65 Red Roses: Documentary Film & Learning Guide

This documentary film, suitable for senior students, is a powerful and emotional look at three high school students dealing with cystic fibrosis and, in particular, tells the story of Eva and her fight for life. The medium of film is extremely effective and powerful in presenting the story and the film is well-edited and has good pacing. The purpose of the film--to encourage organ donation--is subtle, but requires consideration by all who view it. The accompanying teacher's resource material is excellent and provides many examples of how to use the film to address Learning Outcomes in a number of senior courses, including Science, Social Studies, and English Language Arts. The resource guide contains background information, resources for further study, open-ended discussion questions, debates, research, mind mapping, analytical reasoning, and personal assessment and evaluation. This film should not be shown without teacher preview and student preparation before viewing. The film does include some social considerations: the use of marijuana on screen and marijuana photos posted on a blog, and use of some profanity during the interviews with Eva`s friend Meg, and by Eva during very emotional situations. The potentially offensive elements show these are real individuals who have chosen different ways to deal with their terminal illness. There are some graphic scenes during and related to transplant surgery, but they are within the expected scope of the topic.