Pre-Reading Activities -- "La Bamba"

• ​"La Bamba" was originally a song by the late Ritchie Valens.

• ​La Bamba is also a movie biopic, starring Lou Diamond Phillps as Ritchie Valens.

• ​"La Bamba" is ALSO a story by Mexican-American author, Gary Soto.

  • You might remember Soto also wrote "Seventh Grade".

  • "La Bamba" is set in the same world as "Seventh Grade" and has some of the same characters/settings.

  • ​Both stories are chapters of the novel, Baseball in April.

​scuffed

​limelight

​pantomime

​debut

​commotion

​maneuvered

​record

marred or scratched by scraping or hard use

the center of public attention, interest, observation, or notoriety

​

​Origin: The color of the spotlight on a stage used to be created with a lime-green lens.

the art or technique of conveying emotions, actions, feelings, etc., by gestures without speech.​

noun

1) a first public appearance on a stage, on television, etc.

2) the first appearance of something, as a new product.​

noun

violent or tumultuous motion; agitation; noisy disturbance:

What's all the commotion in the hallway?​

​verb

to change the position of​

​a vinyl phonograph record played at 33 1/3 rpm and typically containing seven or more tracks, or one or more long classical pieces.