Analysis Of Winners Never Quit ! By Mia Ham

Literature is an essential part of the center of a person’s life. It provides a certain assurance and “feeds the soul” of one. Whether it be a book, TV, or even an advertisement, literature exists everywhere. A person is able to develop many skills by studying literature, and expand the horizon of their learning. An immeasurable amount of insight and knowledge can be gained from the study of literature which contributes in providing readers with an understanding of the past, and a philosophical assimilation of the moral behind a writing piece.

Literature; it has compelled us, entertained us, educated us, and drove us to madness. It has served as life instruction, by using the characters as the lesson plan. It is sometimes blunt, sometimes ugly, and in Truman Capote’s case, is so gruesome that we do not dare forget it.

When a novel is revealing, witty and whimsical it unlocks the hidden truths about literature as discussed in the book How To Read Literature Like a Professor by Thomas Foster. This book is written in second person so the reader can experience Foster’s personality that is directed towards them. A reader is given a fresh and clear perception on literature to understand what is being read. Foster clarifies the way writers uses symbols and themes. He believes by analyzing the deeper meaning in literature will help foster a better reader.

In his essay ”Formative Fictions: Imaginative Literature and the Training of the Capacities”, Joshua Landy, professor at Stanford University, aims to explain the function of fiction and the reward of our engagement with literary works. Landy highlights three theories of the function of fiction: the exemplary branch, which invites the reader to consider characters as models for emulation or avoidance, the affective branch, which focuses on what fiction does to our emotions, and the cognitive branch, that believes that fictions grants us access to knowledge. Landy is specifically interested in “formative fiction”, works “whose function it is to fine-tune our mental capacities” (Landy 183). The purpose is not to acquire a superior understanding of the story, but to practice methods that allow readers to take an active stance towards works, whether it be picking holes in the logic or mending those holes. Rather than describing what happens to readers, he emphasizes that readers ought to do something with formative fictions that admittedly, they can easily fail to do. Landy argues that readers who look for a moral or message of a novel have misinterpreted the purpose of literature, which is not to have a genuine connection to the reader’s lives. While accepting that his theory is not universal and only applies to some literary works, Landy’s new option for interpreting texts, his

The written word has inspired for centuries. There is simply something about novels, poetry and prose that can have an undeniable power over the readers mind and emotions. Writing can draw connections and even place the reader inside their story, as if it were the reader’s own. However, the author that holds the pen can be even more powerful than their work. In the novel, Old School by Tobias Wolff, Wolff captures the essence of the power of writing and the writer.

My book is called Breakaway: Beyond the Goal. It is an autobiography written by Alex Morgan. Alex told about her life growing up as a kid and how her dad wanted her to play softball, but she just wanted to play soccer. She started out playing recreation soccer at a very young age, then moved up to play club soccer. At first, Alex was not good enough to make it onto the club team, but with encouragement and help from her family and coaches, she finally made it on the team. She then went on to be a top goal scorer in high school and college. Eventually, during college Alex was called to go to the U.S. Soccer National Development Camp, where she trained to be on the US Women's National Soccer Team. Alex worked very hard on the team and through many setbacks throughout the story she fought through it and is now one of the world’s best.

In “How to Mark a Book”, Mortimer J. Adler delves into the importance of active reading. His purpose is to encourage an audience of readers to not be afraid to write in a book because “…the soul of a book can be separated from its body” (Adler 17). Meaning, a book is more than its physical being and deserves to be cherished for what is written inside of it.

Before we divulge into the topic of this essay, let me begin by stating that neither the author of the main source, Steven Johnson, nor I intend to devalue books or look down upon them. In his book, Everything Bad Is Good For You, he starts off talking about the importance of books. He says, “We should all encourage our kids to read more, to develop a comfort with and an appetite for reading” (Johnson 21). Reading provides many different benefits, some including “concentration, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on pages” (Johnson 23). As an avid reader myself, I have always had an interest in books.

For now, I'll set aside considerations of why The Goal is a novel, how effective it is as a book, whether it succeeds as literature, and so on. This article is primarily about the ideas behind the book, and why some are valuable while others are probably quite useless.

Today, no one seems to give much value of literary works or reading. Not because it doesn’t give anything beneficiary, but because not everyone had the urged to at least finish a book. We now live in a world where social medias almost dominates our daily activities. It’s unlikely to have a place for us to consume a non-fiction or fiction book. As absurd as it sounds but that’s how people often think. We now live in an egalitarian society, where everyone is given the freedom and right of its own.

The Educated Imagination discusses major ideas that answer the question “what good is the study of literature?”. Frye does so by discussing concepts such as the desire of humans to connect to nature, the conformity to conventions and deviation from reality in literature, and the ideal manner in which literature should be taught. Northrop Frye’s The Educated Imagination proposes the idea that through the consumption of literature, the individual is able to develop an imagination which allows him to connect to society from an educated perspective.

Literature is important to allow readers to escape reality within the pages of a book, and also to preserve the past by reading about personal experiences and understanding the norms of different time periods. It is beneficial to provide a new world for the reader, but it shows our history and how it has changed over the years. Many fiction writers hint at real-world experiences or topics and it is up to the reader to interpret the theme of the literature. Authors write to preserve our past and to show a common theme as well as open the door to allow the reader to delve into the words on the page.

“The Winner Within” is about a life plan for team players and what it takes to be a successful team. Each chapter is based on one subject, and that subject is one of the many things that a team needs to be successful. Pat Riley shares his game plan for team players in all of life, not just on the court. All of the strategies in this book are very inspiring and motivate teamwork. I think that the first chapter in the book, ‘The Innocent Climb’, is one of the most important concepts you have to have on a team. The innocent climb is the surge that occurs within a team as they are accomplishing more because of the synergy that occurs within a team. Innocence means understanding that the team comes first and being carried along by that.

Fiction novel’s shows us the views and perspective others. This type of literature help us gain a more broader perspective and can teach us more about our society. The idea of banning fictional novels is a very foolish idea. These novels do more good than they do harm and are beneficial for our curriculum and learning. Taking away this literature will not benefit our learning and will only harm our learning. “Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.’’ said G.K. Chesterton.

Indeed, the best works of literature are those which are of relevance to our lives today. Through their relevance, these novels continue to persist and endure on. Through their relevance, we can better comprehend the messages, the themes, and the ideas that are imbued in them. Rather than literature being contradictory and in conflict with the truth and unpleasant reality of daily life, it becomes a weapon through which we can be educated about the existential crises facing our world today. In fact, the statement above could not be more far and distant from the reality of literature today. It is fatally flawed. Literature, whilst at the surface, seems whimsical and amusing is, at its very core, a medium through which we are enlightened