Stalk

Stalk [with subtitle Relentless Pursuit] addresses important issues facing today’s teenagers and young adults. It depicts the affects of abusive, dysfunctional family life, reflects the results of poor choices and bad judgment, shows how obstacles can be overcome by faith and how our paths in the pursuit of happiness, wisdom, and truth may have already been predetermined even without our knowledge or permission.Based on a real person, Stalk tells the story of the life of a young man who is in pursuit of his dream of becoming an NFL player. He is on the path to fulfilling this dream when his life is sidetracked by the mental, physical, and sexual abuse of dysfunctional parents. Both parents end up committing suicide which leads to his involvement with drugs and brief association with gang bangers.Despite his internal and external challenges, Stalk manages to acquire a college scholarship and make the cut for an NFL team, but he loses his scholarship and is cut from the NFL. Because he cannot get the catastrophic images of the deaths of both of his selfish and derelict parents out of his head, Stalk continues his drug abuse and downward plunge, hitting rock bottom and eventually becoming a homeless junkie on the streets.With some help from family and friends, he eventually finds the inner strength and courage to overcome the drug use, but his involvement with Florida drug lords catches up with him.After his life takes a horrific turn for the worst, he makes a commitment to do something worthwhile with his life. He realizes that a power greater than himself has created hardships to make him strong for a much more important journey. He becomes a spiritual leader and opens a sanctuary which houses the homeless, rehabilitates drug addicts, and counsels young boys who desire to become professional athletes. He presently resides in Houston, TX.Entertaining and educational, Stalk is designed to be used in any educational environment including public and private schools, penal institutions, group homes, home schools, churches, clubs, etc., particularly with special needs, ELL, or anyone struggling with the English language and seeking short, easy-moderate level, high interest material that is relevant to even the hard to reach street-smart. The author has purposely included examples of more than forty literary devices, used close to three hundred contextual spelling and/or vocabulary words commonly found in social and business settings and on standardized tests. Also included are factors which lead to drug and gang involvement and organizations to contact for help.Contact the author for a suggested chapter by chapter guideline for classroom use. An example follows.GUIDELINE FOR CLASSROOM USEChapter I-ReflectionsWrite/Read/Listen/Speak/ResearchSpelling/Vocabulary Use the text/research to do the1. surveillance Compare/Contrast2. despicably 1. California/Germany’s way of life, food, schools3. iniquities 2. Humans/Ants (essay)4. exquisite Research5. gorging Adolf Hitler/Holocaust/World War II/ Maya6. entrepreneur Angelou’s life and works7. rhetoric Extended Reading8. blatant Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl9. retrospect

) Beverly Cherry Harris, a former middle school English teacher, is originally from Tulsa, Oklahoma. After receiving a B.A. degree in English from Langston, University, Langston, OK, she taught in Oklahoma City for eighteen years and continued graduate studies at Central State University, Edmond, OK, and the University of Nevada Las Vegas. She retired from Clark County School District in Las Vegas, NV, after nineteen years of service. (more on author's page).