Blakley 1 Stephanie L. Blakley October 10, 2011 English 91 .002 Leyton/McCormick PACT ESSAY The Pact is about three young men Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt, who bonded as young boys growing up in a lower class community in Newark, NJ. In there senior year of high school they were tired of their life style and decided to make a pact to attend college and become doctors. I chose to write about Sam, and how his social life involving peers, mentors, girlfriends, and friends played a great role in achieving his goal. When Sam was growing up in a poverty stricken neighborhood his peers were a great influence in his behavior.
In the book, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, Junior gets to experience this, after a basketball game against his former best friend and people that he lives around every day. In this piece, we learn that things are not always as they seem. I think this is shown through the character’s actions, the internal and external dialogue, and through what we know historically about the Native Americans and through Junior. To begin with, I will show that the character of Junior changes to show that things are not always as they seem. At first, Junior is determined to “demoralize” the “evil Wellpinit Redskins.” He continually describes them as the enemy, and in some respects thinks of with as little consideration as others.
He had scored 48 points in a game. He had looked forward to going to Sexton high school a school where basketball was doing very successful in basketball and was like five blocks from his house. His plans did not go he didn’t go to Sexton that was an all-black-school. He instead went to a school that his sister Pearl and his Brother Larry went to that they did not have a pleasant time with. Everett that was an all-white school that had racism like some people threw rocks at the bus when black kids where in it.
Joe’s father brings home a bunch of books from Eastwood Academy’s summer reading list and Joe starts to read The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus. Joe finds an abandoned gym where he goes to practice basketball, but one evening a mist filled the gym; a mist that “somehow held the devil” (Deuker, On the Devil’s Court 92). That night he vowed “Give me a full season, give me twenty-four games of this power, and my soul is yours.” (Deuker, On the Devil’s Court 92). After that Joe made the Eastwood basketball team and they went to the State Championship. Joe believes he sold his soul to the devil, just like the book he is reading, and is scared he or his father will die for it.
In the essay, Aria, he was forced to study English and Richard Rodriguez resented the loss of intimacy in the family. However, he, later, discovered his love in books. Richard Rodriguez switched from hating English to fall in love with books. Education has changed his mind; therefore, changed him. He confesses: “What I am about to say to you has taken me more than twenty years to admit: A primary reason for my success in the classroom was that I couldn’t forget that schooling was changing me and separating me from the life I enjoyed before becoming a student” (598).
Although he does feel bad that he just abandoned him so close to the end of his father’s life, it didn’t stop him from doing it. “I went to look for him. But at the same moment this thought came into my mind: ‘Don’t let me find him! If only I could get rid of this dead weight, so that I could use all my strength to struggle for my own survival, and only worry about myself.’ Immediately I felt ashamed of myself, ashamed forever” (101). Here we saw Elie’s feelings towards his father really come through.
Quote 3: People who are always mad, sad, or disappointed, are always the ones who are not going to help others prosper. “Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.” The Author wanted readers to hear him not literally hear him, but to hear him in his context. I heard him saying that doing for others makes you feel better of yourself and who you are as a person. Helping people is what life is for so that’s what he wants readers to
His best friend is Charles (A.K.A. Ice) and his girlfriend, Keisha (KICKY). The kid can’t put down the basketball, he will have to put down the ball if he does not put his grades back up. Meanwhile his best friend Ice, is selling drugs. He has a good future in basketball.
Crooks has been lonely for so long that he expects people not to talk to him. When Lennie comes in and does not have any intention, he let's his guard down knowing he wont hurt him. It may seem that he doesn't desire friendships or affection, but he no longer
Tiffany Johnson Laura Govia Composition 2 October 10, 2012 Shatter dreams in John Updike’s “Ex-Basketball Player” The title of the poem really tell you what the poem is all about. The speaker tell you what a great basketball player he was and how often he dreamed about his basketball career. The poem tells us about a basketball player who was the best player on his basketball tea, and hold the high school that still has not been beat. “He never learned a trade”(line49) and now he works at “Berth’s Garage” (line 4). The poem implies that Flick was a great basketball and that he was the best in the county and that he hold the county record of scoring the most points.