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Finding Forrester

In: English and Literature

Submitted By lesliejames
Words 726
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Jamal is Innocent In the movie, Finding Forrester, Jamal meets a man by the name of William Forrester. By the fault of Jamal, Forrester acquires Jamal’s journal which were full of his writing. Forrester, a renowned author, corrected Jamal’s work by adding his own thoughts. After Jamal’s journals were returned to him, he began working on his writing with Forrester. At the same time, he was offered the opportunity to play basketball at a private school. No one at the school believed Jamal had any academic capabilities; they only believed he was there to play basketball. One of his teachers even went as far as to accuse Jamal of plagiarism. However, Jamal Wallace is innocent of plagiarism because he demonstrates a high level of integrity, the faculty at Mailor Callow was unfair to him, and he naturally possesses a high level of intelligence. One reason that Jamal Wallace is innocent of plagiarism is that he demonstrates a high level of integrity. Jamal was receiving help on his writing from Forrester; however, Forrester requested that Jamal never tell anyone about him or the work that they were doing. When Jamal was accused of plagiarizing, he could have cleared up the charges immediately, but he demonstrated integrity and kept his promise to William. Additionally, the professor asked Jamal to write a paper in his office. Jamal could have told him he wouldn’t do it, but he wanted to show that he could. Unfortunately, Jamal was under too much pressure and wasn’t able to write the paper, but he still didn’t give up Forrester. Finally, Jamal demonstrates integrity by throwing the school’s championship game. The dean told Jamal that if he won the game, the plagiarism charges will go away, but Jamal being the good kid that he is missed the shots on purpose because he wanted to prove that he was better than just being there for basketball. Another reason Jamal is innocent is the faculty at Mailor Callow treated him unfairly. The first situation were Jamal was treated unfairly was at a party at the Dean’s house. Jamal was talking with the Dean’s daughter. The Dean did not like that Jamal was teaching his daughter how to play basket ball and flirting. The next situation was when Professor Crawford made Jamal sit in his office and write his paper. This was unfair because Crawford did not make any of the other kids sit in his office and write their papers. The reason Professor Crawford did that was so that Jamal could not cheat like he thought he was. In addition at the end of the movie, when Jamal was proven innocent Professor Crawford was still not being fair to him. Crawford was still holding Jamal accountable for plagiarizing when Forrester told him that he did not. Crawford treated Jamal differently compared to the other students because of his race. The final reason why Jamal is innocent to plagiarism is because Jamal is very intelligent. In result to Jamal’s test scores he is a very smart student. In Jamal’s free time , he reads books quite often, so he knows how to write really good papers. Also Forrester was helping Jamal write his papers. Jamal was being taught by a famous author, so how could his writing not show improvement. Finally, when Professor Crawford’s was talking about famous quotes from famous authors. Jamal was catching all of Crawford’s mistakes when identifying quotes from famous authors, because he knew the quotes. Professor Crawford did not like the fact that Jamal knew the quotes and could repeat them word for word. All in all Jamal Wallace is innocent of plagiarism in many ways. On reason why Jamal is innocent is because he demonstrated integrity by not giving away William Forrester’s identity. Someone who demonstrates that level of integrity and does not sacrifice another to save himself is one who would not cheat in school. Additionally, everyone at the private school was unfair to him. No one believed that he was there for anything other than basketball, so they didn’t take him seriously as a student. He is also innocent because of his intelligence. He has a very good vocabulary from reading a lot of books and he likes to write. Overall, one can see that Jamal Wallace is a well-rounded student who does not need to plagiarize his papers.

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