The Dead Poets Society

How does Keating through poetry, inspire and influence Todd, Knox, and Charlie to take the initiative and do things and litterally "seize the day"?
 Keating's methods were very unusual but to Todd they were higly effective even thought it brought Todd out of his comfort zone. Todd Anderson is a very shy character that changes in the end. Todd has his older brothers reputation to live up to, but he likes to keep everything to himself. Todd's room mate Neil Perry encourages Todd to act for himself and be more courageous. Not only him but Keating also assigns specific assignments to the class just for Todd such as public speaking.  Keating uses poetry to make Todd speak out like the excercise that Todd had infront of the class when he failed to complete his poetry assignment. In the end Todd stands on his desk and yells out "Oh Captain, My Captian" which is disobeying the head master and becomes a leader.
 Though Keating inspired Todd in one way he inspired Know in another. Knox Overstreet another shy character falls in love with Chris. Though Knox and Chris are from two different schools Knox cannot get her out of his mind. When Chris invites him to a party Knox gets drunk and eventually gets into a quarrel with Chris' boyfriend. Knox still does not give up and recites a peom he wrote for Keating's class. The movie makes it unclear whether Knox won her over or not but Knox showed acts of courage and honor.
 Charlie was one of those troble makers who never obeyed the rules. Since Charlie was born in a rich family, he was used to being the center of attention, but sometimes he went a little off the edge such as "The Phone call from God" to allow girls into the boys only Welton Prep School. In the end Charlie became much more mature, but got expelled for punching Cameron in the face when Cameron told all about the Dead Peots Society to the teachers.

What is the movie saying about poetry?
 "The Dead Poets Society" expresses two different types of poetry Welton's way, which is a mathematical formula to rate the quality of poetry and John Keating's way which is to evaluate on the connections they have on the poem. Keating instructs them to rip off the whole intruduction of their poetry textbook which is all about evaluating poetry. The students are very surprised with the teacher's instruction but eventually tears the page. Keating also says to look at poetry from a different perspective with an example on standing on the desk. Keating is trying to say that poetry has endless possibilities and just when you believe you understand you must look at it from a different angle.

What do you think of poetry? How is it similar and different than the movie's view of poetry?
  Poetry is an act of expressing one's for example,Keating says the most famous topic poets use is "Love". Though I think poetry is ver dull and time consuming others may differ. The different ways I intrepret poetry is by its meaning, topic, and helpfulness. In the movie the Dead Poets Society makes us believe poetry is exciting and cheerfull, but in class the students seem very bored to Keating's lessons. Keating uses poetry as a tool to inspire the students such as Todd, Knox, Neil, and Charlie.