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.

Trains come and go

Authors note: this piece is a figurative language piece and the poem The Railway Train  by Emily Dickinson.

Figurative language comes from almost every piece of writing for as long as people can remember. Figurative language can be as little as a DRIP or something much more complicated like anaphora or personification. The poem that I think showed these best was The Railway Train by Emily Dickinson. The poem had sentences and phrases that made you start thinking and some that didn’t make sense.

Furthermore the author had wide variety of figurative language in the poem that included Allusions. The allusion from the poem was "And neigh like Boanerges"  which provides the reader with vivid imagery. This phrase gave me the impression that the train was a big train who moved loudly as if it was a god. The tone of the phrase keeps the reader feeling the same way as when they started reading the poem. It continues to give the impression that the train is majestic and powerful. 

Finally  this particular piece of writing had a lot of personification that gave the train somewhat human traits. First it says “and lick the valleys up” and since trains can’t lick it makes me think it’s going at tremendous speed. The second line of personification which was “and stop to feed itself at tanks” made me think, well trains can’t feed themselves so it kind of sounded like the poet was trying to say it was a hard working train.

Throughout the whole poem there was multiple examples of figurative language and gave the reader great imagery, it also made it easier for the reader to like the poem and not get board. The poem doesn’t have to make sense as long as you imagine the main character or object all the way through.

change is always an option

Author's Note: I wrote this as a character development piece on Trent and how he got his life back on track after being around violence for as long as he can remember, and he does it through basketball.

25% percent of kids failing school say it's because they have a bad home life, this could apply to Trent from the book Night Hoops. Whether it is his mother getting caught for the use of marijuana, or another crime committed by his brother, it seemed he could never get away. That reflected on him too, because he had no one to look up to but them, and that made him think it's ok to be a criminal. At 15, he already had a criminal record. He didn’t want to live this way, but he couldn’t find anything to keep him away from his family long enough to figure out how to turn his life around.

School was hard, but he had one passion that never changed; basketball. The varsity team tryouts were just around the corner, and Trent wanted in. Sure enough, he played well both sessions of the tryouts, and made the team first string. Trent became a better teammate, and his team became his second family. Overall, he became a better teammate and a better kid, and that had a positive influence on his family and friends, and with that, it helped their team win. 

Throughout the story, Trent grew as a basketball player and as a teammate. He found that his teammate lived down the street from him, so he played basketball with him every night throughout basketball’s long season.  Basketball kept Trent out of trouble and turned his attitude about life around and ultimately made him a better person and will make him a better man for the rest of his hopefully long life

Living the dream

Authors note: this is a creative story of what i think will happen to Drew Lawson of the Book Game by Walter Dean Myers, after the story ends.

All eyes are on Lawson as he bring the ball down the left side. He fakes right and then makes a quick move across the middle. Now he stop and goes straight up with the ball.. he scores! He scores! And DePaul  Blue Devils win the game. Drew Lawson the second year Blue Devil has just lead his team to their 4^th consecutive win, and come tomorrow DePaul could move up to the 5 spot in the top 25.

“Wow, great game drew”. Said Worrel Clahar in the locker room after the game. Yeah! everyone else chipped in. Drew your leading us to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 6 years. Said coach Purnell.  Let’s keep it up guys and we could earn a 3 spot for the Tourney in March. That’s it that’s what I’ve been waiting for all my life. I just couldn’t stop thinking about the NCAA tournament, I mean it’s march madness the numero uno of college ball.

The next day we were off no practice or nothing, so Worrel me and a few other guys went downtown to watch the Bulls game. I was so excited to watch one of the top point guards in the league Derrick Rose, or D-Rose as some people call him.  The Bulls pulled away in such a good game, it was like I was in it. After that we went to grab some food at McDonalds. You must be thinking McDonalds right now, but come on we’re college students we don’t have money. Me and the guys went on like this for about a week having fun and going to practice, but now it was an hour before game time and it was on.

This game was the last of the regular season and we needed to win, it either meant that we got a solid 3 rank in the tourney, or we fell to a 5. But before that happened we had to defeat 6 ranked Marquette and their star guards vander Blue and Todd Mayo. After it was all said and done we had won the game, not only had I played great but I could feel that everyone wanted it as much as I did. We celebrated that night, but I knew what we still had ahead of us.

It was now that I was the most tired out of the whole season. Sweat was dripping and it was a close game, their team knew I was going to get the ball with only seconds left on the clock. I could hear the announcer speaking as I brought the ball down. He said. All eyes are on Lawson as he bring the ball down the left side. He fakes right and then makes a quick move across the middle. Now he stop and goes straight up with the ball.. he scores! He scores! And DePaul wins the NCAA championship in a terrific overtime thriller one of the best I’ve seen in years maybe ever. Now I just laid there as everyone mobbed the court thinking ” that move gets them every time”. 

The View is always Different( point of view)

 Authors note: this is a point of view piece written on the book The Underdogs   , which is changing the perspective, from the main character named Will to a sub character named Hannah.   

          Wow! Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I shouldn’t be out there every play. I can’t believe I’m not out there on the field, instead were just a weak spot in the wide receiver position. It’s all his fault! That was what I think the point of view would be if Hannah from the book The Underdogs was the main character and not Will. If Hannah was the main character the plot would change a lot, here’s what It might look like.

 Instead of the plot having will make the make a new football team struggle to get enough players, then lose their first 2 games and after that come all the way back to the championship. It would be Hannah moving to Forbes, meeting Will and becoming friends. Then asking to join the football team, struggling to play at first and blaming Will, to finally realizing that it was for the better of the team and then go on to win the championship.

There is lots of points in this book where Hannah thinks very differently from Will. The two probably disagree the most in football. One of the parts in which they disagree is after the game, and Hannah gets upset with Will because she sat out the final play. On this play Will and the coach thought we really need this and Hannah hasn’t quite got this and sat her out. But on Hannah side it looks like this, why do they do this, I thought he promised me a chance, I shouldn’t have trusted him! Throughout the book it was that easy to tell they had very different point of views.

Back when Mike Lupica was writing this book, if he did decide to write it in Hannah’s perspective the whole book would have changed from the readers point of view. By this I mean that most of the plot would be there, but when they win a game instead of having the book seem like there all happy, it could have had Hannah complaining. Over all every ones point of view would be different but if the author had chosen Hannah it would have changed everything no doubt.

After all you can see and tell that everyone has a different point of view on everything, especially thing that matter most. For instance, like sports if they really matter to you then you always think you should be out there making the play that counts. This point of view makes more sense after you change something in the book. If you were to rewrite the book with a sub character from this book a lot would be a lot different. That’s why you always have to keep your head up even if you are not first in line.