I chose to watch the movie Spellbound based on many recommendations I had gotten about this film. It focused on eight children as they made their way to the 1999 National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. These impressively intelligent adolescents haven’t all reached the National Spelling Bee via the same route, but what got them there was an intense motivation and thirst for knowledge, educational excellence, and competition. The beginning of the film explores the different homes of these eight spelling champion hopefuls and we get to meet the kids and their families. This part of the movie gave me a good idea of where each child’s abilities and motivation came from. I am going to examine each of these spelling bee hopefuls and their families in order to describe how they learn, what strategies they use in order to learn and what types of strategies their teachers used to help them be successful. I will also make recommendations about what types of strategies might have helped them be more successful.
Angela is from Perryton, Texas. She is a gangly brunette and daughter of Mexican laborers who paid a coyote $500 to spirit them across the border many years before. Her parents moved the family to the United States so that their children could have a better education. Angela stated that she leads a pretty boring life, but finds great joy in spelling. This can be compared to the Invocation of “Love”. Since Angela came from a family that didn’t speak English, she needed to do all of her learning on her own. She made flashcards and had her good friends sign them, so when she saw her friends name when she was studying she feels as if they were there cheering her on to win the spelling bee. She also made a poster board filled with words to help her learn more words. She stated that she came up with these methods of learning all by her self. This is what Knowles refers to as innate self-directed learning. On the other hand, I feel that Angela is motivated to do well...