From Greatness to nothing

Authors note: I wrote this piece on text analysis about the novels True Legend by Mike Lupica and Hoops by Walter Dean Myers.

Drew “True” Robinson is a high school basketball phenom, but it takes a game of one on one with a former playground legend to realized life isn’t all ball. Drew Robinson from the book True Legend, is very similar to Lonnie Jackson from Hoops, and I think there authors share the same message in their novels. In each book a playground legend warns  both Lonnie and Drew that they will be great but once you get there life keeps going.

Throughout each book I noticed more and more similarities than just the moral. It was how they were wrote just the feel when the old legends talked about their past and what the young characters think at of them at first. After reading this, I made a text to self connection with Drew and Lonnie, because I don’t like it when older people tell me what I did wrong, even though they’re right.

Next I realized how much the two main characters in book were alike, that it made me think that they were wrote by the same author even though they really weren’t. These novels gave me a conclusion of a text to text connection. The connection was how the history of each legend was very similar, and I liked how both authors did that. For the page or two that would describe the legends it reminded me of a short documentary from ESPN or something.

Last but not least I thought there was a text to world connection, because Drew and Lonnie had stress from being famous at such a young age, and at some time in your life you have to have stress about something even if you’re not famous like they were. The authors of each book make a good point when it comes to stress. Because in their book they show that if you really love something you forget about all your problems, like Drew and Lonnie when they play basketball.

Athletes here criticism all the time, whether it’s from playground legends, coaches, parents and even players if you don’t learn from mistakes and become wiser then you’ll be lost in the dust. But even if you have a hard work ethic and you are great, once you think you’re at the top you’ll start to fall.

Hemingway- A clean, well lighted place

Ernest Hemingway the author of the short story A clean, well lighted place, really likes to use light and dark as symbols in most of his writing. I noticed that Hemingway uses dark and light to describe the set of the cafe and what the characters were like. First he states that the cafe is well lit and it clean, that was resembling that the cafe was safe and peaceful. he also says the old man character sits in the only shadowed place in the whole cafe, that shows that he is quiet and want to be left alone.

After reading then watching the movie for A clean, well lighted place  I thought the music from the movie was setting the tone right way, letting you know that it was sad and depressing, and the music played once again after he had to leave.I also thought that the characters acted very similar in both the book and the movie, which means the actors did a good job bringing the short story to life. finally there was one problem, which was that I thought they should have had the man sitting outside like in the Hemingway story

Ransom of Red Chief

Authors note: this is a short piece on the most important quote in the short story Ransom of red chief

"Tell you the truth, Bill," says I, "this little he ewe lamb has somewhat got on my nerves too. We'll take him home, pay the ransom and make our get-away." I thought that this was one of the most important quotes, because at first only Bill wanted the little boy to be gone. but slowly over those couple days Sam decided to blow of the plan and let him go.