Gene Luen Yang’s latest book, Dragon Hoops is a semi-autobiographical book about Gene's time traveling and novelizing the story of the O’Dowd Dragons and their quest to win state championships. Gene is the author of the award-winning autobiography American Born Chinese, a school math teacher, and a comic book nerd. In this essay. I will tell you about this book’s theme of “everyone has a story worth telling.” In this book, you can see this theme presented in multiple ways, the first of which is how Gene interviews almost everyone on the team to get their unique stories. On page 252 he talks about Zhao’s story. Zhao is a Chinese immigrant who always had a dream of playing basketball. And even though including Zhao and his story isn't necessary to the plot he adds it anyway because his story is worth sharing and telling the world. On page 352 he talks about Austen Walker and how he decided he won’t play basketball in college and just wants to leave it all on the court. Gene didn't need to add his story as well but in doing so he made the book so much greater than it would be otherwise. So in adding most characters’ backstories he makes the book more fleshed-out, and interesting and gets you much more connected to the characters. …show more content…
On page 235 he includes how he missed his wife’s birthday so he could include a game. This just serves to show that he wants to not just capture the team on the court but also to capture the little details in between the high moments that are just as compelling. On page 328 he adds a discussion he had with Tony the assistant coach. In most scenes, Tony has his baby with him and is juggling being a dad and the assistant coach at the same time and he is passionate about both. This just goes to show how even just an everyday dad can be a very interesting person if you just get to know their
Travis Lazarczyk doesn’t consider himself a sportswriter but rather a writer about people with sports as a backdrop. His most exciting stories to write about comes from the accomplishment a group of people or individuals, specifically high school basketball teams. The most emotional story he has ever wrote about was Dick McGee. Dick was a friend and Lazarczyk’s feature on Dick felt he was writing an obituary rather than a feature. Travis came to answer questions for Thomas Colleges EH-111 Section G sports writing and composition class.
In the text, it states,”He’s developing into a real athlete,’ he said matter-of-factly,’ We’re aiming for the ‘44 Olympics,” (Knowles, 121). This proves that Gene is finally going to be equal with Finny as being athletic. He can finally prove to Finny that he can do the same as him. Throughout the things happened, Gene has really made some achievements out of
Gene fails to tell the reader his thoughts as he took the jump from the tree. He may not remember what he was thinking during the incident but the reader knows that Gene is
With the support of their families, William’s and Arthur’s motivation to accomplish this goal led them to fantastic high school basketball careers. From viewing the film, I found that I share William’s and Arthur’s determination. William, for his entire high school career, braved a 180 minute round trip commute to school and back. He spent three whole hours almost every day in transit to attend one
The documentary Hoop Dreams tells of two young athletes, Arthur Agee and William Gates, as they navigate high school intending to become professional basketball players and possibly making it into the NBA. While originally both teenagers are enthusiastic about playing basketball for a living, viewing it as the most fun thing in the world, numerous challenges and setbacks make them realize that becoming a basketball star is much more complex and difficult than they could have ever imagined. Despite facing severe financial issues and injuries, as well as struggling to earn good grades in the classroom, both Arthur and William refuse to give up in the face of adversity, and persist in their dreams to resolve these obstacles and become successful
Literary Analysis of “Waxen Wings” Failure is a grueling issue to consider even if it’s a natural way of life. Ha Songnan’s “Waxen Wings” expresses to never give up on your dreams because sometimes it takes failure to discover achievement. The nameless South Korean girl, “Birdie”, travels back to her childhood. As a child and even as an adult she has a brilliant imagination that consists of flying; yet, imagination is a ignominy in her culture.
The documentary begins with Allen Iverson’s early life, and it details his development into the world of sports. As the film progresses, it explains the incident and its effects on Allen Iverson’s community. Subsequently, it continues to tell the story of Allen Iverson’s life, and the ways in which it has been altered by a single altercation in his teenage years. Steve James’s choice of telling the story of Allen Iverson’s life and career as a narrative is a positive attribute to the film. By telling the story in chronological order, viewers have an easy time understanding the storyline and timeline of events.
He gives what he calls a “brief history of the NBA in eight fake quotes, five exclamation points and two question marks”, which simultaneously makes the reader chuckle, catches their attention, and begins discussion on one of his main topics: the history and current state of the NBA. In his second paragraph, he goes on to repeat one of his statements “in bold italics” as a bit of a joke to further appeal to the casual nature of his readers, but also to further discuss his first topic of the state of the NBA and emphasize the ridiculousness of how much the players are being paid nowadays. Not only is his opening entertaining, but it does a good job of introducing his topic of discussion, in order to begin his build-up to his main argument later on in his
Once the reasoning for the incessant practicing of the shot is known, the little snippets of foreshadowing throughout the story can all be pieced together. While they are practicing the shot one day, the basketball coach makes a comment in a joking manner relating to using Owen in a game, but Owen says, “IT’S NOT FOR A GAME…” (303), implying that there is some specific purpose for the shot and Owen
All of these hegemonic roles our children and adolescents are subjected to, and many of these are portrayed in Alexie’s novel. Junior’s basketball participation is a show of hegemonic masculinity, boys use sports to “exert power over others through gendered social capital” (Harper, Bean 14), this was juniors means to acceptance, his athleticism a way to gain popularity. Being a basketball star is in general a male role, “I became a freshman starter on a varsity basketball team” (Alexie 236), and while Junior was on the court he enjoyed his girlfriend Penelope on the sidelines cheering him on. That was her role, as his cheerleader, his support system, she in a sense marked his status. Similar to a trophy wife to her husband, this can be seen in the way Junior’s “male gaze” portrays her as already discussed.
Life lessons are very important in your life because it can teach you many valuable lessons. There are many life lessons you can learn on and off the court but the narrator learns more valuable life lessons off of the court. First, the life lessons learned on the court helped the narrator learn more about the challenges of sports. For example Dante tells the narrator “you wanna get in games, you don't just sit there like a punk right,?
The movie Hoop Dreams traced a poor young talented African American, named Arthur Agee from grade eight to college. Arthur hoped to play professional basketball in the future to help his family to escape poverty. Despite the fact that his family is poor, and the neighborhood he lived in, were disadvantaged to him to pursue his goal in many ways. Firstly, Arthur showed great determination to play professional basketball, and he would like to lead his family out of poverty. Secondly, his ability to adapt to difficult circumstances, played a significant role toward his success in basketball.
The book Dragon keeper written by author Carole Wilkinson is set in Ancient China. The story entails a young girls sojourn throughout China. During the journey, the girl changes from believing that she is unworthy of a name to somebody who has encountered everything from almost dying to damaging endless laws deserving of death. The story begins in Ancient China with a slave girl who in the first place makes herself unworthy of even a name.
Because of his point of view the conflicts that change him are extremely prevalent because of how his every thought is displayed throughout the story. How Gene’s character
It is also a tale of how the Dunbar basketball program would open doors for more basketball athletes such as Carmelo Anthony, Rudy Gay, Will Barton and many more. This story follows