"Fast Break"

In memory of Dennis Turner, Edward Hirsch wrote a poem that relives the fast-paced movements of a basketball game.

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 9 Unit 4's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: Poetry, poemcrazy, Nikki-Rosa, We Real Cool, Fast Break, Identity, Ego Tripping, Hanging Fire, odes, Sonnet 18, In Response to Executive Order 9066, Young, Poetry Cafe, poems by Nikki Giovanni
15 words 101 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. gangly
    tall, thin, and awkward
    and for once our gangly starting center
    boxes out his man and times his jump
  2. cherish
    be fond of
    gathering the orange leather
    from the air like a cherished possession
  3. guard
    a person who plays a position on a basketball team
    an underhand pass toward the other guard
  4. stunned
    filled with the emotional impact of overwhelming surprise
    who looks stunned and nailed to the floor
  5. dribble
    the propulsion of a ball by repeated taps or kicks
    a high, gliding dribble
  6. develop
    move into a strategically more advantageous position
    letting the play develop in front of him
  7. tandem
    an arrangement of objects or persons one behind another
    and filling the lanes in tandem, moving
    together as brothers passing the ball
  8. lunge
    make a thrusting forward movement
    until the guard finally lunges out
  9. commit
    give entirely to a specific person, activity, or cause
    and commits to the wrong man
  10. fury
    the property of being wild or turbulent
    while the power-forward explodes past them
    in a fury, taking the ball into the air
  11. process
    a particular course of action intended to achieve a result
    but losing his balance in the process
  12. inexplicable
    incapable of being explained or accounted for
    inexplicably falling, hitting the floor
  13. headlong
    with the upper or anterior part of the body foremost
    with a wild, headlong motion
  14. swivel
    turn on a pivot
    and swiveling back to see an orange blur
  15. float
    be in motion due to some air or water current
    floating perfectly through the net
Created on Wed Sep 24 17:30:19 EDT 2014 (updated Fri Sep 26 16:43:51 EDT 2014)

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