Worksheets"Farewell to Baseball" - Lou Gehrig
Total questions: 10
Worksheet time: 6mins
After reading the speech, what is the overall tone?
grateful and content
angry and bitter
sympathetic and kind
self-deprecating and cold
What evidence from the text conveys the tone?
Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I
consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.
Look at these grand men. Which of you
wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one
day?
Also, the builder of
baseball’s greatest empire, Ed Barrow?
Which of you
wouldn’t consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one
day?
Lou Gehrig uses several rhetorical questions throughout the speech. What is the purpose of this rhetorical device? (Choose 2)
to encourage the audience to reconsider their misconceptions about his situation
to encourage the audience to participate in the speech
to emphasis his message and theme
to confuse the audience with new information
What is the theme of the speech?
Despite adversity, you can still appreciate the positive parts of life.
Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.
When you work hard, all of your dreams will come true.
Existence is a futile Kafkaesque, nightmare.
What evidence supports the theme?
I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but
kindness and encouragement from you fans.
Sure I’m lucky.
So, I close in saying that I might have been given a bad break, but I've got an awful lot
to live for.
Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding
leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe
McCarthy?
What is the purpose of Lou Gehrig's speech?
to express his gratitude to a community that supported him
to encourage people to play baseball
to justify why he is retiring
to explain that he didn't deserve to suffer as he has
What effect does repetition have in the speech?
to emphasize the importance of the small things
to remind the audience that he was successful in his career
to add imagery to the speech
to insure the word count met requirements
Lou Gehrig mentions that he appreciates some things that might typically seem mundane. Which rhetorical appeals does this employ?
Ethos
Pathos
Logos
Kyros
"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got."
Knowing that Lou Gehrig had been diagnosed with a terminal illness, this statement is an example of which type of irony?
verbal - understatement
verbal - overstatement
situational
dramatic
"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that’s something."
Based on context clues, what does the idiom "give your right arm" mean?
You think something is valuable and would work hard to get it.
Your right arm is valid legal tender in monetary transactions.
The thing in question is not valuable to you.
