Adolescent Fiction: Love in Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

Monday, April 30, 2012

Love in Shakespeare Bats Cleanup

Kevin oh Kevin just a boy of 14

Lost his spot in the line up

Gave up his baseball dream

All because of this disease

Trying to recover with no energy

He sits day after day

Watching the shows on TV

Oh Kevin oh Kevin it’s going to be ok

He learns about love

From the guys on TV

He thinks about his mom high above

And boy does he feel weak

He remembers Goldie and the times in Bamboo

Thinking of what went wrong

What was a young boy to do

Heartbreak is hard but he carried on

Coach can’t keep one around

He says away from those women

Dad’s hurting that Mom is in the ground

No one to talk to you feel so alone

Mira oh Mira you’re something so sweet

You love my poems you encourage me

We fit together so well, I feel so complete

I pray that you will forever stay with me

1 comment:

KimberlyApril 30, 2012 at 11:16 AM
Your poem is a hit!
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Post #9 Shakespeare Bats Cleanup (due MONDAY, 4/30 by class time)

Shakespeare Bats Cleanup explores a number of themes, among them grief, identity, coming of age (Bildungsroman), friendship, love, and others. Kevin, our adolescent narrator, shares his story with us as a poetic narrative which includes poems written in conventional forms and free-form poems. Choose one theme which the book develops, and show its development through the text. As you do so, be sure to consider and articulate how the book's structure (as poems) affects whatever theme you discuss.

Post #7 Warriors Don't Cry (due Sunday 4/15 by 8 pm)

Choices for responses:

1. The title of this text refers to warriors. How are the characters warriors? Are you comfortable with that depiction? Why or why not? Be sure to offer specific description as you explore characterization.

2. While it could certainly be argued that the author of our last novel does place himself in the text, that book is fiction. This text is not; rather, it's a memoir. How does knowing that the book is non-fiction shape your reading of it? Does it cause you to respond differently? If so, how? If not, why not? Consider characters, events, and the historical context carefully as you respond.

Post #6 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (due Sunday, 3/25 by 8 pm)

Post #5 Annie on My Mind (part 2) due Sun 3/11 by 8 pm

You have several different options for your response:

1. How is social transgression framed and treated in the novel? Do you as a reader find that the characters are affirmed or punished for stepping outside of social conventions?

2. We've talked a bit about parallel spaces in texts, spaces in which characters encounter very different experiences. After reading this novel, can we argue that those parallel spaces never intersect? What function might those separate (or not so separate) spaces serve?

3. The story is written in the epistolary (letter writing) tradition. How does that framing affect your reading? Your interaction with characters? Your response?

Post #3 Due by Monday's class (2/20)

For this post, you have three options:

1. Respond to some theme you identify in the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the book.

2. Apply the article's claims to the novel. Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the article and the book.

3. Examine the novel as science fiction. How is it both utopic and dystopic in its function? What might it be warning us as a society against? Be sure that you make a claim and support it using specific examples from the text.

Post #1 Due by Thursday's class (1/26)

Ellen Raskin's novel The Westing Game is a detective novel, yes, but we can tease out many themes as we examine the text. A few we introduced and explored briefly in class today:

the Cinderella effect

the roles of women

identity construction

gaming and strategy

trust (as it relates to other themes or on its own)

oppressive/repressive (think Trites) parents

Choose from a theme on this list or choose a theme you've noted in the text, and write about the way the theme is introduced and developed through the novel. As you show how the theme works throughout the book, be sure to offer specific examples to support your ideas.