Book Summary
They were a talented team with a near-perfect record. But for five straight years, when it came to the crunch of the playoffs, the Amherst Lady Hurricanes-a "finesse" high school girls' basketball team of nice girls from a nice town-somehow lacked the scrappy, hard-driving desire to go all the way. Now, led by the strong backcourt of All-American Jamila Wideman and three-point specialist Jen Pariseau, and playing beyond their personal best, this is their year to prove themselves in the state championship. Their season to test their passion for the sport and their loyalty to each other. Their time to discover who they really are. "In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle" is the fierce, funny, and intimate look into the minds and hearts of one group of girls and their quest for sucess and, most important of all, respect.
Lit. Circle 1
We started with the summary of the pages we read. Then, we went over some passages in the book that we thought reflected good writing or showed importance to the novel:
*Passage 1:"Coach Moyer often had a habit of referring to his strongest players as "leaders," but outsiders often called Jamila the "star" of the team, unaware that something about that word star made everyone on the Hurricanes; even Jamila, flinch."
*Passage 2:"The college kids stroll down the main drag, South Pleasant Street, with an air of entitlement; souls afloat in the ocean of knowledge."
*Passage 3:"Most adolescents tend to one or the other of two emotional styles, surly insurrection or, as in the case of Jen, brooding self-definition."
The thinking questions we went over were:
*Do you think the rules Jen set for herself are good ones?
*Why do you think Jenny and Jamila don't talk as much?
*If the team you were on only focusedd on one girl like Jamila and the Hurricanes, would you like or dislike it?
*If the team you played for had had a near-perfect record for the last 5 years, but crashed at the playoffs, would that make you try even harder?
*Would you like to live in a small town or in the city?
*Would you rather be on a team that was made up of friends where everyone knew and liked each other, or one that worked very well together on the court, but weren't friends and hardly knew each other?
*Do you like basketball, or play basketball?
*Is there anything you are excited about for your senior year?
Then we finished with the vocab. for our chapters:
*uniform- clothes that are required to wear
*Amherst- name of the town in Massachusetts
*fairgoers- people who go to the fair
*distracted- not focused, not paying attention
*unity- together
Lit. Circle 2
For our second lit meeting, we read chapters 3-4. We started off with a summary with those chapters.
Next, we read off some passages that we thought reflected good writing or showed importance to the novel. Two passages were:
*Pg. 63- "Jen is such a giving person. 'If I can make five people smile everyday, I'm happy. That's what floats my boat,' she told me."- It says that the little things in life are what make her happy, not the big things.
*Pg. 71- "Coach Moyer had given me a million chances to prove I wanted to be part of the team. All he asked that I not foul. When we were down by twenty, he urged us: 'Let's get this within twelve points, not for the fans but for you guys."- It says do your best even if your losing, keep going until the end for yourself, not for the fans.
The words we went over were:
*Pg. 67- elongated- to make it appear as though it is longer than it really is
*Pg. 69- strategy- a careful plan or method
*Pg. 69- violence- a violent act
*Pg. 73- profound- have intellectual depth and insight
*Pg. 77- enthusiastic- filled with or marked by enthusiasm
The thinking questions we went over were:
*How would you feel if you, like Kim, had gotten called for a foul at the playoffs, and therefore your team lost?
*Do you think Jamila made the right decision on playing her last year at Amherst instead of Stanford?
*Do you have a dream? What is it?
*Why does Kim blame herself?
*Why do you think they refer to the past summer?
*Have you ever pushed yourself towards a big goal?
Lit. Circle 3
Lindsey read the summary and asked "would you be willing to make as such as big of a commitment to the Hurricanes as coach Moyer asked of them?
Jenna read- The following words: degenerated, venerable, surmise, eminece, ruminations and asked "Do you think coach Moyers coaching strtegy is a good one?
Arlene read her thinking questions, "Do you have a coach that assumes a parent role?" "Do you have close friends that you have known since you were little?" "Were you eververy sick when you were little?" "Who do you take after your mom or your dad?"Do you know what gangrene is?"
Jenny read her passages and explained yo us why they were important to the story.
Lit. Circle 5
Lindsey read her passages:
passage one- As a blackman, wideman knows only to well the shallow thriumph of taken process. He had told Kathleen's father, "This is just one team in onw season, It alone cannot change the discrimination against girls and their bodies through out history. But here in these girls, hope is a muscle."
passage two- What would he say to them tonight? For once he felt that perhaps he had listened eagerly, and they knew what they had to know, both about the sport and about themselves. The cliche was true, well almost: Even if they didnt win tonight, they had won, simply by allowing themselves to get this far.
Arlene read her summary
It started out with the hurricans fans start to show more interest in there games. Jen gives a speech to the younger girls. They talked about there next game. Then they talked about the really exciting game, while the girls are excited the parents go through memories. Then the final game was played.
complicated, coach, dispute, hesitate, wellness
Heather read her words
Complicated, coach, dispute, hesitate, wellness
Then we ended with all of the thinking questions
We watched "Rocks with Wings", a sports documentery about a Native American girl's basketball team.The similarities were:- It was about a girl's basketball team.
- They lost the first state game.
- The won the Second.
- They had alot of issues.The differences were:- In the movie, the girls didn't like their coach, whereas the girls in the movie did.
- The girls in the book came from more of a rich neighborhood than the girls in the movie.
- The girls in the book came from Amerst, Massachuts, but the girls in the movie came from Shiprock, New Mexico.Jenna liked the basketball games. Heather liked the beginning. Jenny liked the state game. Arlene liked the games. And Lindsey liked the basketball games too.
In chapter 9 Jen talked about how a team isnt just made out of nothing, there is a lot of work to be done. Do you beleive that she is right or is it not that hard??
Meeting 4Chapters 7-8Jenny was Manager for this Lit. Circle. We started the meeting off with Lindsey doing her thinking question, "Why did everyone avoid making baskets and give them all to Jen?" we answered the question then Lindsey went on to her words. Swank- a dashing smartness,as in dress or appearence;style.Intoxicated- to affect temporarily with diminished physical and mental control by means of alcoholic liquor,a drug, or another substance.Deprivation- to have been deprived of something.
Hierarchy- a system of people or things ranked one above another.Insinuated- to suggest or hint shylyThen I did my one thinking question, "What do you think of the the book so far?" My group answered. Then Jenna did her thinking question "How would you feel if you were Jamila and you had people wanting to know who you were?" We answered then Jenna went on with her passages. Next Heather went, she did her thinking question followed by her summary of the chapters And lastly Jenny did her five thinking questions.
At one of the lady Hurricanes practices their coach tells one of the girls to be more aggressive and not herself, she was to nice on the court. Has there ever been a time when you had to act like someone else?
If you had the choice to use your summer to improve your basketball skills or to use it as free time, what would you choose?
One of our thinking question for our 1st lit circle was:
"If the team you were on only focused on one girl like Jamila and the Hurricanes, would you like, dislike, or just not mind it?"
