After reading Ken Kesey’s “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,” the AP English literature class agreed to get together at 5 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 4, and watch the movie. Fueled by Goshen Pizza supplied by Mr. Osora, blankets, and a newly finished novel, the 12 students settled in and watched the film in room 133.
“The premise of ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ teaches students ideas of conformity and compliance to people of power,” Osora said. “These messages are more important today as ‘Cuckoo’s Nest’ can reveal to people the importance of not being a silent witness when power is abused.”
Watching the movie is important to understand the messages. The students compared the film to the novel by looking at what they left out and why the movie deemed it unimportant. This way, a comparison can be made between the ideas and messages either discarded or highlighted in the movie. “They can look at whether the movie preserved the most important ideas and themes,” Osora said.
Some of the students stuck around after school to watch the girls’ soccer team play, and didn’t have time to go home before watching the film.The movie, being 2 hours and 18 minutes long, did not provide for a short night as the students got home roughly around 7:30 p.m.
But the academic and social experience it provided the students negated the cons of their thirteen-hour day.
Watching the movie outside of school meant that the students did not need to waste multiple class periods watching and dissecting the movie. Instead, they took two hours out of their night to watch it all together.
“I liked being able to compare and contrast the movie, especially because there were so many changes, and that we got to discuss these changes after the movie,” Sara Ireland said.
At the end of the night, the class agreed they would like to do it again with other books the class reads together.
