Shoeless Joe Essay

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Double spaced
File name: Name_Shoeless Joe.pdf

Submission
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Password: EnglishRocks

Shoeless Joe: 214-233

Con't from prior class:

Richard
Shoeless Joe
Mark
The Field
John Kinsella (father)

For the aforementioned characters, please answer the following questions:
1. What does this character reveal about Ray?
2. What role does this character play in Ray's dream?
3. What is this character's relationship to baseball? American dream?

__________________

1. “I know that some of us, and for some reason I am one of them, get to reach out and touch our heart’s desire, like a child who gets to pet the nose of an old horse, soft as satin, safe as a grandfather’s lap. And I know, too, that when most people reach out for that heart’s desire, it appears not as a horse but as a tiger, and they are rewarded with snarls, frustration, and disillusionment” (218).

Personally: What does this passage make you think of? Textually: How does this relate to the major action of the novel?

2. “A collector’s dream” (217). In what way is Ray a collector? What does he collect?

3. “Fact and fantasy swirl together” (218). What role does self-delusion have in dream fulfillment? Is Ray delusional? Salinger? Are we all, just a little? How does delusion relate to our ability to believe and have faith?

4. “We sleep.” …“And wait.” … “And dream … Oh, how we dream” (221). Dream of what?

5. Look at Eddie’s baseball sermon on p. 227 and beyond:

What’s a sermon?

What are the gospels?

What did baseball offer Eddie?

What does the Field offer Eddie?

What’s the significance of using “the word” in his speech? What effect does the repetition have? What does the repetition allude to?

What does Eddie offer Ray?

Besides the love of the game, what’s the connection between the two men?

Last weekly post #14: Bryce Harper and the swing

Here is a fabulous multi-media piece on Bryce Harper's swing. Regardless of your affinity or dislike for Harper, I'm hopeful you can appreciate all of the data collection that went into this article.

No need to bring this back to our novels or discussions in class, what do you think of the article? Any cool things you learned? Are you dying to becoming a sports statistician? Why do you think sports reporters and fans are always looking to compare current players to previous greats? Are we a nation always searching for our next hero? Is it only within the context of stats that we're able to define a great? So many questions ...

Shoeless Joe: 186-214

Annie

Karin

Eddie Scissons

Salinger

Richard

Shoeless Joe

Mark

The Field

John Kinsella (father)

For the aforementioned characters, please answer the following questions:

1. What does this character reveal about Ray?

2. What role does this character play in Ray's dream?

3. What is this character's relationship to baseball? American dream?

As time permits ... another short story!

Shoeless Joe: 157-186

Let's read a little story called Thrill of the Grass.

Discuss.

Shoeless Joe: 131-153

Veda Ponikvar is real!

A little board work: Please respond to five of the quotes. Think about how they relate to character development, themes, symbols, or the language of the text.

Weekly Post #13: Some light-hearted fun!

I love a good practical joke, and it seems like baseball players do too. Give this a read, laugh out loud, and tell me what you think. I know we're reading about magical realism and dreams and magic and a crazy field filled with ghost players, but how do you think comedy plays a role in baseball? Can magic and pranks co-exist? How do they complement each other? How do they just make you laugh?

Here's a favorite video. Promise it's worth watching about 100 times.

Then check out this top list from bleacherreport.

If you've got a favorite from any sport, feel free to share.

Weekly Post 12: Your Walk-up Song

Seeing as this will be the final post for those leaving on senior project, I thought you could get a little creative. Don't prove me wrong.

At each at-bat, a player selected song is played over the loud speaker. Not going to lie, until recently there was a sterotypical fomula to the songs (white players played country/pop, black players played rap, and latino players played salsa), but nowadays the players are selecting songs themselves and moving away from the sterotype. Thank goodness.

Now it's your turn. You only get about 10-12 seconds of a song. It can be any portion of the song, but I want to know 1. What song would you choose? 2. What portion would you have the announcer play? 3. Why would you choose this song? You can link to the youtube version of your song. And you by no means to to think of yourself walking up to the plate ... it can be onto the court, into a test, into a dance performance, on the block, whatever big moment you want.

Some of my faves this season:
Josh Reddick: Bernie Lean
Josh Donaldson: Regulator by Warren G
Mariano Rivera: Enter Sandman by Metallica
Angel Pagan: Blue
Buster Posey: Hell On Wheels
Panda: Dance (but has three others in the rotation)
Jeter: Otis by Jay Z

My pick -- Madonna -- Holiday -- 4 secs-16 secs. Classic. It says I have great taste in 80s music. It says, don't mess with me because not only can I dance and sing and do crazy yoga poses, but I can also kick some butt when I need to .... just like Madonna.