor Crawford meaningfully for a while.

In summary, Finding Forester is a really good movie and that is the reason why people have great interest in discussing these six controversial questions.