Week of May 4-8 Grade: 8 Content: ELA Learning Objective: Greetings 8th graders! We hope you are safe and well with your families! This week we are providing you with 5 engaging and informative readings from Common Lit to choose from. We are also providing you with ways to boost your important reading skills through on-line programs. Students with a device and access to the internet should spend time on these sites as well as work on Common Lit activities each week. Common Lit Activities: Text Title Genre Blue Short Story The Fox and the Horse Folktale Local Children’s reaction to 9/11 Tragedy Informational Text US Attacked; Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Informational Text Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror. If Poem
Skills Activities: The following websites provide students with more practice with important reading skills. Only students at the identified schools have access to these sites. Directions for logging on are also in this folder. School Program North, East, West, Plouffe Amplify Reading Ashfield, South, Davis Power Up Mrs. K Silva’s classes at West READ 180 Mrs. Holm’s classes at West Mrs. Freschett’s classes at West
Name: Class:
Blue By Francesca Lia Block 1996
Francesca Lia Block is an American writer of adult and young adult fiction, short stories, screenplays, and poetry. In this short story, a blue creature appears before a young girl after her mother leaves. As you read, take notes on the relationship between La and Blue.
[1] La's mother wasn’t there, waiting in front of the school in the dusty white Volvo station wagon. La sat on the lawn and watched all the other mothers gathering their children. When the sun started to go down, she walked home along the broad streets lined with small houses, thick, white, leaf-like magnolia blossoms crisping brown at the edges, deadly pink oleander, eucalyptus trees grayed with car exhaust. The air smelled of gasoline, chlorine, and fast food meat, with an occasional whiff of mock orange too faint to disguise much with its sweetness. "Eyes tell no lies" by Amanda Dalbjörn is licensed under CC0 La walked up the brick path under the birch tree that shivered in the last rays of sun and went into the pale-blue wood frame house. She found her father sitting in the dark.
“Daddy?” she whispered.
He looked up, and his swollen, unshaven face made her step backward as if she had been hit.
[5] “What’s wrong?” La asked. “Where’s Mom?” She wanted to say Mommy, but she didn’t want to use baby words.
“Your mother left.” He sounded as though there were wet tissues in his throat.
“Where’s Mommy?” she asked again.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” He never raised his voice to her. “She left us. She’s gone.”
“Where did she go?”
[10] “I don’t know.”
1 La took a step toward her father, but the look in his eyes made her back away into her bedroom and shut the door. She sat on her bed and stared at the wall she had helped her mother paint with wildflowers, pale and heathery; now they seemed poisonous. La looked at Emily, H.D., Sylvia, Ann, Christina, and Elizabeth sitting on the love seat. Her mother had named them after her favorite poets. They stared back with blank doll eyes.
La wanted to cry, but she couldn’t. She felt like a Tiny Tears doll with no water inside.
“La,” said a voice.
She jumped and turned around. The closet door was open a crack. La never left the closet door open. She was afraid that demons would come out and get her in the night.
[15] “La,” the voice whispered.
She held her breath.
The closet door opened a little more, and a tiny shadow tiptoed out.
Maybe, she thought later, Blue was really her tears. Maybe Blue was the tears that didn’t come.
The creature came into the light. It had thin, pale, slightly bluish skin. It blinked at La with blue eyes under glittery eyelashes.
[20] “Who are you?” La felt a slice of fear. “Why are you here?”
“For you.”
La rubbed her eyes. “Are you a demon?”
The creature looked about to cry. La shook her head, trying to make it go away.
“Now you should sleep, I think,” and the creature reached out its tiny blue fingers with the bitten nails and touched La’s forehead.
[25] Almost immediately La was asleep.
She dreamed about the creature holding her mother’s hand and running through a field of wildflowers.
“Blue,” La’s mother said in the dream. “Your name is Blue.”
* * *
2 The house where La lived looked completely different now. When La’s mother was living there, the garden had been wild, but a garden — now the flowers were burnt up; crabgrass stitched the dirt. There had been bread-baking, bowls of fruit, Joni Mitchell singing on the stereo, light coming through the windows. Now, the only light in the living room was from the television’s glow. La’s father stopped writing the novel he had been working on. Every night after he got home from college, he corrected papers and watched TV. La’s mother had been a student in his English class, and he had fallen in love with her when he read her poetry. Wanting to protect her from a world that seemed too harsh, he had not understood how she dreamed of living in a commune,1 dancing barefoot in parks, and reading her poems, wearing silver Indian bells and gypsy shawls, even though these were the things that had drawn him to her.
La remembered when she was a little girl, how her mother held her close and said, “Can you see the little dolls in Mommy’s eyes?” La had seen two tiny Las there. As she got older, she still looked for herself inside her mother. Now she tried to find that La in her father, but his eyes were closed to her, dull and blind.
[30] La fixed herself a bowl of cornflakes and went into her room to talk to Blue.
“Did you know my mother?” La asked
“I can tell you things about her.”
“How do you know?” La was suspicious.
“I know because I know you.”
[35] “Like what?”
“She wrote poetry.”
La thought about the journals with the stiff, creamy paper and thick, bumpy black covers that her mother hid at the bottom of the closet. La had looked for them after her mother had left, but they were gone. She had tried to remember some of the poems her mother had read to her from the books. She had opened a tiny bottle of French perfume that was sitting on her mother’s marble-top dressing table. As she put a drop to her throat, she remembered something about a girl dancing in a garden while a black swan watched her with hating eyes and one poem about a woman with black roses tattooed on her body. Something about a blue child calling to a frightened woman from out of the mists — begging.
“Did she want me?” La asked Blue.
“At first she was scared of you. You were so red and noisy, and you needed so much.”
[40] La could feel her eyes stinging, but Blue said, “Then she changed her mind. After a while, you were all she really cared about.”
“Then why did she leave?”
1. a place where a group of people live together and share possessions and responsibilities 3 Blue went and perched on the window sill. “That I don’t know.”
* * *
One day at lunch, Chelsea Fox came and sat next to La. Chelsea had a shiny lemonade-colored hair tied up high in a ponytail, and she was wearing pink lip gloss that smelled like bubble gum. La thought she was the most beautiful girl she had ever seen. She made you want to give her things.
“Don’t you have any friends?” Chelsea demanded.
[45] La shrugged.
“Why not?”
La said, “I like to play by myself.”
“I used to be that way,” Chelsea said. “I started talking when I was real little, and the other kids didn’t understand what I was saying. They just sat in the sandbox and stared at me. So I made up an imaginary friend I talked to. But my mother told me it wasn’t healthy.”
“I do have one friend.” La had been wanting to talk about Blue so much. And now Chelsea Fox was asking! La’s heart started to pound against her. She felt as if she were made of something thin and breakable, with this one heavy thing inside of her. “Blue is blue and lives in my closet.”
[50] Chelsea laughed, all tiny teeth like mean pearls. “You still have an imaginary friend?”
“Blue is real.”
Chelsea made a face at La, flipped her hair, picked up her metal Barbie lunch box, and walked away. La crushed her brown paper bag with her fist on the table where she sat alone now. Milk from the small carton inside the bag seeped onto the peeling, scratched table and dripped down.
After that, no one talked to La at all. Chelsea Fox had a birthday party. La saw the invitations with the ballerinas on them. She waited and waited. But she was the only girl who didn’t get one.
When Miss Rose found out, she asked La and Chelsea to stay after school. Miss Rose was a very thin, freckled, red-haired woman who always wore shades of green or pink.
[55] “Chelsea, don’t you think you think you should invite La to your birthday party?” Miss Rose said.
La looked down to hide her red face. She remembered what Blue had told her about how red she had been as a baby, how it had frightened her mother.
Chelsea shrugged.
“Go ahead, Chelsea, ask La. It isn’t nice to leave her out.”
4 Chelsea smiled so her small white teeth showed. They reminded La’s of a doll’s. “La, would you like to come to my party?”
[60] La was afraid to look up or move. She hated Miss Rose then.
“She doesn’t want to,” Chelsea said.
“I think she does,” said Miss Rose. “Don’t you, La?”
“Okay,” La whispered, wanting her teacher to shut up.
“Why don’t you bring an invitation in tomorrow?” Miss Rose said.
[65] “Just don’t bring any imaginary friends,” Chelsea hissed when they were dismissed onto the burning asphalt. La imagined Chelsea spitting her teeth out like weapons. The air smelled grimy and hot like the pink rubber handballs.
La walked past some boys playing volleyball. The insides of her wrists were chafed from trying to serve at recess; her knees were scraped from falling down in softball; her knuckles raw from jacks. Sometimes her knees and knuckles were embedded with bits of gravel, speckled with blood. She had mosquito bites on her back.
“There goes Wacko,” one of the boys shouted.
La felt chafed, scraped, raw, and bitten inside too.
* * *
La wasn’t planning to go to Chelsea Fox’s birthday party, but she saved the invitation anyway. La’s father saw it. He hardly spoke to his daughter anymore, but that morning, he said, “Is that a party invitation?”
[70] La nodded.
“Good,” said her father. “It’s about time you did something like that.”
La went mostly because her father had seemed interested in her again and she wanted to please him — she wanted him to see her. But the next weekend, when he drove her to Chelsea’s tall house with the bright lawn, camellia-and-rose-filled garden, the balloons tied to the mailbox, and the powder-blue Mercedes in the driveway, he was as far away as ever.
Maybe it is better that he doesn’t offer to walk me in, she thought. I don’t want them to see him anyway.
She wanted to go home and play with Blue, but instead, she jumped out of the car and went up to the door where a group of girls waited with their mothers.
5 [75] Chelsea answered, wearing a pastel jeans outfit. The girls kissed her cheek and gave her presents. When it was La’s turn, she gulped and brushed her lips against Chelsea’s face. Chelsea reached up to her cheek and rubbed away the kiss with the back of her hand.
Inside, the house was decorated in floral fabrics — huge peonies and chrysanthemums — and lit up with what seemed like hundreds of lamps. Little pastel girls were running around screaming. There was one room all made of glass and filled with plants and leafy, white iron furniture. In the middle was a long table heaped with presents. La sat in a corner of the room by herself. After a while, Chelsea’s mother came in, leading a chorus of “Happy Birthday” and holding a huge cake covered in wet-looking pink-frosting roses. Chelsea’s mother had a face like a model on a magazine cover — cat eyes, high cheekbones, and full pouting lips. She was tall and slender, her blonde hair piled on top of her head, with little wisps brushing down against her long pearled neck. La watched Chelsea blow out eleven candles in one breath.
“I’ll get my wish!”
She probably did get her wish, La thought, watching Chelsea’s small hands tearing open the presents — Barbies, Barbie clothes, Barbie cars, stuffed toys, roller skates, jeans, T-shirts, a glittery magenta bike with a white lattice2 basket covered with pink plastic flowers.
La had brought the almost-empty bottle of perfume that had belonged to her mother. Even though the fragrance inside it was the only thing that seemed to bring La’s mother back, La had decided to give it to Chelsea. Maybe it would make Chelsea like her, La thought. It was her greatest treasure.
[80] When Chelsea opened it, she said, “What’s this? It’s been used!” and threw it aside.
Chelsea’s mother let the girls stay up until midnight, and then she told them to get their sleeping bags. La’s belonged to her father — blue with red flannel ducks on the inside. The other girls had pastel sleeping bags with Snoopy or Barbie on them. La put her bag down in a corner and listened to the sugar-wild giggles all around her.
Suddenly, she heard Chelsea say, “La, tell us about your imaginary friend. La has an imaginary friend.”
“She gave you an imaginary present,” Amanda Warner said.
Snickers. They sounded mean with too much cake. La was silent.
[85] “Come on.” The girls squealed. “Tell us.”
La said, “No, I don’t.”
“Your mom left because you are so weird,” said Katie Dell.
“I think her mom was pretty weird too. She was a hippy,” said Chelsea.
La buried down in the musty red flannel of her sleeping bag.
2. an interlaced structure 6 [90] Blue, she thought, to keep herself from crying.
Near morning, when the other girls were finally quiet, warm thin arms the color of Chelsea Fox’s eyes wrapped around La’s waist.
“Write about it,” Blue whispered. “Write it all.”
That was the same thing Miss Rose said the next day in class. “I want us all to write about someone we love.” She looked straight at La. She noticed for the first time how sad Miss Rose’s brown eyes were.
La went home and shut the door of her room. She lay down on her belly on the floor, with a pen and a piece of paper. There was a creaking sound, and the closet door opened. Blue came out.
[95] “What are you doing?”
“I’m supposed to write about someone I love. I want to write about my mom, but I’m afraid.”
Blue began to whisper things in La’s ear. She picked up her pen and wrote.
* * *
La wrote how she had been named La for the musical sound and also for the city they lived in — not for the dry, flat, chain-linked-fenced, train-track-lined, used-car-lot-full valley where their house was, but for the city over the hill. La’s mother — wearing a paisley dress, her long hair hanging to her waist — took La to eat honey-colored cornbread at a restaurant with a mural of an Indian temple on the outdoor courtyard wall and soft candle cubes flickering like chants on every table. She took La to the museum where they saw jewelry in the shapes of fairies with stained-glass wings; to a temple in the hills full of gentle-faced Buddha statues and people planting trees, the air almost lavender with clouds of incense. They walked around the lake tucked into the Hollywood hills, feeling the cool, wet air on their cheeks, looking out at the expanse of water and the small, magical bridge lined with white globes; La imagined a princess receiving her guests there. They rode wooden horses on the carousel at the pier, feeling the smooth, wooden horse flanks, caressing the ridges of wooden roses on the saddles, watching the circle of lights that seemed to make the tinkling music. On dusty trails, they rode real horses, and La’s mother pointed out the wildflowers peeking at them from behind the rocks. When they got home, they zigzagged handfuls of wildflower seeds into the earth — primrose, columbine, lupine, and cornflower. They painted wildflowers on the walls of La’s room — “So you will always have them,” her mother said.
La wrote about her mother coming into her room at night sometimes, to read La poetry by Emily and H.D. in the pinkish light, the words like her mother’s perfume wafting around them. Sometimes, La’s mother read her own poems. La felt the secret of sadness bonding them together then.
[100] “I will love you forever,” La’s mother had said. “No matter where I am on the planet, I am always loving you.”
La wrote about all of that and about the perfume bottle shaped like a teardrop that had brought her mother back.
7 * * *
“This is wonderful, La,” Miss Rose said. “Would you like to read it to the class?”
La shook her head, cringing, pressing her back against hard wood and metal.
“I really think you should,” said Miss Rose.
[105] Chelsea Fox said, “I’d love to hear your story.” She said it so sweetly that for a moment La believed her. But then she saw Chelsea glance over at Amanda Warner, and a silent laugh swelled the air between them.
“Go ahead,” Miss Rose said.
La couldn’t breathe. She felt like throwing up.
But when she started to read, something happened.
She forgot about Chelsea Fox, Amanda Warner, and everyone else in the class. The words La and Blue had written cast their spell — even over La. She could smell the perfume and bittersweet wildflowers; she could hear Joni Mitchell’s For the Roses playing softly.
[110] When La was finished, she looked up. Everyone was silent, watching her.
“That was beautiful,” Miss Rose finally said.
The bell rang and everyone scattered. La went into the fluorescent-lit, brown and beigy-pink hallway. Her heart was beating fast but in a different way this time. She felt as if she had physically touched everyone in the room, as if she had played her favorite song for Miss Rose and lifted an open, tear- shaped bottle of fragrance to Chelsea Fox’s face.
“Your mom sounds like she was cool,” Chelsea said, catching up with La. “My mom isn’t like that. She doesn’t spend time with me except to go shopping and stuff.” La looked into Chelsea’s blue eyes. The pupils were big and dark. There was no laughter in them now. La nodded.
Chelsea tossed her hair and ran to catch up with her friends.
[115] When La got home, she ran inside to tell Blue. Her father wasn’t on the couch watching TV where La expected him. She heard his typewriter keys and peeked into his office. The windows were open and Vivaldi was playing; he had a cup of coffee at his fingertips.
“Daddy,” La said.
When she handed him the story, his eyes changed.
“It’s about Mom,” La said, but she knew he knew.
8 “I’m writing something about her too,” he said. He held out his hand and she went to him. He sat up and kissed her forehead.
[120] “Thank you, honey.” He looked as though he hadn’t slept or eaten for days. But he took off his glasses then, and La saw two small images of herself swimming in the tears in his eyes.
La went to her room to tell Blue. In the closet, there were only clothes and shoes and shadows now.
WHEN I WAS YOUR AGE, VOLUME 1. Text of “Blue” copyright (c) 1996 by Francesca Lia Block. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.
9 Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: Which statement best expresses a theme of the short story? A. Children often have unrealistic expectations about their parents and view them as perfect. B. Sharing one’s feelings through writing can help one overcome emotional stress and connect with others. C. Young people sometimes reject their unique talents because they make them feel different. D. During times of stress or sadness, people sometimes experience hallucinations and a break from reality.
2. PART B: Which detail from the text best supports the answer to Part A? A. “The creature came into the light. It had thin, pale, slightly bluish skin. It blinked at La with blue eyes under glittery eyelashes.” (Paragraph 19) B. “‘I do have one friend.’ La had been wanting to talk about Blue so much. And now Chelsea Fox was asking!” (Paragraph 49) C. “‘I will love you forever,’ La’s mother had said. ‘No matter where I am on the planet, I am always loving you.’” (Paragraph 100) D. “She felt as if she had physically touched everyone in the room, as if she had played her favorite song for Miss Rose and lifted an open, tear-shaped bottle of fragrance to Chelsea Fox’s face.” (Paragraph 112)
3. PART A: How is La affected by her mother’s leaving? A. She questions her importance to other people. B. She becomes distrustful of the people she counts on. C. She struggles to process her mother’s sudden abandonment. D. She feels a greater sense of connection with her mother.
4. PART B: Which quote from the text best supports the answer to Part A? A. “La took a step toward her father, but the look in his eyes made her back away into her bedroom and shut the door.” (Paragraph 11) B. “‘Then why did she leave?’ / Blue went and perched on the window sill. ‘That I don’t know.’” (Paragraphs 41-42) C. “La wrote about all of that and about the perfume bottle shaped like a teardrop that had brought her mother back.” (Paragraph 101) D. “She could smell the perfume and bittersweet wildflowers; she could hear Joni Mitchell’s ‘For the Roses’ playing softly.” (Paragraph 109)
10 5. How does the resolution of the short story develop the theme? Cite evidence from the text in your response.
11 Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. In the story, La is friends with a creature that only she can see. Did you ever have an imaginary friend when you were younger? If so, describe them and how you interacted with them.
2. In the story, La uses writing to help process her feelings about her mother. Describe a time when you used a form of creative expression to process something in your life. How did it help you?
3. La is lonely at home and school when her mother leaves. How is La able to overcome this sense of loneliness and connect with others? Describe a time when you felt lonely. How did you overcome these negative feelings?
4. La’s mother leaves her family suddenly. How does this affect La’s family? Describe a time when your family experienced a significant shift. How did this make you feel?
12 Name: Class:
The Fox and the Horse By The Brothers Grimm 1812
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were German academics and authors who collected and published folklore during the 19th century. In this folktale, a fox helps a horse prove his worth to his master after he has been asked to leave the stable. As you read, take notes on the interaction between the fox and the horse.
[1] A peasant once had a faithful horse, but it had grown old and could no longer do its work. Its master grudged it food, and said: “I can’t use you any more, but I still feel kindly towards you, and if you show yourself strong enough to bring me a lion I will keep you to the end of your days. But away with you now, out of my stable,” and he drove it out into the open country.
The poor horse was very sad, and went into the forest to get a little shelter from the wind and the weather. There he met a fox, who said: “Why do "What does the fox say?" by Mark Gunn is licensed under CC BY you hang your head, and wander about in this 2.0. solitary1 fashion?”
“Alas!” answered the horse, “avarice2 and honesty cannot live together. My master has forgotten all the service I have done for him for these many years, and because I can no longer plough he will no longer feed me, and he has driven me away.”
“Without any consideration?” asked the fox.
[5] “Only the poor consolation of telling me that if I was strong enough to bring him a lion he would keep me, but he knows well enough that the task is beyond me.”
The fox said: “But I will help you. Just you lie down here, and stretch your legs out as if you were dead.” The horse did as we was told, and the fox went to the lion’s den, not far off, and said: “There is a dead horse out there. Come along with me, and you will have a rare meal.” The lion went with him, and when they got up to the horse, the fox said: “You can’t eat it in comfort here. I’ll tell you what. I will tie it to you, and you can drag it away to your den, and enjoy it as your leisure.”
The plan pleased the lion, and he stood quite still, close to the horse, so that the fox should fasten them together. But the fox tied the lion’s legs together with the horse’s tail, and twisted and knotted it so that it would be quite impossible for it to come undone.
When he had finished his work he patted the horse on the shoulder, and said: “Pull, old grey! Pull!”
1. Solitary (adjective): done or existing alone 2. extreme greed for wealth 1 Then the horse sprang up, and dragged with lion away behind him. The lion in his rage roared, so that all the birds in the forest were terrified, and flew away. But the horse let him roar, and never stopped till he stood before his master’s door.
[10] When the master saw him he was delighted, and said to him: “You shall stay with me, and have a good time as long as you live.”
And he fed him well till he died.
“The Fox and the Horse” by The Brothers Grimm (1812) is in the public domain.
2 Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: In order for his plan to work, what did the fox need most? [RL.3] A. The horse had to be a good actor. B. The lion had to trust the fox. C. The horse had to be patient with the fox. D. The lion had to be hungry.
2. PART B: What does the fox tell the lion that causes the answer to Part A? [RL.3] A. The lion should eat his meal in comfort. B. Horse meat is delicious. C. The horse is dead. D. The lion should lie down and wait for the fox to return.
3. PART A: Which aspect of the horse’s character best helps to solve the conflict in the [RL.3] folktale? A. trust B. sorrow C. strength D. persistence
4. PART B: Which sentence from the folktale best illustrates the answer to Part A? [RL.1] A. “The poor horse was very sad, and went into the forest to get a little shelter from the wind and weather. (Paragraph 2) B. “The horse did as he was told, and the fox went to the lion’s den, not far off, and said: ‘There is a dead horse out there.’” (Paragraph 8) C. “When he had finished his work he patted the horse on the shoulder, and said: ‘Pull, old grey! Pull!’” (Paragraph 8) D. “But the horse let him roar, and never stopped till he stood before his master’s door.” (Paragraph 9)
5. PART A: Which TWO sentences belong in a summary of “The Fox and the Horse?” [RL.2] A. The old horse is sent away by his owner. B. The horse lay down as the fox told him to do. C. The horse receives help from a cunning fox. D. The peasant does not want to feed an old horse. E. The birds in the forest are frightened by the lion. F. The horse ignores the lion’s enraged roar.
3 6. PART B: Which TWO additional sentences belong in the summary in Part A? [RL.2] A. The horse was sad when his master turned him out. B. The fox promises the lion a special meal. C. The fox tricks the lion into being tied to the horse. D. The horse is able to bring a lion back to his master. E. The lion is in his den when the fox comes to trick him. F. The master forgot the horse’s many years of service.
7. PART A: Which statement best expresses a central idea in the folktale? [RL.2] A. Loyal friends can be trusted. B. Honest people are good friends. C. Individuals who show kindness are often treated the same way. D. Individuals can accomplish more with the help of others.
8. PART B: Which sentence from the folktale best demonstrates this idea? [RL.1] A. “A peasant once had a faithful horse, but it had grown old and could no longer do its work.” (Paragraph 1) B. “‘Only the poor consolation of telling me that if I was strong enough to bring him a lion he would keep me, but he knows well enough that the task is beyond me.’” (Paragraph 5) C. “Then the horse sprang up, and dragged the lion away behind him.” (Paragraph 9) D. “When the master saw him he was delighted, and said to him: ‘You shall stay with me, and have a good time as long as you live.’” (Paragraph 10)
9. PART A: Why does the horse decide to follow the fox’s plan without knowing what it [RL.3] is? A. because the horse has lost his self-confidence B. because the fox has helped him before C. because the fox knows where the lion’s den is D. because the horse is lonely
10. PART B: Which excerpt from the folktale supports the answer to Part A? [RL.1] A. “The poor horse was very sad.” (Paragraph 2) B. “‘Why do you hang your head, and wander about in this solitary fashion?’” (Paragraph 2) C. “‘if I was strong enough to bring him a lion he would keep me, but he knows well enough that the task is beyond me.’” (Paragraph 5) D. “The horse did as he was told, and the fox went to the lion’s den.” (Paragraph 6)
4 Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. Think of an experience when you had to trust someone. What were the results of this?
2. In the context of the text, what is a friend? Do you consider the fox and horse to be friends? Why or why not? Has a friend ever helped you solve a problem? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
3. In the context of the text, how does the horse overcome an obstacle in the text? Do you think he could have succeeded without the fox’s help? When have you been required to work with others to complete a task?
5 Name: Class:
Local Children's Reactions to 9-11 Tragedy By Connie Llanos 2011
This article discusses September 11, 2001, when a series of attacks were carried out across the United States, killing 2,996 people and injuring over 6,000 more. 19 men associated with the terror organization Al Qaeda hijacked four American airplanes: two of the airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, one crashed into the Department of Defense’s Pentagon building in Virginia, and one headed for Washington D.C. crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after its passengers fought for control of the plane. As you read, take notes on the various points of view in the text regarding September 11 and why they may differ.
[1] “I get so confused... I don’t understand why they did this... what made people so mad,” said the fifth-grader at Plummer Elementary in North Hills.
While most American adults can recall exactly where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the attacks, children are learning about it as part of history — like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy1 or the bombing of Pearl Harbor.2
However, the impact of the attacks on the adults in their lives, plus the online coverage of that day, have allowed today’s kids to connect to the
history-making event in ways that previous "World Trade Center on 9/11" by U.S. National Park Service generations could not. Employee is in the public domain.
Eliot Lopez, who is not related to Viviana, learned about the attacks last year, when he was a fourth- grader at Plummer, and immediately turned to the Internet.
[5] “I went to YouTube when I got home and watched videos of the towers blowing up into all these pieces,” Eliot said, his eyes widening as he retold what he saw.
“People were crying, saying, ‘Oh my gosh’... It felt like a scary movie.”
Tina Hernandez, who teaches fifth grade at Plummer, said dispelling3 misconceptions about 9-11 is critical in planning lessons for young students. But detaching from your own memories can be a challenge, she said.
1. John F. Kennedy was the 35th president of the United States. He became president in 1961, but he was tragically killed during a parade in 1963. 2. The attack on Pearl Harbor occurred on December 7, 1941, and consisted of a surprise bombing of a U.S. navy base in Hawaii by Japanese airplanes. The attack officially brought the United States into World War II. 3. Dispel (verb): to make something go away or end 1 “It’s still very hard for me to get the emotional stuff out of the way so I can just give my kids the facts,” Hernandez said, her eyes welling with tears.
“September 11 changed the lives of everyone in my generation, but not as much for our kids.”
[10] Despite the new security precautions implemented4 in the last decade, many children still fear new attacks.
“I get scared because you never know when something like this could happen again,” said 11-year old Samone Scott, a sixth-grader at Plummer.
Admittedly shocked by how aware her young students are about events 10 years ago, Plummer Principal Angel Barrett said history has proven that her students will have “their own 9-11” moment.
“What’s important is that they learn about how this country came together, and united us all as Americans.”
Even some older children have only vague memories of Sept. 11, 2001.
[15] “I was 6 then... I wasn’t watching the news or anything like that,” said Michael Martinez, a 16-year-old junior at Monroe High School in North Hills, who has no recollection of the tragedy.
It wasn’t until some six years later that Michael really learned about the attacks — as part of a history lesson in middle school.
Teaching students about the day’s events is mandatory only in one state — New Jersey.
Martinez said he would support making it a requirement for schools to teach younger students about the important day.
Monroe High School administrator Tom Jones said the lack of an official policy doesn’t stop most educators from addressing 9-11 — especially on the anniversary of the tragedy.
[20] On Friday, for example, Monroe students held a memorial honoring the first-responders who died in the collapse of the World Trade Center.5
Some kids don’t need to be reminded of the significance of the attacks.
Now a senior at Monroe, Edgar Zamora said he can still remember “the chill that went up” his spine when he watched footage of a plane striking the World Trade Center.
Although he was just 7 at the time, Edgar said, he felt his world change in that moment.
4. Implement (verb): to place something into effect or action 5. Two tall skyscrapers, referred to as the Twin Towers, made up the World Trade Center. Many people who were engaged in the American stock market worked in these buildings. Both towers collapsed after they were hit by the hijacked planes on September 11, 2001. 2 “I remember getting a deep sense of pride in my country,” Edgar said. “I decided then that I was going to stand up for my country and for what’s right.”
[25] He aspires to become a police officer after high school and is considering enlisting in the military.
The 17-year old also admits losing a piece of his innocence that day.
“I had always been taught that America was invincible... unstoppable... But we all learned on that day that we are not, that we are all human,” Edgar said.
“Local Children's Reactions to 9-11 Tragedy” by Connie Llanos. Copyright © 2011 by Los Angeles Daily News. Reprinted with permission, all rights reserved.
3 Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: Which of the following statements best expresses the central idea of the article? A. Though young students may have different perspectives on 9-11 than adults, their reactions can yield interesting insights about tragedy. B. More states should be required by federal law to teach history lessons about September 9, 2001, in their schools. C. Children today know very little about the events of September 11, 2001, but they can recall how the U.S. has changed since the attacks. D. Many students do not understand 9-11 and cannot sympathize with the victims because they were too young to witness the tragedy.
2. PART B: Which of the following quotes from the text best supports the answer to Part A? A. “‘I get so confused... I don’t understand why they did this... what made people so mad’” (Paragraph 1) B. “the impact of the attacks on the adults in their lives, plus the online coverage of that day, have allowed today’s kids to connect to the history-making event in ways that previous generations could not.” (Paragraph 3) C. “Despite the new security precautions implemented in the last decade, many children still fear new attacks.” (Paragraph 10) D. “Martinez said he would support making it a requirement for schools to teach younger students about the important day.” (Paragraph 18)
3. What does the word “invincible” mean in the context of paragraph 27? A. strongly defended B. exceptional C. peaceful D. cannot be defeated
4. Which statement from the passage is a reasoned judgment? A. “‘People were crying, saying, ‘Oh my gosh’... It felt like a scary movie.’” (Paragraph 6) B. “‘It’s still very hard for me to get the emotional stuff out of the way so I can just give my kids the facts’” (Paragraph 8) C. “‘September 11 changed the lives of everyone in my generation, but not as much for our kids.’” (Paragraph 9) D. “‘I remember getting a deep sense of pride in my country… I decided then that I was going to stand up for my country and for what’s right.’” (Paragraph 24)
4 Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. Have you ever discussed 9-11 at home with your family? How do their reactions and memories compare to those in the article? How do their reactions and memories compare to yours?
2. Based on what you know about 9-11, how do you think America has changed before and after the attacks? What were some major consequences of these events?
3. How does America remember the events that have shaped the course of history for the country and the world?
5 Name: Class:
U.S. Attacked; Hijacked Jets Destroy Twin Towers and Hit Pentagon in Day of Terror By N.R. Kleinfield 2001
In this article, N.R. Kleinfield reports on the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The article focuses on the destruction of the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers in New York City after they were hit by two hijacked passenger jets. These were two of the four attacks carried out across the United States that day by a terrorist organization called Al-Qaeda. As you read, take notes on what people felt and experienced when they saw the attack on the Twin Towers.
[1] It kept getting worse.
The horror arrived in episodic bursts of chilling disbelief, signified first by trembling floors, sharp eruptions, cracked windows. There was the actual unfathomable1 realization of a gaping, flaming hole in first one of the tall towers, and then the same thing all over again in its twin. There was the merciless sight of bodies helplessly tumbling out, some of them in flames.
Finally, the mighty towers themselves were "World Trade Center 9/11/01 attack memorial photo" by Cyril reduced to nothing. Dense plumes of smoke Attias is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0. raced through the downtown avenues, coursing between the buildings, shaped like tornadoes on their sides.
Every sound was cause for alarm. A plane appeared overhead. Was another one coming? No, it was a fighter jet. But was it friend or enemy? People scrambled for their lives, but they didn’t know where to go. Should they go north, south, east, west? Stay outside, go indoors? People hid beneath cars and each other. Some contemplated jumping into the river.
[5] For those trying to flee the very epicenter2 of the collapsing World Trade Center towers, the most horrid3 thought of all finally dawned on them: nowhere was safe.
For several panic-stricken hours yesterday morning, people in Lower Manhattan witnessed the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the unthinkable. “I don’t know what the gates of hell look like, but it’s got to be like this,” said John Maloney, a security director for an Internet firm in the trade center. “I’m a combat veteran, Vietnam, and I never saw anything like this.”
1. Unfathomable (adjective): incapable of being fully understood 2. the central point of something 3. Horrid (adjective): causing horror 1 The first warnings were small ones. Blocks away, Jim Farmer, a film composer, was having breakfast at a small restaurant on West Broadway. He heard the sound of a jet. An odd sound — too loud, it seemed, to be normal. Then he noticed: “All the pigeons in the street flew up.”
It was the people outside, on the sidewalk, who saw the beginning. At 8:45, David Blackford was walking toward work in a downtown building. He heard a jet engine and glanced up. “I saw this plane screaming overhead,” he said. “I thought it was too low. I thought it wasn’t going to clear the tower.”
Within moments, his fears were confirmed. The plane slammed into the north face of 1 World Trade Center. As he watched, he said, “You could see the concussion4 move up the building.”
[10] “It was a large plane flying low,” said Robert Pachino, another witness. “There was no engine trouble. He didn’t try to maneuver. This plane was on a mission.”
Dark spots fell from the sides of the buildings, and at first it wasn’t clear what they were. Sarah Sampino, who worked across the street, noticed black smoke outside and went to the window. “We saw bodies flying out of the windows,” she said. “It was the 85th floor. I used to work on that floor.”
James Wang, 21, a photography student snapping pictures of people doing tai chi at a nearby park, looked up and saw people high in the north tower. They seemed like tiny figurines, and he didn’t know if they were awaiting rescue or merely looking out. “They were standing up there,” he said. “And they jumped. One woman, her dress was billowing out.”
Inside the towers, people felt it without knowing what it was. At about 15 minutes to 9, Anne Prosser, 29, rode the elevator to the 90th floor of Tower 1, where her global banking office was. As the doors opened, she heard what seemed like an explosion. She didn’t know it, but the first plane had just hit several floors above her.
“I got thrown to the ground before I got to our suite,” she said. “I crawled inside. Not everybody was at work.” She said she tried to leave but there was so much debris in the air she couldn’t breathe. Port Authority rescuers finally steered her to a stairway.
[15] Tim Lingenfelder, 36, an office manager at a small investment banking firm, was sitting before his computer terminal on the 52nd floor of Tower 1. He had just sent an e-mail to his sister in Minnesota. Nothing special — just how was she and what he had had for breakfast.
The windows rattled. He heard a loud noise. The entire building shook. He looked up. Outside the windows, he noticed rubble falling, and he thought, “That can’t be from here.”
Only two others were at work, a father and son who were both bond traders. They said they had better get out. They hurried to the stairs and, along with flocks of others, began their descent.
“When I got to the 18th floor, my cell phone rang,” Mr. Lingenfelder said. “It was my sister. She said a plane had hit and to get out now.”
4. a violent shock as from a heavy blow 2 On the 32nd floor, the entourage5 was stuck for about 20 minutes because of smoke. Everyone ducked into offices on the floor to catch their breath. Mr. Lingenfelder peered out the window and saw a body lying on the roof of the hotel.
[20] They returned to the stairs and made it out onto the plaza. Rubble and debris was all around. On the street there was endless paper and unmatched shoes.
John Cerqueira, 22, and Mike Ben Fanter, 36, were working on the 81st floor of 1 World Trade Center when they felt the collision. “People were freaking out,” said Mr. Fanter, a sales manager. “I tried to get them in the center of the office. About 40 people. I led them to the hall down the steps.”
He continued: “We stopped on the 68th floor. I could hear people screaming. There was a woman in a wheelchair. John and I carried her down from the 68th floor to the 5th floor, where we got out. We started to see people jumping from the top of the World Trade Center.”
Teresa Foxx, 37, works at an investment banking firm a block from the World Trade Center, and she had dropped off her 15-month-old daughter, Trinity, at the Discovery Learning Center on the plaza level of 5 World Trade Center, the building adjacent to the two towers. While she was in her office, Ms. Foxx heard the blast and immediately knew it was a bomb. “Ever since I enrolled her in the World Trade Center, I keep thinking about the bombing that they had there,” she said.
She grabbed her purse and went outside and began running toward the daycare center. Other people were speeding toward her, crying and screaming. She was crying herself. She had to get her daughter.
[25] By the time she got to the center, the children had been evacuated several blocks away. She hurried over there and found her daughter. “I just grabbed her and held her,” she said. “I was still crying, the other parents were still crying, but we all got our children.”
When she got home, Ms. Foxx told her husband, “Now I understand why people run into burning buildings.”
Within about 15 minutes of the first crash, the second plane struck the neighboring tower.
People in the street panicked and ran. Some tripped, fell, got knocked down, were pulled up. People lost their keys, their phones, their handbags, their shoes.
Brianne Woods, a student at Pace University, was walking to class, and as she passed a Burger King not a hundred feet from the trade center she heard a blast and felt the ground shake. She ran to a bank, where people were banging on the glass, breaking it, trying to get inside. “I saw a guy bleeding from the head right by the bank,” she said. “People were getting stomped on under the crowd. I saw a lady with no shoes, her feet were bleeding. I was probably in there for about 10 minutes, and I was hysterical.”6
[30] Her brother worked in the World Trade Center and she didn’t know if he was in there. She learned later that he had not gone to work.
5. a group of people 6. Hysterical (adjective): affected by uncontrolled, extreme emotion 3 She happened to have her cat, Oliver, with her, and she began wandering around, clutching her cat carrier, dazed. “I saw two people jump out,” she said. “It was horrible. I felt I was in a bad nightmare.”
Then a calm set in again. For blocks around, all the way up to 14th Street, the sidewalks were a mass of people, eerily quiet, for the incomprehension had struck them mute. As emergency vehicles, sirens blaring, sped downtown, people stood and gaped at the towers with holes in them. Many people were steadily inching downtown, not imagining anything worse was to come.
Marilyn Mulcahy, 31, had a business appointment at 9 at an office on Broadway a few blocks from the World Trade Center. She got off the subway at Chambers and Church Streets. She saw what she believed were pieces of a plane engine on the sidewalk, police officers running tape around it. She saw the holes in the towers and was dumbstruck.
Reason dictated caution, to get out of the area, but she was overcome with shock. Almost unknowingly, she walked to the office where her appointment was. Everyone had left. Even so, she took the time to scribble a note that she had been there and would call later.
[35] Back on the street, fear caught up with her. She changed out of her heels into flat shoes she had in her bag and ran uptown.
On the corner of Vesey and Church Streets, across from the Borders Books and Music store in the corner of the trade center, a small-boned woman, her hair caked with blood, was sitting on the curb, shaking uncontrollably. One eye was clouded over. A man in a business suit was lying on a stretcher, being loaded into an ambulance. Emergency workers came to comfort the woman. Five feet away, another rescue worker crouched down next to a heavyset woman who was breathing through an inhaler and hugged her.
Some Trade Center workers blessed their luck at being late for work. Kathleen Dendy, 50, had gotten her hair cut and so never got to her office at her usual 8:30. She worked on the 99th floor. Rajesh Trivedi, 40, a computer programmer, normally reported at 7, but he had to drop his son off at school and so didn’t get in. He worked on the 80th floor.
A plane was heard overhead and people looked up. Another one, they thought. “No, it’s a fighter,” someone said. “Ours.”
“Are you sure?” a woman asked.
[40] Many people were busy on cell phones, trying to reach friends and relatives they knew in the buildings or to alert their own loved ones that they were all right. But the circuits overloaded. Fear mounted.
And then it got even worse.
Police officers warned people in the vicinity to move north, that the buildings could fall, but most people found that unthinkable. They stayed put or gravitated7 closer.
Abruptly, there was an ear-splitting noise. The south tower shook, seemed to list8 in one direction and them began to come down, imploding9 upon itself.
7. Gravitate (verb): to move towards or be attracted to a place, person, or thing 4 “It looked like a demolition,” said Andy Pollock.
[45] “It started exploding,” said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. “It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all.”
Seth Bower was on Broadway when the force of the collapse knocked him over onto other people. Bodies fell on top of him — not all of them, he thought, alive.
A plume of smoke reminiscent of an atomic bomb rose upward and then descended to street level and sped uptown. People began running, chased by the smoke. The air rained white ash and plaster dust, coating people until they looked ghostlike.
Some people were screaming, and many were in shock. “Don’t breathe the air,” people shouted. “It could be toxic.” People held their breath or covered their faces as best they could with cloths or their shirts.
Lisle Taylor, 26, a recruiter with Goldman Sachs, had just gotten out of a nearby subway stop and saw hundreds of pieces of paper in the air. She thought it was a marketing campaign. Then she looked up and saw the tower collapsing. “A woman grabbed my hand,” she said. “She was saying the Lord’s Prayer.”
[50] For several blocks, everything was black. People found their eyes burned. Many wondered if they were seeing the very face of death.
Michael Clinch, a security officer for an Internet company, left his office soon after the first plane struck and was standing on Broadway talking to a police officer when the first tower fell. He saw a woman running, grabbed her and pulled her under a sport utility vehicle with him. “We got under the truck and waited until it got light again,” he said. “There were cars just blowing up. They were trying to get equipment off this emergency truck and get it into a building and all these cars just blew up. One would blow up and set off the next one. It got so bad we just couldn’t do anything anymore and we had to get out of there.”
Ten or so blocks north of the towers, the smoke had been outrun and it began to dissipate10 into the air. People stopped, turned and looked downtown. As the air cleared, an unthinkable sight presented itself: empty space where a 110-story tower had been.
People gasped. They trembled. They sobbed.
“It can’t be,” an elderly woman said. “It just can’t be. Where did it go? Oh, lord, where did it go?”
[55] Many of the onlookers stayed put, frozen in horror. Slowly, the next thought crept into their consciousness: The other tower would come down too.
Several people voiced the thought: “Get out of here, the other tower’s going to fall.”
8. to move to one side 9. Implode (verb): to collapse or cause to collapse violently inward 10. Dissipate (verb): to disappear or dissolve 5 People started walking briskly north until the premonition11 became real — another horrifying eruption, as one floor after another seemed to detonate. Another giant cloud, soot, smoke streaming through the avenues. Again, people ran.
Many of them stopped at Canal Street and watched the smoke dissolve. People cried at what they saw: a crystalline sky with nothing in it.
“Oh my God,” Tim Lingenfelder said, “there’s nothing there.”
[60] That was when he lost it and began to cry.
People stood, numb, transfixed by what had to be a mirage.12 “All that were left of the buildings that you could see were the steel girders13 in like a triangular sail shape,” said Ross Milanytch. “The dust was about an inch and a half thick on the ground.”
Onlookers gathered in clumps and tried to understand. People with cars opened the doors and turned on the radios, and knots of people leaned close to hear what was happening. The news came across of the plane at the Pentagon, the plane in Pittsburgh.
“It’s like Pearl Harbor,” said a middle-aged man at a small parking lot on Canal Street. “It’s Pearl Harbor. It’s war.”
“It’s sickos,” someone else said. “Sickos.”
[65] “This is America,” a man said. “How can it happen in America? How?”
A young man came around imploring14 people to report to St. Vincent’s Manhattan Hospital to donate blood.
Lines five, eight deep developed at pay phones, but many of the phones didn’t work. Most of the downtown businesses were closed. People borrowed cell phones, but the heavy phone traffic made communicating hard if not impossible. Countless people spent hours not knowing where a wife, a husband or a child was.
For hours, people lingered, uncertain where to go or what to do in a no longer plausible15 world. Some felt compelled to leave Manhattan, taking ferries to New Jersey. A man holding his weeping wife headed toward the Manhattan bridge, telling her, “Let’s walk over the bridge to Brooklyn. They can’t hurt us in Brooklyn.”
Late in the afternoon, hundreds of rescue workers remained outside where the trade towers once loomed, watching the stubs of the buildings continue to burn into infinity. Several stories still stood, but it was hard to judge how many. Above the second story was nothing but an intense orange glow.
11. Premonition (noun): a strong feeling that something is about to happen, especially something bad 12. an optical illusion 13. a large iron or steel structure used for the framework of large buildings 14. Implore (verb): to beg someone desperately to do something 15. Plausible (adjective): seeming reasonable or believable 6 [70] “It’s eerie,”16 said Monet Harris, 22, a transit worker. “You always look for those two buildings. You always know where you are when you see those two buildings. And now they’re gone.”
From The New York Times, September 12, 2001 © 2001 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
16. Eerie (adjective): strange and frightening 7 Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: Which of the following identifies one of the central ideas of the text? A. When the Twin Towers collapsed, people who witnessed the violence went into a rage, because they knew the incident was an act of terrorism. B. The initial moment when the planes struck the Twin Towers triggered the most fear from the public and caused the most damage. C. When the Twin Towers were initially hit by the planes, people were not afraid, but rather confused about what was going on. D. The attack on the Twin Towers caused widespread fear and chaos throughout New York City, as people struggled to understand the attack.
2. PART B: Which TWO details from the text best support the answer to Part A? A. “‘I saw this plane screaming overhead,’ he said. ‘I thought it was too low. I thought it wasn’t going to clear the tower.’” (Paragraph 8) B. “The plane slammed into the north face of 1 World Trade Center. As he watched, he said, ‘You could see the concussion move up the building.’” (Paragraph 9) C. “‘People were getting stomped on under the crowd. I saw a lady with no shoes, her feet were bleeding. I was probably in there for about 10 minutes, and I was hysterical.’” (Paragraph 29) D. “Then a calm set in again. For blocks around, all the way up to 14th Street, the sidewalks were a mass of people, eerily quiet, for the incomprehension had struck them mute.” (Paragraph 32) E. “Police officers warned people in the vicinity to move north, that the buildings could fall, but most people found that unthinkable. They stayed put or gravitated closer.” (Paragraph 42) F. “‘It’s like Pearl Harbor,’ said a middle-aged man at a small parking lot on Canal Street. ‘It’s Pearl Harbor. It’s war.’” (Paragraph 63)
3. PART A: How does the author’s use of first-person accounts of September 11th advance the overall purpose of the article? A. It emphasizes the severity of the attack. B. It establishes who committed the attacks and why. C. It provides reassurance that some people survived the attack. D. It shows how fearless people were during the attack.
4. PART B: Which section from the text best supports the answer to Part A? A. “‘I tried to get them in the center of the office. About 40 people. I led them to the hall down the steps.’” (Paragraph 21) B. “‘I saw two people jump out,’ she said. ‘It was horrible. I felt I was in a bad nightmare.’” (Paragraph 31) C. “‘This is America,’ a man said. ‘How can it happen in America? How?’” (Paragraph 65) D. “‘Let’s walk over the bridge to Brooklyn. They can’t hurt us in Brooklyn.’” (Paragraph 68)
8 5. How does the author’s decision to end the article with the quote, “‘You always look for those two buildings. You always know where you are when you see those two buildings. And now they’re gone’” contribute to the overall meaning of the text (Paragraph 70)? A. It emphasizes how much damage was done in the attack. B. It shows how the attack took away something integral to New York City. C. It shows how people continued to be confused by the attack. D. It stresses how many people were lost in the attack.
6. How does the author support the claim that people had a hard time making sense of the attacks on September 11th?
9 Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. In the context of this text, how has America changed over time? Do historical events have the greatest impact on people who witness them, or can we still feel and see their effects years later? Do you think the events of September 11th continue to affect America today? If so, how?
2. Do you believe that the people who witnessed the attacks on September 11th continue to be affected by them? Is it better to move past a devastating event, or do you think there are lessons that can be learned from all experiences?
3. In the context of this article, how do people face death? How can fear, confusion, and bravery all play a role in these moments? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
10 Name: Class:
If By Rudyard Kipling 1910
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1939) was an English short story writer, poet, and novelist, perhaps best known for The Jungle Book (1894). Kipling wrote in Victorian England,1 and the following poem is considered representative of the ideal qualities of a proper Englishman during that time. As you read, take notes on the structural form of the poem and how it contributes to the tone and message.
[1] If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; [5] If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master; [10] If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim; "Father and Son" by Nicolas is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves2 to make a trap for fools, [15] Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings [20] And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew3 To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
1. The Victorian era took place during the English Queen Victoria's rule (1837-1901). It was an era of relative peace and prosperity, considered the height of the British empire. Victorian culture, especially in the later years, consisted notably of strict moral and social conduct. 2. Dishonest men 3. Tissue connecting muscle to bone; something that binds together 1 [25] If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue4, Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute [30] With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
If by Rudyard Kipling is in the public domain.
4. Virtue (noun): Morally good behavior or character 2 Text-Dependent Questions
Directions: For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: Which of the following best summarizes a central theme of the text? [RL.2] A. Friendship is an important support system to young adults. B. Identity must come from within a person, not from what others tell you to be. C. Growing up is complicated and challenging, but is ultimately worth it for what can be accomplished. D. People, especially young people, should resist the social pressure to obey other people's rules.
2. PART B: Which of the following quotes best supports the answer to Part A? [RL.1] A. “If you can keep your head when all about you / Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, / If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too;” (Lines 1-4) B. “If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew / To serve your turn long after they are gone, / And so hold on when there is nothing in you / Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’” (Lines 21-24) C. “If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, / Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, / If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, / If all men count with you, but none too much;” (Lines 25-28) D. “Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, / And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!” (Lines 31-32)
3. PART A: Which of the following best describes the structural pattern of the poem? [RL.5] A. It is organized through the repetition of “if... then” statements. B. It is organized with increasingly longer statements and increasingly difficult guidelines. C. It is organized into four stanzas, each with eight lines of iambic pentameter (5 feet per line/meter). D. It is organized mainly through the repetition of “if” statements, building upon each other until the final assertion of the poem.
4. PART B: How does the structure of the poem, as indicated in Part A, contribute [RL.5] [RL.4] to the poem's tone? A. The form creates a tone of redundancy, or unnecessary repetition. B. This form creates a tone of authority and discipline, as the repetition emphasizes instructions for how to live one's life. C. This form mimics the tone of a boy becoming a man: through many trials and errors. D. This form creates a know-it-all tone, describing difficult rules like they are seemingly easy steps.
3 5. What do the details of this poem reveal about the poet's point of view towards being [RL.6] a grown man? Cite evidence to support your answer.
4 Discussion Questions
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions in the space provided. Be prepared to share your original ideas in a class discussion.
1. Consider the line, “If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, / But make allowance for their doubting too.” Do you think it’s important to allow people to doubt you or to doubt yourself? Explain your answer.
2. The speaker says it’s important to not make your dreams your master. What does he mean by this? Do you agree or disagree? Explain your answer.
3. How does the author’s national or cultural background influence the the poem, especially the advice given in the poem?
4. In the context of this poem, what does it mean to be grown up? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
5. This poem is told from the perspective of a father speaking to his son. In the context of this poem, what is the meaning of fatherhood? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
6. According to the speaker in this poem, what does it mean to be brave? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or history in your answer.
5 How to Log on to Power Up from Home (For only Ashfield, South and Davis 6-8 students) Log on to Google and search for Brockton Public Schools and go to the home page.
Choose the Students tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Student Intranet
Choose ELA
Choose Power Up
Choose Student and log in with their six-digit lunch number for both the username and password.
Students are urged to comlete their word study minutes on Monday, Grammar minutes on Tuesday, Reading Comprehension on Wednesday and Thursday and the topic of their choice on Friday.
How to Log on to Clever from Home to Access Amplify READING Curriculum
Log on to Google and search for Brockton Public Schools and go to the home page.
Choose the Students tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Student Intranet
Choose Clever.
Choose Amplify Curriculum
Choose the hamburger menu in the top left corner.
Click in “Go To My Account”
Click on Reading 6-8
How to Log on to READ 180 from Home
Log on to Google and search for Brockton Public Schools and go to the home page.
Choose the Students tab.
Scroll to the bottom of the page and choose Student Intranet
Choose Clever. Students will have to log on with their Username: 6-digitlunch number @bpsma.org and the password is their 8-digit birthday bps1920 Example: Username: [email protected] Password: 06142007bps1920
Choose READ 180
Log on with the username: 6-digit lunch number (123456) and the password: 6-digit lunch number followed by their first and last initials. (123456am)
Directions for Students to Access Common Lit. from Home
1. Go to the BPS website and choose Students.
2. Scroll to the bottom of the student page and choose the blue Student Intranet button.
3. Choose the Clever button.
4. Log In with your BPS username and password. Your username is your 6-digit lunch number and your password is your 8-digit birthdaybps1920. Example: password: 123456 Username: 12052007bps1920
5. Choose the Common Lit app.
6. You will see "Your Account Needs Updating” will asked to set a backup password so you can access your account even in the case of a Clever outage or issue. You will never be asked to do that again.
7. Once you do that, you will be let into the Common Lit and you can do your assignment. Under the heading ASSIGNMENTS TO DO.
Good luck!