Martin Schoket
Dec 2011
Genre/Thematic Unit: Sports Literature & Multiple Criticisms
Unit Title: Sports Literature – A Microcosm of Life: How the themes of sports literature reflect
and encapsulate societal commonalities.
Unit Description: This unit will focus on developing a discourse for social critiques explicated
and implicated through the medium of Young Adult sports literature. The goal of this focus is to
explore and examine crucial social interactions with the familiar and relatable genre of sports. As
such, emphasis will be placed on the production of quality rhetoric in articulating observations
and ideas extrapolated from the readings.
*This unit is designed for upper-class high school students.
Required Texts:
McPhee, John A. Levels of the Game. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1991. Print.
Levels of the Game is a biographical essay nominally written about the lives and
interactions of the prolific tennis players Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner but also explores
deeper social and cultural issues. Being written in essay form, it will help model the expository
writing style for the active literacy exercises intended to be associated with this text in class.
Students’ expository writings will be the basis for a development in alternative communication
skills, which will include speech and discussion, with the hopes of producing quality rhetorical
wisdom.
The account is structured around a description of the semi-final match in the 1968 U.S.
Open between Ashe and Graebner. Framing the story this way, McPhee is able to insert the
social and cultural background stories of both players’ dissimilar rise to the professional level.
Alternating between the vivid description of the tennis match and comprehensible profiles of the
contestants’ different environments, the story is a masterfully crafted dynamic of society in
relations to sports and society reflected in sports.
(Reading – Research – Pre-writing – Essay – Outline – Speech)
Toole, F. X. Million Dollar Baby. New York: HarperCollins, 2006. Print.
Million Dollar Baby is a series of short stories about boxing. This is another text that will
model active literacy skills—short story and fictional writing, as well as critical listening since
the collection contains full stories written in dialect. Fiction writing will help build social
perspectives through an analysis of relationships and understanding of them through writing.
F.X. Toole is the pen name of veteran boxing trainer Jerry Boyd, and his experiences are
the basis for the collection of stories known as Million Dollar Baby. Many of the stories involve
disenfranchised characters that find their way to the gritty sport of boxing. Stories of rags to
riches, racial and economic adversity, and constant defeat are sure to provide an array of issues
to explore. The movie adaptation of this book can also be utilized to analyze particular aspects
even further.
(Readings – Story Development – Pre-writing – Edits – Final – Peer Readings & Critiques)
Odets, Clifford. Golden Boy. New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1964. Print.
This is a short play about boxing and will be used to supplement Million Dollar Baby.
The dialogue in Golden Boy will help clarify some of the nuances and intricacies with dialogue
in fiction writing, as well as provide an opportunity to work on the active literacy of speech (by
performance).
The play is the tale of Joe Bonaparte, a son of an Italian immigrant and aspiring violinist,
who finds a niche at the local boxing gym when prizefight promoter Roxy Gottlieb approaches
him with an offer to sponsor his career, which has the lure of big money and fame but conflicts
with his music from the possibility of injuring his hands. Set in 1930s New York, this play has its
fair share of racial, ethnic, and nationality issues.
(Read before MDB – Examine dialogue/relationships – Performances)
Crutcher, Chris. Whale Talk. New York: Greenwillow, 2001. Print.
Whale Talk, by Chris Crutcher, exhibits an insight into a particular team sport
(swimming) that has a different set of dynamics because of the necessity for teammates to
compete individually at their highest level in order to benefit the team as a whole. Superficially,
this novel is about those endearing relationships formed by the outcasts of the school. However,
under the surface, it is a tackling of much larger societal issues including race, adoption,
bullying, competition, and a myriad of other topics that can be analyzed in comparison or
contrast to the concepts of the two other team sport based novels in the unit.
Grisham, John. Bleachers. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Print.
Bleachers, by John Grisham, is another novel about the endearing and turbulent
relationships exhibited by a high school football team. The hook for this team sport based story
is that the team has reconvened to attend the funeral of their infamous and beloved Coach Rake,
who, in his 30+ year coaching career, took their team and many others to the state championship
game. The various alumni from the 1987 Messina High Football Championship Team recall
memories of their time on the field, which definitely include the rigors of Eddie Rake’s coaching
style. This book, being an approach to team dynamics years after the fact, is another text that will
be used to analyze those dynamics from another perspective.
Myers, Walter Dean. Game. New York: Dell Pub., 1983. Print.
Game, by Walter Dean Myers, is the third and final story of the team sports based novels
in this unit. In this perspective of teams, teammates, and teamwork, high school senior and star
point guard on the James Baldwin Academy basketball team Drew Larson has to contend with
achieving his dreams of the reaching the NBA while living in the precarious city of Harlem, as
well as fighting to keep his starting position when two new recruits join the team before the
second half of the season, which is also when scouts begin recruiting heavily. This will be the
third novel to analyze for these same social and cultural factors, as well as comparing and
contrasting the functions and efficiency of each of the teams found in each of the books.
Smith, Roland. Peak. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Children's, 2007. Print.
Peak, by Roland Smith, is one of two individual sport novels that will be utilized in this
unit. It will be used in the analysis of individually competing athletes and the comparison or
contrast to team dynamics and motivations. This book details the life of Peak Marcello, an
adventurous 14-year-old who is arrested at the beginning of the story for scaling Manhattan’s
Woolworth Building. Peak’s affinity for climbing might be genetic, as his parents are world
famous mountain climbers, and his father suggests Peak go and climb Mount Everest with him as
an alternate “punishment” to a juvenile detention sentencing.
Crutcher, Chris. Ironman. New York: HarperTempest, 2004. Print.
Ironman, by Chris Crutcher, is the other individual sport based novel to be used in
exploring the inner-workings of individually competing athletes, as well as the inevitable social
factors that Chris Crutcher so masterfully and eloquently crafts into his Young Adult Fiction
writings. The protagonist in Ironman, Bo Brewster, is a freethinking seventeen-year-old triathlete
who has to confront the disappointment of his father and his English teacher (who is also the
football coach) when he does not set his focus on more traditional academic team sports that
would give him a better chance at a scholarship (like football).
Johnson, Donavan (XV). “Hoop Dreams.” Single Digital Release. Mp3. Warner Bros, 2011.
“Hoop Dreams” is a rap song created by Donavan Johnson aka XV. The piece uses
basketball terminology, popular culture references about basketball players, and the conception
of basketball players to paint a metaphoric picture about the real life of inner-city kids. This
would be something to use when things become monotonous and the need for something
different would be beneficial. There are a few other songs that would work similarly to this one,
but this is just an example of a more poetic sports themed text conducive to analysis and
discussion.
Audience Description
Fourth period English has an enrollment size of thirty, ninth-grade students, which consists of
eighteen females (9 white, 4 African-American, 5 Hispanic) and twelve males (6 white, 4
African-American, 2 Hispanic) from varying lower to middle-middle class statuses. The makeup
of the class is a reflection of the school and surrounding community, with the school and city
classified as Urban, although suburban life has began to permeate the existing social
environment.
Aside from Monday mornings, this class is usually awake and spry by the time class begins at
10:15 and has little to no problem being energized enough to engage themselves actively in the
lectures, discussions, and coursework. The class seems to be fairly cohesive, as many students
have no trouble communicating (and shouting) ideas, answers, opinions, questions, and the
occasional joke. There is an issue with non-essential “chatting” during class that has to be
quelled often but is a blessing when it comes time to discuss, and the students just take the
discussion reins and run with it. Mediation becomes inevitable, though, as some voices in the
class are stronger than others, so interference is run to refocus the discussion and keep the
remaining students from missing out on participation. Although fourth period is seeded with
creative, abstract, and free thinkers that emit an unusual passion for the topics covered
throughout the year, they almost all have more difficulties with writing than other class periods,
which is addressed by administering numerous writing and speaking exercises intended to
strengthen all levels of discourse abilities in the class.
Being that this is a sport related course, it naturally attracts the schools’ athletes from various
teams. Teams and sports represented in this class are: football, girls’ and boys’ swimming, girls’
and boys’ basketball, boys’ soccer, boys’ and girls’ track, and baseball. The reading list was
created in anticipation of this amalgamation of sporting teams and almost covers each individual
sport and some others that high school students are not exposed to as much such as boxing, rockclimbing, and triathlons. There are also a handful of students who are not a part of a sports team
at the school but show an equal amount of enthusiasm for the subject(s).
Standards
Standard 1 – Reading: The student reads and comprehends text across the curriculum.
Benchmark 3: Indicator 1
Benchmark 4: Indicators 9, 13
Standard 1 – Writing: The student writes effectively for a variety of purposes.
Benchmark 2: Indicators 4, 13, 14, 21
Benchmark 3: Indicators 1, 2, 6-17
Unit Activities & Outline
Levels of the Game – This is a book written in essay form, so it is a great tool to reference for
writing. Being written in essay form, it will help model the expository writing style for the active
literacy exercises intended to be associated with this text in class. Students’ expository writings
will be the basis for a development in alternative communication skills, which will include
speech and discussion, with the hopes of producing quality rhetorical wisdom.
 Major Tasks: Compose expository essay about a sports figure, past or present, and
develop an outline from that essay for a speech to be given to the class as an informal
assessment. Reading Levels of the Game will help me model in-depth, non-fictional essay
writing, and the speech will help the students to increase their rhetorical abilities by
articulating information they discover in their research of their chosen athlete.
 Minor Tasks: During the course of reading Levels of the Game, there will be multiple
discussions about the criticisms being used to analyze the essay, as well as a number of
worksheets intended to develop a more thorough understanding of the concepts
associated with each type of criticism and the fundamentals of expository writing.
o There will be a brief overview (1 class period or so) of public speaking principles,
so students can familiarize themselves with this aspect of literacy.
Week 1
 Background and context information provided (unpack the unit title)
 Introduction to criticisms & perspectives: Social, Reader Response, Gender, Historical,
and Psychological – these will be used throughout the unit and will be reiterated for the
students’ benefit.
 Readings will be assigned as homework, and the discussions will occur the following
class period.
o First half of book to be completed in week 1
o Guidelines for research paper are provided
 Pre-writing stages of research paper
 Classroom discussions include:
o Essay Writing
o Social environments of Ashe & Graebner
o Historical perspective
o Reader Response type stories of triumph or failure
 Worksheets
o Organizers for essays
o Activity 28 from Critical Encounters in High School English, page 191
Week 2
 Guidelines for speech provided and elaborated upon
o Cover basics for outlining a speech
o Speech to be given at end of the week (could spill over to beginning of next week)
 One class period for research and writing in library
o To be submitted same day as speech
 Finish reading Levels of the Game
 Classroom discussions include:
o Further social analysis
o Compare/Contrast notes from criticisms worksheet
 Brief introduction to next texts
Million Dollar Baby & Golden Boy – These two books will work as a tandem to paint a better
picture about fiction writing. Million Dollar Baby offers several stylistically different short
stories that will help model the structure. Golden Boy offers more insight into the generally
difficult process of writing dialogue. Both books center around boxing, so confusion will remain
minimal.
 Major Tasks: Compose a fictional short story involving sports and complete with all
major components of a narrative. Perform excerpts from the play Golden Boy, and be
able to distinguish major themes of the sections. Narrative writing is the yin to the yang
of expository essay writing; they are opposites but complement each other well.
 Minor Tasks: Writing dialogues for characters from other stories. Develop an
understanding about using dialogue (form and function) for later implementation in short
stories. Exploring dialects in writing. Individually and succinctly examine the
components of a story (plot, conflict, POV, resolution, etc…). Critique other students’
work in a workshop style discussion.
Week 3
 Introduction to major tasks for these readings
o Explain how books work in tandem and how short story writing process will work
 Provide context and background information about each book
 Read and finish Golden Boy in class during this week
o Assign characters everyday and read entirety in class
o Specific Acts/Scenes will be performed by groups in front of class
 This activity will be an informal type group quiz
 Classroom discussions include: (this will be done somewhat passively, as we will go into
more detail about similar themes in Million Dollar Baby)
o Historical perspective of the time period (1930s)
o Boxing & individual competition
o Familial Relationships & perspectives of family members (close analysis of
dialogue)
o Reader Response style opportunities for students to share similar stories of
conflict
 Worksheets
o Dialogue Exercise
o Double-Entry Journal entries for each scene
o Components of a Narrative/Story Organizers
 Begin pre-writing workshop for students’ short stories
Week 4-5
 These two weeks will go slow so that the class can fully flesh out ideas for their stories,
and grasp a quality understanding about how short and fictional stories are structured.
 Readings:
o Member of the Fancy: An Introduction, pgs. 1-12 (Monday – Tuesday)
o Million Dollar Baby, pgs. 61-101 (Assign Tuesday – Thursday)
o Fightin in Philly, pgs. 103-140 (Assign Thursday – Monday)
o Frozen Water, pgs. 141-154 (Assign Friday Week 4 – Tuesday Week 5)
 Aside from the introduction, each reading will require a couple days for
discussion to draw out the intricacies of short stories.
 Classroom discussions include:
o Boxing as a sport & boxer/trainer relationships
o Social Class (themes similar to discussions in previous weeks)
o Gender perspectives in literature & reality
o Dialect in literature & reality
o All of the above related to writing the short story
o Fundamentals of fiction writing
 Worksheets include:
o Story Organizers (Week 4)
o Double-Entry Journals
o Short story pre-writing activity (Week 4)
 Students should be working aggressively during these two weeks to develop their stories,
which will be submitted on the Monday of Week 6. The “homework” for these weeks
will be the short readings spread out over several days and the development of stories so
the tasks are not too overwhelming.