82 pages • 2 hours read
Walter Dean MyersSlam!
Fiction | Novel | Middle Grade | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Symbols & Motifs
Basketball
As Slam says in the opening of the novel, “Basketball is my thing. I can hoop. Case closed” (1). Basketball, the sport, is always on Slam’s mind—he loves to play it, he has dreams of where it can take him, and it is, by all accounts, his safe space: “With me it’s not like playing a game, it’s like the only time I’m being for real” (1). All week he’s practicing and playing games for his school, Latimer, and he spends weekends playing pickup at the local YMCA. On top of that, Slam often carries a basketball around with him, showing that even when he’s not playing, the game is not far from his mind or body.
Basketball also takes on a larger significance in the novel by representing certain thematic elements. Basketball is a team sport, and playing on a team is something Slam struggles with throughout much of the book. For a while, Slam puts himself first when he plays, to the detriment of the team. As the season progresses, Slam begins to figure out how to play within a team system while also using his abilities to stand out, an approach that makes him a better, more well-rounded basketball player. This shift connects to Coach Goldstein’s lecture on the game of life: Whereas Slam in the beginning of the novel thought it was him versus the world, Goldstein helps Slam see that, unlike basketball, the game of life doesn’t end at the final buzzer—it continues, and Slam has to give it his all and work together with people to succeed. These lessons combine to help Slam not only become a better player, but also to see that the game of basketball isn’t something that has to isolate him from the people in his life. Instead, it allows him to include others in his journey as he becomes not just a well-rounded player but a well-rounded person.
Video Camera
The video camera is another important symbol in Slam!. Slam borrows the video camera from his school for a film project he’s working on: He’s going to shoot hours of footage in and around his neighborhood, capturing the feeling of life there, and then his partner on the project, a girl named Margie, is going to edit it down and put music to it. While this may seem like a regular school project, the video camera takes on added significance when considering what Slam is using it for and what happens to it.
For Slam, the video camera is a creative outlet. It is an opportunity for him to express how he feels about his neighborhood and to show the people at his school what life is like where he lives. The camera allows him to take an unbiased, unfiltered look at things happening around him. It even allows him to see things he otherwise wouldn’t have noticed: “It was dope checking out the scene through the viewfinder. There were a lot of things you couldn’t see when you had your eye up to the camera, but there were a lot of things you could see better because you were concentrating on them” (195-96). The video camera allows Slam to create an interesting project, one that Mr. Parrish, even despite his personal feelings towards Slam, admits is good and could win at a statewide art competition. It’s also no accident that the camera gets lost in Slam’s neighborhood, stolen by an addict who later tries to pawn it off for a few bucks. Slam’s neighborhood has the ability to suck in and destroy any talent or potential someone might have, as they can get involved in gangs or drugs, so the camera’s being taken by someone looking for drug money is representative of the dangers present in Slam’s day-to-day life. Luckily, Mtisha calls Slam after locating the camera, a plot detail that shows that if you have good people looking out for you, you can perhaps avoid the threats or dangers around you.
Schoolbooks/Math Homework
Schoolbooks and math homework are recurring images in Slam! and hold significance because of what they represent for Slam. Considering Slam is a high-school student, it makes sense that he would have schoolbooks and homework with him, but these items take on larger meaning when considering what they represent for Slam. From the beginning of the novel, Slam makes it very clear that basketball is the most—or even the only—important thing to him, and everything else takes a backseat, including his attention to school. For Slam, school is a weight that holds him down, and the books he carries with him are physical reminders of that weight. This point is clear in the confrontation Slam has with Mr. Parrish. When Slam forgets to write his English paper, Mr. Parrish calls him out by mocking his use of African American Vernacular English (the “We-Be tribe”) and questions whether Slam will ever amount to more than just a corner guy in his neighborhood, referring to drug dealers who stand on corners. In a fit of outrage, Slam throws his books to the floor and storms out of school. In this moment, he is turning his back on school and rejecting what it has to offer, symbolized in the throwing of the books to the ground.
Math homework is another specific barrier for Slam, as math is his main area of struggle in school. Mr. Tate and his mom want him to get a math tutor, but Slam is resistant to help. He gets a 34% on a math test, in large part due to the teacher nicely giving him some partial credit, and it’s clear this is a weakness for Slam. Slam’s default response to struggle isn’t to try to overcome it—like the throwing of the books, it’s to shut down, reject help, and pretend the problem isn’t there. However, once Slam begins to realize that overcoming challenges off the court isn’t that different than facing them on the court, he starts seeing that help is a good thing, and he realizes, through seeing Nick’s recruitment, that doing better in school is a means to an end, a way for him to get to the next level in basketball. Slam begins accepting help from Mtisha, even though he is initially scared of the math problems she gives him to work on, and he slowly starts feeling more confident about his ability to persist through the struggle.
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