Investigating a Teacher's Rhetorical Construction on Students' Behavioral Outcomes in Dead Poets Society (1989) Script: An Analysis for EFL Pedagogy

Abstract

This study investigates Mr. Keating's rhetorical construction and its connection to students' behavioral outcomes in the original script of Dead Poets Society (1989). Previous studies on this narrative have examined teaching style, philosophy, and outcomes separately, without explaining the mechanism connecting a teacher's persuasive language to students' different behavioural outcomes. This study addresses that gap by combining Aristotle's Rhetoric and Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory to analyze how Mr. Keating's persuasive language is constructed through ethos, pathos, and logos, and how the two selected students, Neil Perry and Todd Anderson, process this language, resulting in different behavioral outcomes. A qualitative directed content analysis was employed, with 25 data items purposively selected based on three criteria and validated through inter-rater agreement, reaching 92% consistency with an independent validator. The findings reveal that Mr. Keating constructs his rhetoric through an intentional combination of all three appeals, with pathos functioning as the most frequently used strategy. Both students progressed through the same stages of observational learning, but differentiated at the reproduction stage: Neil's oppressive environment overwhelmed his personal factors, resulting in a tragic outcome, while Todd's personal factors gradually strengthened until he achieved independence. These findings offer material for Indonesian ELT teachers to consider in fostering the Mandiri and Bernalar Kritis dimensions of Kurikulum Merdeka's Phase F, and provide a foundation for future empirical research on teacher rhetoric and student behavioral outcomes in real classroom settings.