Teachers Aren't Given Enough Gifts!

Teachers aren’t given enough gifts!

EMC’s team is dedicated to providing English Language Arts teachers with resources that engage, motivate, and challenge their students. We’d love to give you access to three of our Mirrors & Windows English Language Arts program lessons to use in your classroom. Each lesson is targeted at a different grade level and contains everything you need to start using it in class on Monday.

Some of the objectives of our sample lessons include: • read, interpret, analyze, and evaluate a selection • develop writing and other language arts skills • write descriptive introductory paragraphs and a character analysis • participate in a discussion about the selection • practice reading assessment by answering multiple-choice and short-answer questions about the selection

Your lesson will include the following resources to ensure successful use in any classroom: • Lesson Plan (objectives, materials needed, a thorough procedure, etc.) • Annotated Teachers Edition textbook pages • Student Textbook pages • Blackline Study Materials

These lessons are included in EMC’s unique English Language Arts learning platform, Passport®

| www.emcp.com

LESSON PLAN

Name: ______Date:______M T W Th F

Literary Element: Understanding Point of View, p. 140 Hollywood and the Pits, p. 141

Guided Reading: Close Reading Model Objectives Text Complexity Studying this lesson will enable students to • Reading Level: Moderate, Lexile 910L • use reading skills such as analyzing cause • Difficulty Consideration: Two narrative and effect voices • define point of view and recognize its effect • Ease Factor: Familiar themes in the selection • describe how Cherylene Lee establishes Pacing mood and tone • Regular Schedule: 3 days • appreciate a story based on the author’s • Block Schedule: 1.5 days personal experiences

Before Reading Teach the Feature(s) Select from the following resources to teach the feature(s): ____ Literary Element: Understanding Point of View, SE/ATE, p. 140 ____ Differentiated Instruction: Enrichment, ATE, p. 140 ____ Differentiated Instruction: Special Needs/Visual Learning, ATE, p. 140 ____ Fiction Study Guide: Understanding Point of View and Applying Point of View to the Selections, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, pp. 2–3

Preview and Motivate Choose from the following materials to preview the lesson and motivate your students: ____ Fiction Close Reading Model, SE/ATE, p. 8 ____ Before Reading, SE/ATE, p. 141 ____ Build Vocabulary, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 19 ____ Journal Response, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 20

During Reading Teach the Selection(s) Choose from the following resources to teach the selection(s): ____ During Reading, SE/ATE, pp. 142–151 ____ Science Connection: Geologic Time, ATE, p. 148 ____ Reading Skills: Monitor Comprehension, ATE, p. 145 ____ Grammar Skills: Passive Voice and Active Voice, ATE, p. 147 ____ Vocabulary Skills: Jargon, ATE, p. 148 ____ Research Skills: Primary and Secondary Sources, ATE, p. 149 ____ Writing Skills: Cause-and-Effect Order, ATE, p. 151 ____ Analyze Literature: Character, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 21

28 LEVEL II, UNIT 2 Program Planning Guide © EMC Publishing, LLC

00i-203_PPG_Gr07.indd 28 2/24/15 3:03 PM Differentiate Instruction Consider the following alternative teaching options to differentiate instruction: ____ Reading Proficiency, ATE, p. 143 ____ Special Needs/Auditory Learning, ATE, p. 143 ____ English Language Learning, ATE, pp. 144, 146 ____ Special Needs/Visual Learning, ATE, p. 146 ____ Enrichment, ATE, p. 150 ____ Reading Strategies and Skills Practice: Take Notes, Differentiated Instruction for Developing Readers, pp. 13–15

After Reading Review and Extend Use the following materials to review and extend the lesson: ____ After Reading, SE/ATE, p. 152 ____ Use Reading Skills: Cause and Effect, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 22 ____ Extend Understanding: Creative Writing, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 23 ____ Media Literacy: Dig for Details, Exceeding the Standards: Extension Activities, pp. 5–6 ____ Subject and Object Pronouns, Exceeding the Standards: Grammar & Style, pp. 40–42

Assess Administer the following assessment tool(s): ____ Selection Quiz, Meeting the Standards Unit 2, p. 24 ____ Lesson Test, Assessment Guide, pp. 54–56

Technology Tools Enhance the lesson with interactive activities offered in these technology supplements: Teacher’s Edition eBook Visual Teaching Package Multiplatform Student eBook ETS Criterion Online Writing Evaluation Meeting the Standards eWorkbook (Grades 6–12) Exceeding the Standards eWorkbook EMC Audio Library Differentiated Instruction eWorkbook EMC E-Library Common Core Assessment Practice Online EMC Media Library ExamView® Assessment Suite

00i-203_PPG_Gr07.indd 29 2/24/15 3:03 PM Literary Element Apply the Model Understanding Point of View BEFORE READING Preview the Model DURING READING What Is Point of View? AFTER READING Text Complexity Each of these photographs shows the same and the Pits Guided Reading: Close Reading subject—a man motorcycling down a rural road. Model What is different about them? The main difference A Short Story by Cherylene Lee Reading Level: Moderate, 910L is the point of view. One photograph shows the • GUIDED READING GUIDED Difficulty Consideration: Two motorcyclist from the point of view of another •

person; the other shows the scene from the point of L narrative voices L Build Background Use Reading Skills view of the motorcyclist himself. Point of view is an Scientific Context The La Brea Tar Pits are a major tourist Analyze Cause and • Ease Factor: Familiar themes important element in fiction as well as photography. attraction in Los Angeles, California. They began to form nearly Effect You can keep 40,000 years ago, when the area was home to such animals as track of causes and effects Objectives Point of View in Fiction saber-toothed cats, ground sloths, and mammoths. The “tar” is in this story by creating a Studying this lesson will enable Each of the passages to the right gives an account really asphalt, which seeps out of petroleum deposits. Animals cause-effect chart. As you of a story’s main character observing something. entered a watering hole and were trapped by tar under the read, create a cause-effect students to Who is the narrator in each? In other words, who is water. The remains of the animals churn in the tar. chart like the one below. • use reading skills such as analyzing telling the story? How do you know? The vantage cause and effect point from which a writer presents the events and Reader’s Context How is becoming a teenager like falling into tar? Do parents really remember what growing up is like? • define point of view and recognize characters of a story is called the point of view. Cause: Effect: its effect in the selection First-Person Point of View In “Hollywood and Set Purpose Narrator • describe how Cherylene Lee the Pits,” the story is told from a first-person point begins to Before you begin reading, skim the story for unfamiliar terms. grow up. establishes mood and tone of view. In other words, the narrator is a character Make a list of terms you need to look up. appreciate a story based on the in the story and describes the events. You can tell • that a story is told from a first-person point of view I breathed, ate, slept, dreamed about Analyze Literature author’s personal experiences because the narrator uses such pronouns as I and the La Brea Tar Pits. I spent summer Point of View A story’s point of view reflects the vantage Preview Vocabulary we. In a story told from the first-person point of point of the narrator. With the first-person point of view, the Launch the Lesson days working the archaeological ob•sessed (@b sest>) adj., preoccupied view, the information must be limited to what the narrator is part of the action, but with the third-person point of Before reading “Hollywood and the dub (d3b) v., give a nickname character experiences or knows. A story told in first dig, and in dreams saw the bones view, the narrator observes the action. “Hollywood and the Pits” Pits,” ask students what they think it bar•rage (b@ r5zh>) n., outpouring of person often has a heightened intensity, however, glistening.... uses both points of view. As you read, think about how the many things at once would be like to be a child star. What because the narrator is experiencing the events that — CHERYLENE LEE, “Hollywood and the Pits” alternating points of view influence the mood, the plot, and your pred•a•tor (pred> @ t@r) n., animal that would be the advantages and

he or she describes. L understanding of the main character. gets food by capturing and eating other L disadvantages? Would getting older animals Third-Person Point of View In the passage be an advantage or a disadvantage? scav•en•ger ( ) n., animal from “Jed’s Grandfather,” the story is told from a scav> @n j@r Gulls began swooping down in front that gets food by eating the dead bodies of List advantages and disadvantages on third-person point of view. In this case, the narrator other animals the board. Then, ask students to is usually not a character. The third-person point of of them. They were grey and white. Meet the Author decide whether or not the advantages view is indicated by the narrator’s use of such From their yellow beaks came those Cherylene Lee (b. 1954) grew up in Los outweigh the disadvantages. pronouns as he, she, it, and they. If a story is told raucous squawks which seemed to Jed Angeles, California, and appeared in from a third-person omniscient (“all-knowing”) point to be the one thing which linked them television shows, movies, and stage plays of view, the narrator is able to relate everything when she was a child. In college, she about all the characters—their experiences, to the rock they flew up from. studied paleontology—fossils and thoughts, and feelings. In a third-person limited — JOSEPH BRUCHAC, “Jed’s Grandfather” prehistoric life—and geology—Earth’s point of view, the narrator chiefly presents the structure. Today she writes stories, perspective of only one character. poems, and plays. She is best known for her plays, including one set at the La Brea Tar Pits called Mixed Messages.

140 UNIT 2 FICTION HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 141

Words in Use KEY TERMS 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 140 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 141 short story, 141 10/29/14 3:51 PM Preview Selection Academic point of view, 141 Vocabulary Words Vocabulary first-person point of view, obsessed, 142 archaeological, asphalt, 141 141 dub, 143 142 petroleum, 141 third-person point of view, barrage, 143 immobilized, 144 influence, 141 141 predator, 149 chauffeured, era, 148 narrator, 141 scavenger, 149 144 epochs, 148 mood, 141 skewing, 147 plot, 141 perversion, 149 cause, 141 groveling, 150 effect, 141 deposition, 151

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 141

0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 141 12/2/14 8:08 AM Apply the Model Teach the Model BEFORE READING DURING READING I knew what that meant. It meant I would never hear from them Summary AFTER READING again. I didn’t get the job. I heard that phrase a lot that year. The narrator became a Hollywood I walked out of the plush office, leaving behind the casting actor when she was three. At fifteen, director, producer, director, writer, and whoever else came to listen she has grown too old for the roles to my reading for a semiregular role on a family sitcom. The carpet she once got easily. While her mother made no sound when I opened and shut the door. laments the decline in her daughter’s I passed the other girls waiting in the reception room, each acting career, the narrator becomes poring over her script. The mothers were waiting in a separate room, chattering about their daughters’ latest commercials, interviews, obsessed by a totally different callbacks, jobs. It sounded like every Oriental3 kid in Hollywood was Hollywood scene—the La Brea Tar working except me. Pits. As a volunteer, she digs for fossils My mother used to have a lot to say in those waiting rooms. Ever of animals that got trapped in the and the Pits since I was three, when I started at the Meglin Kiddie Dance Studio, black, gooey sand eons ago. In the I was dubbed “The Chinese Shirley Temple”—always the one to be dub (d3b) v., give a nickname process, she realizes that she doesn’t picked at auditions and interviews, always the one to get the have to be young and adorable to be speaking lines, always called “the one-shot kid,” because I could do of value. my scenes in one take—even tight close-ups.4 My mother would

only talk about me behind my back because she didn’t want me to W The Mirrors A Short Story by Cherylene Lee hear her brag, but I knew that she was proud. In a way I was proud irrors & Windows too, though I never dared admit it. I didn’t want to be called a W indows questions at showoff. But I didn’t exactly know what I did to be proud of either. the end of I lost 1968, when I was fifteen, the pit opened its secret to me. I I only knew that at fifteen I was now being passed over at all these the story focus on the theme of breathed, ate, slept, dreamed about the La Brea Tar Pits. I spent interviews when before I would be chosen. perception. Before students begin myself there summer days working the archaeological dig, and in dreams saw the My mother looked at my face hopefully when I came into the 1 room. I gave her a quick shake of the head. She looked bewildered.5 reading, ask: What does it feel like and found bones glistening, the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae when people say how grown-up looped like a woman’s pearls hanging on an invisible cord. I I felt bad for my mother then. How could I explain it to her? I didn’t you are? something welcomed those dreams. I wanted to know where the next skeleton understand it myself. We left, saying polite good-byes to all the other was, identify it, record its position, discover whether it was whole or mothers. else. not. I wanted to know where to dig in the coarse, black, gooey sand. We didn’t say anything until the studio parking lot, where we Analyze Literature I lost myself there and found something else. had to search for our old blue Chevy among rows and rows of Plot Ask students to explain the A My mother thought something was wrong with me. Was it good parked cars baking in the Hollywood heat. conflict the narrator seems to be ob•sessed (@b sest>) adj., for a teenager to be fascinated by death? Especially animal death in “How did it go? Did you read clearly? Did you tell them you’re having with her mother. (Her mother preoccupied the Pleistocene?2 Was it normal to be so obsessed by a sticky brown available?” doesn’t understand her obsession with hole in the ground in the center of Los Angeles? I don’t know if it “I don’t think they care if I’m available or not, Ma.” the tar pits.) A DURING READING was normal or not, but it seemed perfectly logical to me. After all, “Didn’t you read well? Did you remember to look up so they Analyze Literature I grew up in Hollywood, a place where dreams and nightmares can could see your eyes? Did they ask you if you could play the piano? Analyze Literature Point of View Is the narrator often take the same shape. What else would a child actor do? Did you tell them you could learn?” Point of View Answer: The narrator part of the action? What else bar•rage (b@ r5zh>) n., can you tell about the narrator “Thank you very much, dear. We’ll be letting you know.” The barrage of questions stopped when we finally spotted our & outpouring of many things at is part of the action and was a child so far? B once actor in Hollywood. B 1. the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae. Bones from the hip, head, and spine (backbone) 3. Oriental. Old term for Asian 2. Pleistocene. Geologic epoch that spans 10,000 to 1.6 million years ago 4. tight close-ups. Film shots in which a performer’s face fills the camera lens 5. bewildered. Puzzled

142 HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 143

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddProgram 142 Resources 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 143 10/29/14 3:51 PM Planning and Assessment Meeting the Standards Program Planning Guide, Selection Lesson Plan Fiction: Unit 2, Reading Model, pp. 19–24 E-Lesson Planner Differentiating Instruction Assessment Guide, Lesson Test Developing Readers, Take Notes, pp. 13–15 ExamView Technology Tools Multiplatform Student eBook Visual Teaching Package Quiz Mirrors & Audio Library Windows mirrorsandwindows.com

142 UNIT 2 FICTION

0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 142 12/2/14 8:08 AM Apply the Model BEFORE READING Teach the Model DURING READING I knew what that meant. It meant I would never hear from them AFTER READING again. I didn’t get the job. I heard that phrase a lot that year. History Connection I walked out of the plush office, leaving behind the casting Child Stars The main character in director, producer, director, writer, and whoever else came to listen “Hollywood and the Pits” is dubbed to my reading for a semiregular role on a family sitcom. The carpet “The Chinese Shirley Temple.” In the made no sound when I opened and shut the door. 1930s, Shirley Temple became one of I passed the other girls waiting in the reception room, each the most successful child stars in the poring over her script. The mothers were waiting in a separate room, history of film. By the mid-1950s, the chattering about their daughters’ latest commercials, interviews, television was the center of family callbacks, jobs. It sounded like every Oriental3 kid in Hollywood was entertainment. The most popular working except me. programs then were weekly variety My mother used to have a lot to say in those waiting rooms. Ever shows and situation comedies, or sit- and the Pits since I was three, when I started at the Meglin Kiddie Dance Studio, coms. Variety show hosts often I was dubbed “The Chinese Shirley Temple”—always the one to be C dub (d3b) v., give a nickname picked at auditions and interviews, always the one to get the showcased young talent. The speaking lines, always called “the one-shot kid,” because I could do multitude of family sit-coms on the air my scenes in one take—even tight close-ups.4 My mother would provided even greater opportunities only talk about me behind my back because she didn’t want me to for child actors to grab regular or A Short Story by Cherylene Lee hear her brag, but I knew that she was proud. In a way I was proud recurring roles. C too, though I never dared admit it. I didn’t want to be called a Analyze Literature showoff. But I didn’t exactly know what I did to be proud of either. Plot Ask students what kind of I only knew that at fifteen I was now being passed over at all these I lost 1968, when I was fifteen, the pit opened its secret to me. I conflict, internal or external—or interviews when before I would be chosen. breathed, ate, slept, dreamed about the La Brea Tar Pits. I spent both—they think the narrator could myself there My mother looked at my face hopefully when I came into the summer days working the archaeological dig, and in dreams saw the be experiencing. Model a possible 1 room. I gave her a quick shake of the head. She looked bewildered.5 and found bones glistening, the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae response: “The narrator could be looped like a woman’s pearls hanging on an invisible cord. I I felt bad for my mother then. How could I explain it to her? I didn’t experiencing an internal conflict welcomed those dreams. I wanted to know where the next skeleton understand it myself. We left, saying polite good-byes to all the other something about no longer getting roles.” was, identify it, record its position, discover whether it was whole or mothers. else. not. I wanted to know where to dig in the coarse, black, gooey sand. We didn’t say anything until the studio parking lot, where we Keep track of students’ perceptions of I lost myself there and found something else. had to search for our old blue Chevy among rows and rows of the narrator’s conflict. This will help My mother thought something was wrong with me. Was it good parked cars baking in the Hollywood heat. you be sure they realize that the ob•sessed (@b sest>) adj., for a teenager to be fascinated by death? Especially animal death in “How did it go? Did you read clearly? Did you tell them you’re narrator develops awareness over the preoccupied the Pleistocene?2 Was it normal to be so obsessed by a sticky brown available?” course of the story. hole in the ground in the center of Los Angeles? I don’t know if it “I don’t think they care if I’m available or not, Ma.” DURING READING was normal or not, but it seemed perfectly logical to me. After all, “Didn’t you read well? Did you remember to look up so they Analyze Literature I grew up in Hollywood, a place where dreams and nightmares can could see your eyes? Did they ask you if you could play the piano? Point of View Is the narrator often take the same shape. What else would a child actor do? Did you tell them you could learn?” part of the action? What else The barrage of questions stopped when we finally spotted our bar•rage (b@ r5zh>) n., can you tell about the narrator “Thank you very much, dear. We’ll be letting you know.” outpouring of many things at so far? once 1. the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae. Bones from the hip, head, and spine (backbone) 3. Oriental. Old term for Asian 2. Pleistocene. Geologic epoch that spans 10,000 to 1.6 million years ago 4. tight close-ups. Film shots in which a performer’s face fills the camera lens 5. bewildered. Puzzled

142 HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 143

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 142 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddDi 143fferentiated Instruction 10/29/14 3:51 PM Reading Proficiency Special Needs/Auditory Learning Students may have trouble shifting gears between Students may benefit from hearing the story read the narrator’s voice and the nonfiction information aloud. Have students take turns reading aloud on the La Brea Tar Pits. Before students start to passages in the narrator’s voice while you read read, explain that the writer makes this shift in aloud the nonfiction text. voice throughout the story. Point out that they can easily recognize the nonfiction text because it is set in italics. Give students time to skim the selection to see this for themselves.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 143

0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 143 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model car. I didn’t answer her. My mother asked about the piano because Lee Sisters,” fifteen minutes of song and dance, real vaudeville7 stuff. Analyze Literature I lost out in an audition once to a Chinese girl who already knew We joked about that a lot, “Yeah, the Lee Sisters—Ug-Lee and Point of View Ask students to how to play. Home-Lee,” but we definitely had a good time. So did our parents. identify the point of view in the My mother took off the towel that shielded the steering wheel Our father especially liked our getting booked into Las Vegas at the italicized text. Ask: “How is its tone from the heat. “You’re getting to be such a big girl,” she said, starting New Frontier Hotel on the Strip. He liked to gamble there, though different from that of the regular the car in neutral. “But don’t worry, there’s always next time. You he said the craps tables in that hotel were “cold,” not like the casinos text?” (It is in third-person point of have what it takes. That’s special.” She put the car into forward and in downtown Las Vegas, where all the “hot” action took place. view. The tone is impersonal and To me we drove through a parking lot that had an endless number of In Las Vegas our sister act was part of a show called “Oriental identical cars all facing the same direction. We drove back home in informative.) A Holiday.” The show was about a Hollywood producer going to the the applause silence. Far East, finding undiscovered talent, and bringing it back to the Science Connection U.S. We did two shows a night in the main showroom, one at eight sometimes In the La Brea Tar Pits many of the excavated bones belong to Tar Millions of years ago, time and and one at twelve, and on weekends a third show at two in the juvenile6 mammals. Thousands of years ago thirsty young animals pressure changed organic deposits in morning. It ran the entire summer, often to standing-room-only sounded like in the area were drawn to watering holes, not knowing they were Cherylene Lee (left) and her sister an ocean basin near today’s La Brea audiences—a thousand people a show. performing on television in 1959. A traps. Those inviting pools had false bottoms made of sticky tar, Tar Pits into oil. For the last 40,000 static, Our sister act worked because of the age and height difference. which immobilized its victims and preserved their bones when they My sister then was fourteen and nearly five foot two; I was seven and years, the oil has been making its way died. Innocence trapped by ignorance. The tar pits record that sometimes very small for my age—people thought we were cute. We had song- to the surface and seeping onto the well. ground. When it reaches the ground, like and-dance routines to old tunes like “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,” kerosene and other lighter elements I suppose a lot of my getting into show business in the first place “Together,” and “I’m Following You,” and my father hired a writer to evaporate, leaving behind asphalt, the distant was a matter of luck—being in the right place at the right time. adapt the lyrics to “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” which came out “We My sister, seven years older than me, was a member of the Meglin Enjoy Being Chinese.” We also told corny jokes, but the Las Vegas lowest grade of crude oil. This thick, waves. heavy, sticky substance is commonly Kiddie Dance Studio long before I started lessons. Once during the audience seemed to enjoy it. Here we were, two kids, staying up late called “tar.” annual recital held at the Shrine Auditorium, she was spotted by a and jumping around, and getting paid besides. To me the applause Hollywood agent who handled only Oriental performers. The agent sometimes sounded like static, sometimes like distant waves. It Use Reading Skills sent my sister out for a role in the CBS Playhouse 90 television show always amazed me when people applauded. The owner of the Analyze Cause and Effect Answer: The Family Nobody Wanted. The producer said she was too tall for hotel liked us so much, he invited us back to perform Her sister recommended her for a DURING READING the part. But true to my mother’s training of always having a positive in shows for three summers in a row. That was B before I grew too tall and the sister act didn’t seem role. Use Reading Skills reply, my sister said to the producer, “But I have a younger sister…” Analyze Cause and which started my show-biz career at the tender age of three. so cute anymore. Use Reading Strategies Effect What launched the My sister and I were lucky. We enjoyed singing and dancing, narrator’s Hollywood career? Many of the skeletons in the tar pits are found incomplete— Make Inferences Ask students what B we were natural hams, and our parents never discouraged us. In fact particularly the skeletons of the young, which have only soft they can infer about the narrator’s they were our biggest fans. My mother chauffeured us to all our cartilage connecting the bones. In life the soft tissue allows for parents. How involved were they with dance lessons, lessons we begged to take. She drove us to interviews, growth, but in death it dissolves quickly. Thus the skeletons of the girls’ careers? What did the girls’ took us to studios, went on location with us, drilled us on our lines, young animals are more apt to be scattered, especially the careers mean to them? Model a C made sure we kept up our schoolwork and didn’t sass back the vertebrae protecting the spinal cord. In the tar pits, the central DURING READING response: “They both support the girls’ tutors hired by studios to teach us for three hours a day. She never ends of many vertebrae are found unconnected to any skeleton. careers, the mother with time and the complained about being a stage mother. She said that we made her Make Connections Such bone fragments are shaped like valentines, disks that are What does the tone of this father with money. However, it seems proud. writing remind you of? Explain. slightly lobed—heart-shaped shields that have lost their connection that the mother has made their My father must have felt pride too, because he paid for a to what they were meant to protect. careers her career.” C choreographer to put together our sister act: “The World Famous 7. vaudeville. Theatrical variety show 6. juvenile. Young

144 UNIT 2 FICTION HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 145

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddDifferenti 144 ated Instruction 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 145 10/29/14 3:51 PM English Language Learning shrimp or small fry—informal terms for a small Students learning English may need help with the person or a child, 146 following words and expressions in order to Tootsie Pop—type of lollipop or round candy on a understand the main character and the plot. stick, 147 archaeological—having to do with the scientific cascading—falling, like a waterfall, 148 study of the life and culture of the past, 142 herbivores—plant-eating animals, 149 sass—talk rudely to, 144 City of Angels—another name for Los Angeles, 149 corny—unsophisticated, old-fashioned, 145

144 UNIT 2 FICTION

0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 144 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model car. I didn’t answer her. My mother asked about the piano because Lee Sisters,” fifteen minutes of song and dance, real vaudeville7 stuff. I lost out in an audition once to a Chinese girl who already knew We joked about that a lot, “Yeah, the Lee Sisters—Ug-Lee and Use Reading Skills how to play. Home-Lee,” but we definitely had a good time. So did our parents. Analyze Cause and Effect Ask My mother took off the towel that shielded the steering wheel Our father especially liked our getting booked into Las Vegas at the students why the narrator believes from the heat. “You’re getting to be such a big girl,” she said, starting New Frontier Hotel on the Strip. He liked to gamble there, though their sister act worked so well. (The the car in neutral. “But don’t worry, there’s always next time. You he said the craps tables in that hotel were “cold,” not like the casinos difference in their heights and ages have what it takes. That’s special.” She put the car into forward and in downtown Las Vegas, where all the “hot” action took place. made them cute and appealing.) D To me we drove through a parking lot that had an endless number of In Las Vegas our sister act was part of a show called “Oriental identical cars all facing the same direction. We drove back home in Holiday.” The show was about a Hollywood producer going to the Analyze Literature the applause silence. Far East, finding undiscovered talent, and bringing it back to the Point of View Have students U.S. We did two shows a night in the main showroom, one at eight describe how the narrator’s tone sometimes In the La Brea Tar Pits many of the excavated bones belong to and one at twelve, and on weekends a third show at two in the changes when she makes the juvenile6 mammals. Thousands of years ago thirsty young animals morning. It ran the entire summer, often to standing-room-only comment about growing too tall. (The sounded like in the area were drawn to watering holes, not knowing they were Cherylene Lee (left) and her sister audiences—a thousand people a show. performing on television in 1959. tone switches from nostalgic and traps. Those inviting pools had false bottoms made of sticky tar, static, Our sister act worked because of the age and height difference. lighthearted to matter-of-fact and which immobilized its victims and preserved their bones when they My sister then was fourteen and nearly five foot two; I was seven and D died. Innocence trapped by ignorance. The tar pits record that slightly sarcastic.) E sometimes very small for my age—people thought we were cute. We had song- well. Use Reading Skills like and-dance routines to old tunes like “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,” I suppose a lot of my getting into show business in the first place “Together,” and “I’m Following You,” and my father hired a writer to Monitor Comprehension Tell distant was a matter of luck—being in the right place at the right time. adapt the lyrics to “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” which came out “We students that if they have trouble My sister, seven years older than me, was a member of the Meglin Enjoy Being Chinese.” We also told corny jokes, but the Las Vegas understanding the concepts in the waves. Kiddie Dance Studio long before I started lessons. Once during the audience seemed to enjoy it. Here we were, two kids, staying up late italicized text they can try reading the annual recital held at the Shrine Auditorium, she was spotted by a and jumping around, and getting paid besides. To me the applause text more slowly, and can go back Hollywood agent who handled only Oriental performers. The agent sometimes sounded like static, sometimes like distant waves. It and reread if necessary. always amazed me when people applauded. The owner of the sent my sister out for a role in the CBS Playhouse 90 television show Make Connections The Family Nobody Wanted. The producer said she was too tall for hotel liked us so much, he invited us back to perform Answer: The passage will probably the part. But true to my mother’s training of always having a positive in shows for three summers in a row. That was DURING READING remind students of a textbook or a reply, my sister said to the producer, “But I have a younger sister…” before I grew too tall and the sister act didn’t seem E Use Reading Skills brochure. F Analyze Cause and which started my show-biz career at the tender age of three. so cute anymore. Effect What launched the My sister and I were lucky. We enjoyed singing and dancing, narrator’s Hollywood career? Many of the skeletons in the tar pits are found incomplete— we were natural hams, and our parents never discouraged us. In fact particularly the skeletons of the young, which have only soft they were our biggest fans. My mother chauffeured us to all our cartilage connecting the bones. In life the soft tissue allows for dance lessons, lessons we begged to take. She drove us to interviews, growth, but in death it dissolves quickly. Thus the skeletons of took us to studios, went on location with us, drilled us on our lines, young animals are more apt to be scattered, especially the made sure we kept up our schoolwork and didn’t sass back the vertebrae protecting the spinal cord. In the tar pits, the central DURING READING tutors hired by studios to teach us for three hours a day. She never ends of many vertebrae are found unconnected to any skeleton. complained about being a stage mother. She said that we made her Make Connections Such bone fragments are shaped like valentines, disks that are What does the tone of this proud. writing remind you of? Explain. slightly lobed—heart-shaped shields that have lost their connection F My father must have felt pride too, because he paid for a to what they were meant to protect. choreographer to put together our sister act: “The World Famous 7. vaudeville. Theatrical variety show 6. juvenile. Young

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 144 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd Reading 145 Skills 10/29/14 3:51 PM Monitor Comprehension • Skim the text to get a general idea of what it is Some students may be interested in reading more about. about fossils, the Pleistocene age, and/or the fossil • Read slowly to understand main ideas. discoveries at the La Brea Tar Pits. When reading • Take notes about facts and details. science texts, students should apply the following • Ask questions about words or ideas that are strategies to get the most from their reading unclear. experience. • Stop occasionally to check comprehension by summarizing what you have read so far.

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 145 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model I never felt my mother pushed me to do something I didn’t want to like a walking Tootsie Pop. I thought the reporter was making the DURING READING do. But I always knew if something I did pleased her. She was same observation. Make Connections Use Reading Skills What feeling do you think the Determine Sequence of Events Ask generous with her praise, and I was sensitive when she withheld it. “She better not get that way,” my mother said fiercely. “She’s not author wants to convey by this students to point out words and I didn’t like to disappoint her. any different from anyone else. She’s just lucky and small for her comparison to a Tootsie Pop? phrases that show the sequence of I took to performing easily, and since I had started out so young, age.” changes in the narrator’s acting making movies or doing shows didn’t feel like anything special. It The reporter turned to my mother, “Some parents push their opportunities and in her mother’s was part of my childhood—like going to the dentist one morning or children to act. The kids feel like they’re used.” attitude toward her (such as “When I going to school the next. I didn’t wonder if I wanted a particular role “I don’t do that—I’m not that way,” my mother told the reporter. or wanted to be in a show or how I would feel if I didn’t get in. Until was younger,” “When I turned fifteen,” But when she was sitting silently in all those waiting rooms while I was fifteen, it never occurred to me that one day I wouldn’t get DURING READING and “Before that summer”). A I was being turned down for one job after another, I could almost parts or that I might not “have what it takes.” feel her wanting to shout, “Use her. Use her. What is wrong with Make Connections Why might most parents have Make Connections When I was younger, I got a lot of roles because I was so small her? Doesn’t she have it anymore?” I didn’t know what I had had mixed feelings about whether Have students share anecdotes about A for my age. When I was nine years old, I could pass for five or six. that I didn’t seem to have anymore. My mother had told the reporter a child should be “normal”? changes that came unexpectedly as I was really short. I was always teased about it when I was in that I was like everyone else. But when my life was like everyone they got older and bigger. How do elementary school, but I didn’t mind because my height got me else’s, why was she disappointed? their own experiences affect their movie jobs. I could read and memorize lines that actual five-year- The churning action of the La Brea Tar Pits makes interpreting feelings for the narrator? (Most will olds couldn’t. My mother told people she made me sleep in a drawer so I wouldn’t grow any bigger. the record of past events extremely difficult. The usual order of sympathize with her.) B 8 But when I turned fifteen, it was as if my body, which hadn’t deposition —the oldest on the bottom, the youngest on the top— grown for so many years, suddenly made up for lost time. I grew five loses all meaning when some of the oldest fossils can be brought to inches in seven months. My mother was amazed. Even I couldn’t get the surface by the movement of natural gas. One must look for an TEACHING NOTE used to it. I kept knocking into things, my clothes didn’t fit right, undisturbed spot, a place untouched by the action of underground Ask the Author I felt awkward and clumsy when I moved. Dumb things that I had springs or natural gas or human interference. Complete skeletons B Divide the class into small groups, and gotten away with, like paying children’s prices at the movies instead become important, because they indicate areas of least disturbance. But such spots of calm are rare. Whole blocks of the have the groups brainstorm and jot of junior admission, I couldn’t do anymore. I wasn’t a shrimp or a tar pit can become displaced,9 making false sequences of the past, down questions they would like to ask small fry any longer. I was suddenly normal. skewing the interpretation for what is the true order of nature. Cherylene Lee. Model a question: “Do Before that summer my mother had always claimed she wanted DURING READING you still volunteer at the Tar Pits?” me to be normal. She didn’t want me to become spoiled by the That year before my sixteenth birthday, my mother seemed to spend Instruct each group to pass its attention I received when I was working at the studios. I still had a lot of time looking through my old scrapbooks, staring at all the Use Reading Skills Analyze Cause and questions to another group, and chores to do at home, went to public school when I wasn’t working, eight-by-ten glossies of the shows that I had done. In the summer we Effect Why does the narrator’s then pretend it is Lee and try to was punished severely when I behaved badly. She didn’t want me to visited with my grandmother often, since I wasn’t working and had mother spend so much time reviewing the past? answer the questions it receives. feel I was different just because I was in the movies. When I was lots of free time. I would go out to the garden to read or sunbathe, Have the groups share some of eight, I was interviewed by a reporter who wanted to know if I but I could hear my mother and grandmother talking. their questions and answers as thought I had a big head. “She was so cute back then. She worked with Gene Kelly when a class. “Sure,” I said. she was five years old. She was so smart for her age. I don’t know “No you don’t,” my mother interrupted, which was really what’s wrong with her.” unusual, because she generally never said anything. She wanted me “She’s fifteen.” to speak for myself. 8. order of deposition. Sequence in which layers of sediment are left behind when water flows over an I didn’t understand the question. My sister had always made fun area and then recedes of my head. She said my body was too tiny for the weight—I looked 9. Whole blocks of the tar pit can become displaced. Tar is warm enough to flow very slowly, and whole sections can move from one place to another.

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddDifferenti 146 ated Instruction 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 147 10/29/14 3:51 PM English Language Learning Special Needs/Visual Learning Students learning English may need help Visual learners may benefit from visualizing the understanding the meaning of the following idioms process of how animals became trapped in the tar used in the text. pits. Ask students to gather in groups of three or have what it takes—possess the necessary skills and four to review the italicized passages. Then have temperament to succeed, 146 students work together to draw a series of sketches pass for [five or six]—appear to be younger than that illustrates the animal entrapment. Students can one is, 146 share their drawings with the class. made up for lost time—happened quickly, 146 speak for myself—say what I really think, 146

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 146 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model DURING READING I never felt my mother pushed me to do something I didn’t want to like a walking Tootsie Pop. I thought the reporter was making the C do. But I always knew if something I did pleased her. She was same observation. Make Connections What feeling do you think the Make Connections generous with her praise, and I was sensitive when she withheld it. “She better not get that way,” my mother said fiercely. “She’s not author wants to convey by this Answer: Most students will say the I didn’t like to disappoint her. any different from anyone else. She’s just lucky and small for her comparison to a Tootsie Pop? C author wants readers to find this I took to performing easily, and since I had started out so young, age.” funny. Some may think the author making movies or doing shows didn’t feel like anything special. It The reporter turned to my mother, “Some parents push their wants them to feel sympathy for the was part of my childhood—like going to the dentist one morning or children to act. The kids feel like they’re used.” narrator. C going to school the next. I didn’t wonder if I wanted a particular role “I don’t do that—I’m not that way,” my mother told the reporter. or wanted to be in a show or how I would feel if I didn’t get in. Until But when she was sitting silently in all those waiting rooms while Make Connections DURING READING I was fifteen, it never occurred to me that one day I wouldn’t get I was being turned down for one job after another, I could almost Answer: Most students will say parts or that I might not “have what it takes.” feel her wanting to shout, “Use her. Use her. What is wrong with Make Connections parents want their children to be Why might most parents have When I was younger, I got a lot of roles because I was so small her? Doesn’t she have it anymore?” I didn’t know what I had had mixed feelings about whether special, but also to be accepted. D for my age. When I was nine years old, I could pass for five or six. that I didn’t seem to have anymore. My mother had told the reporter a child should be “normal”? D I was really short. I was always teased about it when I was in that I was like everyone else. But when my life was like everyone Use Reading Skills elementary school, but I didn’t mind because my height got me else’s, why was she disappointed? Analyze Cause and Effect Ask movie jobs. I could read and memorize lines that actual five-year- students why the discovery of whole olds couldn’t. My mother told people she made me sleep in a drawer The churning action of the La Brea Tar Pits makes interpreting skeletons matters, and what effect so I wouldn’t grow any bigger. the record of past events extremely difficult. The usual order of this has on scientific interpretations. 8 But when I turned fifteen, it was as if my body, which hadn’t deposition —the oldest on the bottom, the youngest on the top— (Whole skeletons show that those grown for so many years, suddenly made up for lost time. I grew five loses all meaning when some of the oldest fossils can be brought to places have not been disturbed, so inches in seven months. My mother was amazed. Even I couldn’t get the surface by the movement of natural gas. One must look for an the scientists’ conclusions are apt to undisturbed spot, a place untouched by the action of underground used to it. I kept knocking into things, my clothes didn’t fit right, be accurate.) E I felt awkward and clumsy when I moved. Dumb things that I had springs or natural gas or human interference. Complete skeletons gotten away with, like paying children’s prices at the movies instead become important, because they indicate areas of least Use Reading Skills of junior admission, I couldn’t do anymore. I wasn’t a shrimp or a disturbance. But such spots of calm are rare. Whole blocks of the Analyze Cause and Effect Answer: 9 small fry any longer. I was suddenly normal. tar pit can become displaced, making false sequences of the past, E She is trying to make sense of what Before that summer my mother had always claimed she wanted skewing the interpretation for what is the true order of nature. has changed. F DURING READING me to be normal. She didn’t want me to become spoiled by the That year before my sixteenth birthday, my mother seemed to spend Analyze Literature attention I received when I was working at the studios. I still had a lot of time looking through my old scrapbooks, staring at all the Use Reading Skills Analyze Cause and Character Ask students what the chores to do at home, went to public school when I wasn’t working, eight-by-ten glossies of the shows that I had done. In the summer we Effect Why does the narrator’s was punished severely when I behaved badly. She didn’t want me to visited with my grandmother often, since I wasn’t working and had mother spend so much time conversation between the narrator’s reviewing the past? feel I was different just because I was in the movies. When I was lots of free time. I would go out to the garden to read or sunbathe, F mother and grandmother reveals eight, I was interviewed by a reporter who wanted to know if I but I could hear my mother and grandmother talking. about their attitudes toward the thought I had a big head. “She was so cute back then. She worked with Gene Kelly when narrator. Model a possible response: “Sure,” I said. she was five years old. She was so smart for her age. I don’t know G “The narrator’s grandmother seems to “No you don’t,” my mother interrupted, which was really what’s wrong with her.” realize that the narrator has grown up unusual, because she generally never said anything. She wanted me “She’s fifteen.” and is ready to move in a new to speak for myself. direction, away from movies and 8. order of deposition. Sequence in which layers of sediment are left behind when water flows over an I didn’t understand the question. My sister had always made fun area and then recedes performing. The narrator’s mother of my head. She said my body was too tiny for the weight—I looked 9. Whole blocks of the tar pit can become displaced. Tar is warm enough to flow very slowly, and doesn’t want to let go of the whole sections can move from one place to another. past.” G

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 146 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddGr 147 ammar Skills 10/29/14 3:51 PM Passive Voice and Active Voice 1. Hundreds of fossil bones were collected by Remind students that active-voice verbs express volunteers. ideas more directly than passive-voice verbs. Give 2. The story of these ancient animals is revealed them this example: through a museum exhibit. Passive voice: The fossil was examined by scientists. 3. The saber-tooth cat has been named Active voice: Scientists examined the fossil. California’s state fossil. Have students identify the passive verb in these sentences, and then revise each sentence so the verb is active.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 147

0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 147 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model “She’s too young to be an ingénue10 and too old to be cute. The My mother was going on and on about my lack of work, what Science Connection studios forget so quickly. By the time she’s old enough to play an might be wrong, that something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Geologic Time Answer: It is recent ingénue, they won’t remember her.” I heard my grandmother reply, but I didn’t catch it all: “Movies are in terms of geologic time. A “Does she have to work in the movies? Hand me the scissors.” just make-believe, not real life. Like what I make with my hair that My grandmother was making false eyelashes using the hair from falls out—false. False eyelashes. Not meant to last.” Use Reading Skills her hairbrush. When she was young she had incredible hair. I saw The remains in the La Brea Tar Pits are mostly of carnivorous Analyze Cause and Effect Ask an old photograph of her when it flowed beyond her waist like a animals. Very few herbivores are found—the ratio is five to one, a students why the narrator’s hair won’t cascading black waterfall. At seventy, her hair was still black as perversion of the natural food chain.11 The ratio is easy to explain. stay in knots. What effect does this night, which made her few Thousands of years ago a thirsty animal sought a drink from the have on the narrator? (Her hair is too strands of silver look like SCIENCE CONNECTION pools of water only to find itself trapped by the bottom, gooey with springy and young to stay in knots. It shooting stars. But her hair pred•a•tor (pred> @ t@r) had thinned greatly with subterranean oil. A shriek of agony from the trapped victim drew n., animal that gets food by increases the narrator’s frustrations flesh-eating predators, which were then trapped themselves by the capturing and eating other age. It sometimes fell out in animals with all the changes that are taking Geologic Time Evidence clumps. She wore it very same ooze which provided the bait. The cycle repeated itself place in her life.) B in rocks indicates that Earth countless times. The number of victims grew, lured by the image of is more than four billion brushed back in a bun with easy food, the deception of an easy kill. The animals piled on top years old. Scientists use big a hairpiece for added scav•en•ger (scav> @n j@r) n., animal that gets food by categories to measure this fullness. My grandmother of one another. For over ten thousand years the promise of the place drew animals of all sorts, mostly predators and eating the dead bodies of other much time. The largest had always been proud of animals 12 category of geologic time is her hair, but once she scavengers—dire wolves, panthers, coyotes, vultures—all DURING READING the era. We are in the Cenozoic Era, which began sixty-five million hungry for their chance. Most were sucked down against their will started making false Use Reading Skills years ago, after dinosaurs became extinct. An era is divided into eyelashes from it, she in those watering holes destined to be called the La Brea Tar Pits Analyze Cause and periods, and periods are split into epochs. We live in the Quaternary in a place to be named the City of Angels, home of Hollywood Effect Why are there so many Period, which started less than two million years ago. The La Brea Tar wasn’t proud of the way it predator and scavenger remains movie stars. in the tar pits? Pits formed during the last part of the Pleistocene Epoch of the looked anymore. She said Quaternary Period, approximately forty-thousand years ago. In terms of she was proud of it now I spent a lot of time by myself that summer, wondering what it was because it made her useful. geologic time, would you say this is recently, or very long ago? A that I didn’t have anymore. Could I get it back? How could I if It was painstaking I didn’t know what it was? work—tying knots into That’s when I discovered the La Brea Tar Pits. Hidden behind the strands of hair, then tying them together to form feathery little County Art Museum on trendy Wilshire Boulevard, I found a job crescents. Her glamorous false eyelashes were much sought after. that didn’t require me to be small or cute for my age. I didn’t have to Theatrical makeup artists waited months for her work. But my audition. No one said, “Thank you very much, we’ll call you.” Or if grandmother said what she liked was that she was doing something, they did, they meant it. I volunteered my time one afternoon, and making a contribution, and besides it didn’t cost her anything. No my fascination stuck—like tar on the bones of a saber-toothed tiger. overhead. “Till I go bald,” she often joked. My mother didn’t understand what had changed me. I didn’t She tried to teach me her art that summer, but for some reason understand it myself. But I liked going to the La Brea Tar Pits. It strands of my hair wouldn’t stay tied in knots. meant I could get really messy and I was doing it with a purpose. “Too springy,” my grandmother said. “Your hair is still too I didn’t feel awkward there. I could wear old stained pants. I could B young.” And because I was frustrated then, frustrated with wear T-shirts with holes in them. I could wear disgustingly filthy everything about my life, she added, “You have to wait until your sneakers and it was all perfectly justified. It wasn’t a costume for a hair falls out, like mine. Something to look forward to, eh?” She had laughed and patted my hand. 11. perversion of the natural food chain. Plant-eaters (herbivores) usually greatly outnumber meat- eaters (carnivores); a perversion reverses this relationship. 10. ingénue. Inexperienced young woman 12. dire wolves. Members of an extinct species of California wolf (Canis dirus)

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddVocabula 148ry Skills 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 149 10/29/14 3:51 PM Jargon ways, students can use context clues. For example, Jargon is the special vocabulary used by a specific by using context, they can figure out that take in group or profession. Although writers use jargon to the story means “an uninterrupted filming session.” add authenticity to their work, for readers it can Tell students that if context doesn’t help them interfere with comprehension. understand a word, they can write it down. Later, “Hollywood and the Pits” contains jargon from the they can find its meaning in a dictionary. entertainment industry. To figure out the meaning of unfamiliar terms or familiar words used in new

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 148 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model “She’s too young to be an ingénue10 and too old to be cute. The My mother was going on and on about my lack of work, what studios forget so quickly. By the time she’s old enough to play an might be wrong, that something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. Analyze Literature ingénue, they won’t remember her.” I heard my grandmother reply, but I didn’t catch it all: “Movies are Mood Ask students what they think “Does she have to work in the movies? Hand me the scissors.” just make-believe, not real life. Like what I make with my hair that C the author wants readers to feel My grandmother was making false eyelashes using the hair from falls out—false. False eyelashes. Not meant to last.” about the narrator’s life as a movie her hairbrush. When she was young she had incredible hair. I saw The remains in the La Brea Tar Pits are mostly of carnivorous actor. (The author probably wants an old photograph of her when it flowed beyond her waist like a readers to recognize that it is hollow cascading black waterfall. At seventy, her hair was still black as animals. Very few herbivores are found—the ratio is five to one, a 11 and lacks real meaning.) C night, which made her few perversion of the natural food chain. The ratio is easy to explain. strands of silver look like Thousands of years ago a thirsty animal sought a drink from the Use Reading Skills SCIENCE CONNECTION pools of water only to find itself trapped by the bottom, gooey with shooting stars. But her hair pred•a•tor (pred> @ t@r) Analyze Cause and Effect Answer: subterranean oil. A shriek of agony from the trapped victim drew n., animal that gets food by had thinned greatly with Predators got stuck in tar when they flesh-eating predators, which were then trapped themselves by the capturing and eating other age. It sometimes fell out in animals pursued prey, and after they died, Geologic Time Evidence very same ooze which provided the bait. The cycle repeated itself clumps. She wore it scavengers came to eat their bodies in rocks indicates that Earth countless times. The number of victims grew, lured by the image of is more than four billion brushed back in a bun with and also got stuck in the tar. D easy food, the deception of an easy kill. The animals piled on top years old. Scientists use big a hairpiece for added scav•en•ger (scav> @n j@r) n., animal that gets food by categories to measure this fullness. My grandmother of one another. For over ten thousand years the promise of the Analyze Literature place drew animals of all sorts, mostly predators and eating the dead bodies of other much time. The largest had always been proud of animals Mood Ask students to describe the 12 category of geologic time is her hair, but once she scavengers—dire wolves, panthers, coyotes, vultures—all DURING READING mood the author creates when she the era. We are in the Cenozoic Era, which began sixty-five million hungry for their chance. Most were sucked down against their will started making false Use Reading Skills links the tar pits to Hollywood. (The years ago, after dinosaurs became extinct. An era is divided into eyelashes from it, she in those watering holes destined to be called the La Brea Tar Pits Analyze Cause and mood is dark and depressing.) periods, and periods are split into epochs. We live in the Quaternary in a place to be named the City of Angels, home of Hollywood Effect Why are there so many wasn’t proud of the way it predator and scavenger remains Period, which started less than two million years ago. The La Brea Tar movie stars. Cultural Connection looked anymore. She said in the tar pits? D Pits formed during the last part of the Pleistocene Epoch of the Tar Pits Tourism The La Brea Tar Quaternary Period, approximately forty-thousand years ago. In terms of she was proud of it now I spent a lot of time by myself that summer, wondering what it was Pits are located in the historic and geologic time, would you say this is recently, or very long ago? because it made her useful. that I didn’t have anymore. Could I get it back? How could I if culturally rich district of Los Angeles It was painstaking I didn’t know what it was? known as the Miracle Mile. Other work—tying knots into That’s when I discovered the La Brea Tar Pits. Hidden behind the attractions in the immediate area, strands of hair, then tying them together to form feathery little County Art Museum on trendy Wilshire Boulevard, I found a job E which is sometimes called Museum crescents. Her glamorous false eyelashes were much sought after. that didn’t require me to be small or cute for my age. I didn’t have to Theatrical makeup artists waited months for her work. But my audition. No one said, “Thank you very much, we’ll call you.” Or if Row, include the Petersen Automotive grandmother said what she liked was that she was doing something, they did, they meant it. I volunteered my time one afternoon, and Museum, The Los Angeles County making a contribution, and besides it didn’t cost her anything. No my fascination stuck—like tar on the bones of a saber-toothed tiger. Museum of Art, and the Museum of overhead. “Till I go bald,” she often joked. My mother didn’t understand what had changed me. I didn’t Miniatures. Upscale shops and She tried to teach me her art that summer, but for some reason understand it myself. But I liked going to the La Brea Tar Pits. It restaurants, as well as entertainment- strands of my hair wouldn’t stay tied in knots. meant I could get really messy and I was doing it with a purpose. industry companies, also occupy the “Too springy,” my grandmother said. “Your hair is still too I didn’t feel awkward there. I could wear old stained pants. I could densely populated, affluent area. E young.” And because I was frustrated then, frustrated with wear T-shirts with holes in them. I could wear disgustingly filthy everything about my life, she added, “You have to wait until your sneakers and it was all perfectly justified. It wasn’t a costume for a hair falls out, like mine. Something to look forward to, eh?” She had laughed and patted my hand. 11. perversion of the natural food chain. Plant-eaters (herbivores) usually greatly outnumber meat- eaters (carnivores); a perversion reverses this relationship. 10. ingénue. Inexperienced young woman 12. dire wolves. Members of an extinct species of California wolf (Canis dirus)

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 148 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddResearch 149 Skills 10/29/14 3:51 PM Primary and Secondary Sources Have students identify the following materials as Tell students that they can use both primary and primary or secondary sources of information about secondary sources. A primary source is a firsthand fossils. account of an event. A journal an archaeologist 1. A mystery novel in which an archaeologist is the keeps on a dig would be a primary source. A main character secondary source is something written by someone 2. An autobiography by an archaeologist who has not directly experienced an event. A 3. An essay by a student who attended an magazine article about fossil discoveries could be a archaeology camp secondary source. 4. An encyclopedia article about fossils

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 149 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model role in a film or a part in a At the La Brea Tar Pits, everything dug out of the pit is saved— Cultural Connection TV sitcom. My mother didn’t including the sticky sand that covered the bones through the ages. Tar Pit Exhibit You may wish to tell mind my dressing like that Each bucket of sand is washed, sieved, and examined for pollen students that the mammoth in the when she knew I was off to grains, insect remains, any evidence of past life. Even the grain photograph is a reconstruction, part the pits. That was okay so size is recorded—the percentage of silt to sand to gravel that of an outdoor exhibit at the La Brea long as I didn’t track tar back reveals the history of deposition, erosion, and disturbance. No Tar Pits. The animal is in the process into the house. I started single fossil, no one observation, is significant enough to tell the of being trapped; its mate and child going to the pits every day, entire story. All the evidence must be weighed before a semblance and my mother wondered of truth emerges. stand on the bank of the pit, unable why. She couldn’t believe I to save it. would rather be groveling in The tar pits had its lessons. I was learning I had to work slowly, become observant, to concentrate. I learned about time in a way that Use Reading Strategies tar than going on auditions or interviews. I would never experience—not in hours, days, and months, but in Make Inferences Answer: The thousands and thousands of years. I imagined what the past must narrator is not trying as hard to While my mother wasn’t proud of the La Brea Tar Pits have been like, envisioned Los Angeles as a sweeping basin, perhaps please her mother as before, and she slightly colder and more humid, a time before people and studios has stopped trying to alleviate her (she didn’t know or care what a fossil was), she didn’t arrived. The tar pits recorded a warming trend; the kinds of animals mother’s uncertainty. The narrator no discourage me either. She found there reflected the changing climate. The ones unadapted longer expresses interest in show drove me there, the same disappeared. No trace of their kind was found in the area. The ones business, even though her mother way she used to drive me to adapted to warmer weather left a record of bones in the pit. Amid does. A that collection of ancient skeletons, surrounded by evidence of the studios. DURING READING “Wouldn’t you rather be death, I was finding a secret preserved over thousands and Analyze Literature Use Reading Skills doing a show in Las Vegas thousands of years. There was something cruel about natural Plot Ask students how they think the selection13 and the survival of the fittest. Even those successful Analyze Cause and than scrambling around in a Effect Why does the narrator narrator’s conflict has changed—if at pit?” she asked. individuals that “had what it took” for adaptation still wound up in prefer the tar pits to a career all—by this point in the story. in show business? “I’m not in a show in Las the pits. Analyze Literature Vegas, Ma. The Lee Sisters I never found out if I had what it took, not the way my mother meant. But I did adapt to the truth: I wasn’t a Chinese Shirley DURING READING Point of View Ask students what are retired.” My older sister had married and was starting a family of Temple any longer, cute and short for my age. I had grown up. Use Reading Skills else the narrator may be telling the her own. Maybe not on a Hollywood movie set, but in the La Brea Tar Pits. D Analyze Cause and reader when she says that she “But if you could choose between…” Effect How have the La Brea DURING READING Tar Pits helped the narrator wondered a lot about how the “There isn’t a choice.” 13. natural selection. Process in which individuals and groups best adjusted to the environment survive gain perspective on her life? animals fell into the trap. (She may be Use Reading Strategies “You really like this tar-pit stuff, or are you just waiting until you and reproduce

Make Inferences How has can get real work in the movies?” saying that it will take time for her to the narrator’s relationship with her mother changed by this I didn’t answer. W figure out how she, and other At one point, the narrator says, “I didn’t know what I had had that I didn’t point in the plot? My mother sighed. “You could do it if you wanted, if you really entertainers, fell into the Hollywood A irrors seem to have anymore.” Do you ever feel like you’ve changed, but people wanted. You still have what it takes.” trap.) B indoWs close to you don’t seem to notice? Why might this be a common feeling? I didn’t know about that. But then, I couldn’t explain what drew W Independent Reading me to the tar pits either. Maybe it was the bones, finding out what Students who like “Hollywood and the they were, which animal they belonged to, imagining how they got Pits” might enjoy other stories in B there, how they fell into the trap. I wondered about that a lot. American Dragons: Twenty-Five Asian American Voices.

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.inddDifferenti 150 ated Instruction 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 151 10/29/14 3:51 PM Enrichment Suggest that students prepare for their museum Some students may be interested in taking a trip to visit by creating a list of questions that they would a local museum to see the fossils that like answered. Offer these examples: archaeologists, like the ones who work in the La • What animal is the fossil from? Brea Tar Pits, uncover. You may want to talk to the • Where was the fossil found? students’ science teacher to see if you can • What does the fossil reveal about the creature & coordinate a joint trip. that once lived? • What does the discovery reveal about the times in which the creature lived?

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 150 12/2/14 8:08 AM Teach the Model role in a film or a part in a At the La Brea Tar Pits, everything dug out of the pit is saved— TV sitcom. My mother didn’t including the sticky sand that covered the bones through the ages. Use Reading Skills mind my dressing like that Each bucket of sand is washed, sieved, and examined for pollen Analyze Cause and Effect Answer: when she knew I was off to grains, insect remains, any evidence of past life. Even the grain She can be messy with a purpose; she the pits. That was okay so size is recorded—the percentage of silt to sand to gravel that doesn’t feel awkward there; she is long as I didn’t track tar back reveals the history of deposition, erosion, and disturbance. No fascinated by the pits; and she likes into the house. I started single fossil, no one observation, is significant enough to tell the the process of learning about the going to the pits every day, entire story. All the evidence must be weighed before a semblance past. C and my mother wondered of truth emerges. why. She couldn’t believe I Use Reading Skills The tar pits had its lessons. I was learning I had to work slowly, would rather be groveling in Analyze Cause and Effect Answer: become observant, to concentrate. I learned about time in a way that tar than going on auditions Studying the tar pits has taught her I would never experience—not in hours, days, and months, but in or interviews. to adapt to change. D While my mother wasn’t thousands and thousands of years. I imagined what the past must

proud of the La Brea Tar Pits have been like, envisioned Los Angeles as a sweeping basin, perhaps (she didn’t know or care slightly colder and more humid, a time before people and studios W You may what a fossil was), she didn’t arrived. The tar pits recorded a warming trend; the kinds of animals irrors want to ask discourage me either. She found there reflected the changing climate. The ones unadapted W indows students to drove me there, the same disappeared. No trace of their kind was found in the area. The ones write a way she used to drive me to adapted to warmer weather left a record of bones in the pit. Amid journal entry or quick write, or that collection of ancient skeletons, surrounded by evidence of the studios. divide students into discussion death, I was finding a secret preserved over thousands and DURING READING “Wouldn’t you rather be groups or lead a whole-class thousands of years. There was something cruel about natural Use Reading Skills doing a show in Las Vegas discussion about this question. selection13 and the survival of the fittest. Even those successful Analyze Cause and than scrambling around in a Effect Why does the narrator Answer: Most students will have felt individuals that “had what it took” for adaptation still wound up in prefer the tar pits to a career pit?” she asked. some confusion or ambivalence the pits. in show business? C “I’m not in a show in Las about getting older. Vegas, Ma. The Lee Sisters I never found out if I had what it took, not the way my mother meant. But I did adapt to the truth: I wasn’t a Chinese Shirley DURING READING are retired.” My older sister had married and was starting a family of ANSWERS TO MIRRORS & WINDOWS QUESTIONS Temple any longer, cute and short for my age. I had grown up. Use Reading Skills her own. Analyze Cause and Mirrors & Windows Maybe not on a Hollywood movie set, but in the La Brea Tar Pits. D “But if you could choose between…” Effect How have the La Brea Most students will have felt some DURING READING Tar Pits helped the narrator “There isn’t a choice.” 13. natural selection. Process in which individuals and groups best adjusted to the environment survive confusion or ambivalence about gain perspective on her life? D Use Reading Strategies “You really like this tar-pit stuff, or are you just waiting until you and reproduce getting older. They may say the

Make Inferences How has can get real work in the movies?” the narrator’s relationship with narrator accurately portrays how a W her mother changed by this I didn’t answer. At one point, the narrator says, “I didn’t know what I had had that I didn’t maturing person feels, or they may point in the plot? My mother sighed. “You could do it if you wanted, if you really irrors seem to have anymore.” Do you ever feel like you’ve changed, but people say she dwells& on it too much. Most wanted. You still have what it takes.” indoWs close to you don’t seem to notice? Why might this be a common feeling? students will admit that every adult I didn’t know about that. But then, I couldn’t explain what drew W has experienced the same thing. me to the tar pits either. Maybe it was the bones, finding out what they were, which animal they belonged to, imagining how they got there, how they fell into the trap. I wondered about that a lot.

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 150 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 151Writing Skills 10/29/14 3:51 PM Cause-and-Effect Order Have students work in pairs to develop a cause-and- Point out that writers use cause-and-effect order to effect paragraph about the changes in the help readers understand how events are connected. relationship between the narrator and her mother. Often, a single cause will have more than one Students can use a chart similar to the one on page effect, and a single effect will have more than one 141 to keep track of causes and effects as they plan cause. Writers& use transitions such as because, and and draft their paragraphs. Remind them to use so, as a result, and therefore to signal cause-and- transitions. effect order.

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 151 12/2/14 8:08 AM Apply the Model Literary Element Review the Model BEFORE READING Understanding Theme DURING READING Text-Dependent Questions AFTER READING What Is Theme? Find Meaning What is the main point being made in the passage below from Peter Pan, J. M. Barrie’s most famous 1. (a) She no longer gets parts. work? In answering this question, you are (b) She does not understand it very Find Meaning Make Judgments identifying the theme. A theme is the central idea well at first, but her understanding 1. (a) How did the narrator’s experiences at 3. (a) What inspired the narrator to volunteer at of a literary work. grows over the course of the story. auditions change? (b) How well does the the La Brea Tar Pits? (b) How did volunteering 2. The narrator’s mother shows narrator understand why her experiences are there change her outlook on life? Themes and Topics support, pride, expectations, different? 4. (a) What kinds of animals were drawn to the The theme is not the same as the topic. A topic is 2. How does the narrator’s mother act toward tar pits? (b) How might they resemble people? the subject of a literary work, that is, what it is disappointment, and nostalgia. the narrator? 5. Which part of her life do you think the about. For example, the topic of this novel is Peter Make Judgments narrator has enjoyed the most? Why? Pan’s adventures in Neverland. The theme is a 3. (a) Students may say the narrator general observation based on that topic. Literary Analyze Literature volunteered because she had free First-Person Third-Person works can share the same topic but have different Point of View Summarize how Cherylene Lee’s Narrator Narrator (The themes. For example, you might have two stories time, since she was not getting acting use of both first-person and third-person points (Hollywood) Pits) that are both on the topic of sports. One story’s roles. They may also say the narrator of view affects the mood and plot of “Hollywood How this Presents Presents theme might be stated: “Sports are a wonderful way liked the pits because the job did not and the Pits.” Make a graphic organizer like this influences an internal an external to get some exercise and make friends.” The other depend on her being young or cute. one so you can record your key impressions. the plot conflict conflict story’s theme might be stated: “Sports are overrated; (b) Many students will note that the How this I prefer a good book.” The topic is the same, but the Maude Adams as Peter Pan, c. 20th century. Sigismond de Ivanowski. influences themes are very different. narrator does not feel awkward at the the mood tar pits, as she does now at auditions. Stated and Implied Themes That was the last time the girl This gives her a more mature and Sometimes the central idea of a literary work is Wendy ever saw him. For a little positive outlook. presented directly. This is called a stated theme. longer she tried for his sake not to 4. (a) Young, thirsty animals came to More often, however, the theme of a literary work is Extend Understanding Collaborative Learning have growing pains; and she felt the pits, as did predators and not presented directly and must be inferred by the Writing Options Infer the Author’s Purpose In a small group, reader. This is an implied theme. For example, the she was untrue to him when she got scavengers. (b) Students may say that discuss why the story includes the scientific Creative Writing Imagine that you are theme in the passage from Peter Pan is “growing up a prize for general knowledge. But people are drawn to show business in information on the tar pits. What might the tar Extendcreating a Understandingtime capsule in your backyard. What is both natural and something to be desired.” Some the same way—and that some could pits represent? Take notes on your discussion, the years came and went without objects would you include? Write a journal works can have both a stated theme and an implied Writing Options and then summarize the group’s thoughts in one bringing the careless boy; and when be at risk of getting stuck in entry in which you describe these things and theme—or even several themes—either stated or Creative Writing or two paragraphs. something dangerous. your reasons for including them. When you are implied. they met again Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to 5. Many students will say the Criticalfinished, shareWriting your entry with the class. Media Literacy narrator enjoys her tar-pit time more her than a little dust in the box in Informative Writing How would you describe Dig for Details Use the Internet to find because she is comfortable there. this story to a friend? Write a three-paragraph information on an archaeological site in or near which she had kept her toys. Wendy Analyze Literature literary response that describes the conflicts your state. Then write a letter to the site director was grown up. You need not be sorry the narrator and her mother experience. Identify with two or three questions about the site. For Point of View Students may say the for her. each conflict as internal or external and use example, ask about the fossils scientists have —J. M. BARRIE, Peter Pan

changes between first and third examples from the story. In your final sentences, discovered there. person help move the action along, or tell how the plot resolves each of the conflicts. W Go to www.mirrorsandwindows.com for more. that the third-person segments offer Make certain you summarize the story in a way W insight into the narrator of the first- that maintains logical order. person segments. The mood shifts with the point of view. If you wish,

ask students to provide text support, 152 UNIT 2 FICTION LITERARY ELEMENT 153 such as examples, for their responses.

Program Resources Rubrics for Writing Options Informative Writing 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 152 10/29/14 3:51 PM 0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 153 10/29/14 3:51 PM You can adapt this as a checklist for students to n Does the literary response cover both the For further instruction, refer stu- narrator and her mother? dents to the following extension use as they write. activity: Media Literacy: Dig for n Does the literary response identify conflicts as Creative Writing either internal or external, and use examples Details, Exceeding the Standards: n Does the entry start with a list of items from a Extension Activities, pp. 5–6. from the story? time capsule? n Do the last sentences tell how the plot resolves n Does the entry give reasons for students’ each conflict? choices? n Does the summary maintain logical order?

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0138-0161_Lit3eG7_U02_ATE.indd 152 12/2/14 8:08 AM Apply the Model BEFORE READING DURING READING and the Pits AFTER READING A Short Story by Cherylene Lee GUIDED READING GUIDED

Build Background Use Reading Skills Scientific Context The La Brea Tar Pits are a major tourist Analyze Cause and attraction in Los Angeles, California. They began to form nearly Effect You can keep 40,000 years ago, when the area was home to such animals as track of causes and effects saber-toothed cats, ground sloths, and mammoths. The “tar” is in this story by creating a really asphalt, which seeps out of petroleum deposits. Animals cause-effect chart. As you entered a watering hole and were trapped by tar under the read, create a cause-effect water. The remains of the animals churn in the tar. chart like the one below. Reader’s Context How is becoming a teenager like falling into tar? Do parents really remember what growing up is like? Cause: Effect: Set Purpose Narrator begins to Before you begin reading, skim the story for unfamiliar terms. grow up. Make a list of terms you need to look up. Analyze Literature Point of View A story’s point of view reflects the vantage Preview Vocabulary point of the narrator. With the first-person point of view, the ob•sessed (@b sest>) adj., preoccupied narrator is part of the action, but with the third-person point of dub (d3b) v., give a nickname view, the narrator observes the action. “Hollywood and the Pits” bar•rage (b@ r5zh>) n., outpouring of uses both points of view. As you read, think about how the many things at once alternating points of view influence the mood, the plot, and your pred•a•tor (pred> @ t@r) n., animal that understanding of the main character. gets food by capturing and eating other animals scav•en•ger (scav> @n j@r) n., animal that gets food by eating the dead bodies of other animals Meet the Author Cherylene Lee (b. 1954) grew up in Los Angeles, California, and appeared in television shows, movies, and stage plays when she was a child. In college, she studied paleontology—fossils and prehistoric life—and geology—Earth’s structure. Today she writes stories, poems, and plays. She is best known for her plays, including one set at the La Brea Tar Pits called Mixed Messages.

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 141 10/29/14 3:51 PM Apply the Model BEFORE READING DURING READING AFTER READING

and the Pits

A Short Story by Cherylene Lee

I lost 1968, when I was fifteen, the pit opened its secret to me. I breathed, ate, slept, dreamed about the La Brea Tar Pits. I spent myself there summer days working the archaeological dig, and in dreams saw the 1 and found bones glistening, the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae looped like a woman’s pearls hanging on an invisible cord. I something welcomed those dreams. I wanted to know where the next skeleton was, identify it, record its position, discover whether it was whole or else. not. I wanted to know where to dig in the coarse, black, gooey sand. I lost myself there and found something else. My mother thought something was wrong with me. Was it good

ob•sessed (@b sest>) adj., for a teenager to be fascinated by death? Especially animal death in preoccupied the Pleistocene?2 Was it normal to be so obsessed by a sticky brown hole in the ground in the center of Los Angeles? I don’t know if it DURING READING was normal or not, but it seemed perfectly logical to me. After all, Analyze Literature I grew up in Hollywood, a place where dreams and nightmares can Point of View Is the narrator often take the same shape. What else would a child actor do? part of the action? What else can you tell about the narrator “Thank you very much, dear. We’ll be letting you know.” so far? 1. the broken pelvises, the skulls, the vertebrae. Bones from the hip, head, and spine (backbone) 2. Pleistocene. Geologic epoch that spans 10,000 to 1.6 million years ago

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 142 10/29/14 3:51 PM I knew what that meant. It meant I would never hear from them again. I didn’t get the job. I heard that phrase a lot that year. I walked out of the plush office, leaving behind the casting director, producer, director, writer, and whoever else came to listen to my reading for a semiregular role on a family sitcom. The carpet made no sound when I opened and shut the door. I passed the other girls waiting in the reception room, each poring over her script. The mothers were waiting in a separate room, chattering about their daughters’ latest commercials, interviews, callbacks, jobs. It sounded like every Oriental3 kid in Hollywood was working except me. My mother used to have a lot to say in those waiting rooms. Ever since I was three, when I started at the Meglin Kiddie Dance Studio, I was dubbed “The Chinese Shirley Temple”—always the one to be dub (d3b) v., give a nickname picked at auditions and interviews, always the one to get the speaking lines, always called “the one-shot kid,” because I could do my scenes in one take—even tight close-ups.4 My mother would only talk about me behind my back because she didn’t want me to A Short Story by Cherylene Lee hear her brag, but I knew that she was proud. In a way I was proud too, though I never dared admit it. I didn’t want to be called a showoff. But I didn’t exactly know what I did to be proud of either. I only knew that at fifteen I was now being passed over at all these interviews when before I would be chosen. My mother looked at my face hopefully when I came into the room. I gave her a quick shake of the head. She looked bewildered.5 I felt bad for my mother then. How could I explain it to her? I didn’t understand it myself. We left, saying polite good-byes to all the other mothers. We didn’t say anything until the studio parking lot, where we had to search for our old blue Chevy among rows and rows of parked cars baking in the Hollywood heat. “How did it go? Did you read clearly? Did you tell them you’re available?” “I don’t think they care if I’m available or not, Ma.” “Didn’t you read well? Did you remember to look up so they could see your eyes? Did they ask you if you could play the piano? Did you tell them you could learn?” The barrage of questions stopped when we finally spotted our bar•rage (b@ r5zh>) n., outpouring of many things at once 3. Oriental. Old term for Asian 4. tight close-ups. Film shots in which a performer’s face fills the camera lens 5. bewildered. Puzzled

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 143 10/29/14 3:51 PM car. I didn’t answer her. My mother asked about the piano because I lost out in an audition once to a Chinese girl who already knew how to play. My mother took off the towel that shielded the steering wheel from the heat. “You’re getting to be such a big girl,” she said, starting the car in neutral. “But don’t worry, there’s always next time. You have what it takes. That’s special.” She put the car into forward and To me we drove through a parking lot that had an endless number of identical cars all facing the same direction. We drove back home in the applause silence. sometimes In the La Brea Tar Pits many of the excavated bones belong to juvenile6 mammals. Thousands of years ago thirsty young animals sounded like in the area were drawn to watering holes, not knowing they were static, traps. Those inviting pools had false bottoms made of sticky tar, which immobilized its victims and preserved their bones when they sometimes died. Innocence trapped by ignorance. The tar pits record that well. like I suppose a lot of my getting into show business in the first place distant was a matter of luck—being in the right place at the right time. My sister, seven years older than me, was a member of the Meglin waves. Kiddie Dance Studio long before I started lessons. Once during the annual recital held at the Shrine Auditorium, she was spotted by a Hollywood agent who handled only Oriental performers. The agent sent my sister out for a role in the CBS Playhouse 90 television show The Family Nobody Wanted. The producer said she was too tall for DURING READING the part. But true to my mother’s training of always having a positive Use Reading Skills reply, my sister said to the producer, “But I have a younger sister…” Analyze Cause and which started my show-biz career at the tender age of three. Effect What launched the My sister and I were lucky. We enjoyed singing and dancing, narrator’s Hollywood career? we were natural hams, and our parents never discouraged us. In fact they were our biggest fans. My mother chauffeured us to all our dance lessons, lessons we begged to take. She drove us to interviews, took us to studios, went on location with us, drilled us on our lines, made sure we kept up our schoolwork and didn’t sass back the tutors hired by studios to teach us for three hours a day. She never complained about being a stage mother. She said that we made her proud. My father must have felt pride too, because he paid for a choreographer to put together our sister act: “The World Famous

6. juvenile. Young

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 144 10/29/14 3:51 PM Lee Sisters,” fifteen minutes of song and dance, real vaudeville7 stuff. We joked about that a lot, “Yeah, the Lee Sisters—Ug-Lee and Home-Lee,” but we definitely had a good time. So did our parents. Our father especially liked our getting booked into Las Vegas at the New Frontier Hotel on the Strip. He liked to gamble there, though he said the craps tables in that hotel were “cold,” not like the casinos in downtown Las Vegas, where all the “hot” action took place. In Las Vegas our sister act was part of a show called “Oriental Holiday.” The show was about a Hollywood producer going to the Far East, finding undiscovered talent, and bringing it back to the U.S. We did two shows a night in the main showroom, one at eight and one at twelve, and on weekends a third show at two in the

morning. It ran the entire summer, often to standing-room-only Cherylene Lee (left) and her sister audiences—a thousand people a show. performing on television in 1959. Our sister act worked because of the age and height difference. My sister then was fourteen and nearly five foot two; I was seven and very small for my age—people thought we were cute. We had song- and-dance routines to old tunes like “Ma, He’s Making Eyes at Me,” “Together,” and “I’m Following You,” and my father hired a writer to adapt the lyrics to “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” which came out “We Enjoy Being Chinese.” We also told corny jokes, but the Las Vegas audience seemed to enjoy it. Here we were, two kids, staying up late and jumping around, and getting paid besides. To me the applause sometimes sounded like static, sometimes like distant waves. It always amazed me when people applauded. The owner of the hotel liked us so much, he invited us back to perform in shows for three summers in a row. That was before I grew too tall and the sister act didn’t seem so cute anymore. Many of the skeletons in the tar pits are found incomplete— particularly the skeletons of the young, which have only soft cartilage connecting the bones. In life the soft tissue allows for growth, but in death it dissolves quickly. Thus the skeletons of young animals are more apt to be scattered, especially the vertebrae protecting the spinal cord. In the tar pits, the central DURING READING ends of many vertebrae are found unconnected to any skeleton. Make Connections Such bone fragments are shaped like valentines, disks that are What does the tone of this slightly lobed—heart-shaped shields that have lost their connection writing remind you of? Explain. to what they were meant to protect.

7. vaudeville. Theatrical variety show

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 145 10/29/14 3:51 PM I never felt my mother pushed me to do something I didn’t want to do. But I always knew if something I did pleased her. She was generous with her praise, and I was sensitive when she withheld it. I didn’t like to disappoint her. I took to performing easily, and since I had started out so young, making movies or doing shows didn’t feel like anything special. It was part of my childhood—like going to the dentist one morning or going to school the next. I didn’t wonder if I wanted a particular role or wanted to be in a show or how I would feel if I didn’t get in. Until I was fifteen, it never occurred to me that one day I wouldn’t get parts or that I might not “have what it takes.” When I was younger, I got a lot of roles because I was so small for my age. When I was nine years old, I could pass for five or six. I was really short. I was always teased about it when I was in elementary school, but I didn’t mind because my height got me movie jobs. I could read and memorize lines that actual five-year- olds couldn’t. My mother told people she made me sleep in a drawer so I wouldn’t grow any bigger. But when I turned fifteen, it was as if my body, which hadn’t grown for so many years, suddenly made up for lost time. I grew five inches in seven months. My mother was amazed. Even I couldn’t get used to it. I kept knocking into things, my clothes didn’t fit right, I felt awkward and clumsy when I moved. Dumb things that I had gotten away with, like paying children’s prices at the movies instead of junior admission, I couldn’t do anymore. I wasn’t a shrimp or a small fry any longer. I was suddenly normal. Before that summer my mother had always claimed she wanted me to be normal. She didn’t want me to become spoiled by the attention I received when I was working at the studios. I still had chores to do at home, went to public school when I wasn’t working, was punished severely when I behaved badly. She didn’t want me to feel I was different just because I was in the movies. When I was eight, I was interviewed by a reporter who wanted to know if I thought I had a big head. “Sure,” I said. “No you don’t,” my mother interrupted, which was really unusual, because she generally never said anything. She wanted me to speak for myself. I didn’t understand the question. My sister had always made fun of my head. She said my body was too tiny for the weight—I looked

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0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 146 10/29/14 3:51 PM like a walking Tootsie Pop. I thought the reporter was making the DURING READING same observation. Make Connections What feeling do you think the “She better not get that way,” my mother said fiercely. “She’s not author wants to convey by this any different from anyone else. She’s just lucky and small for her comparison to a Tootsie Pop? age.” The reporter turned to my mother, “Some parents push their children to act. The kids feel like they’re used.” “I don’t do that—I’m not that way,” my mother told the reporter. But when she was sitting silently in all those waiting rooms while I was being turned down for one job after another, I could almost DURING READING feel her wanting to shout, “Use her. Use her. What is wrong with Make Connections Why might most parents have her? Doesn’t she have it anymore?” I didn’t know what I had had mixed feelings about whether that I didn’t seem to have anymore. My mother had told the reporter a child should be “normal”? that I was like everyone else. But when my life was like everyone else’s, why was she disappointed? The churning action of the La Brea Tar Pits makes interpreting the record of past events extremely difficult. The usual order of deposition8—the oldest on the bottom, the youngest on the top— loses all meaning when some of the oldest fossils can be brought to the surface by the movement of natural gas. One must look for an undisturbed spot, a place untouched by the action of underground springs or natural gas or human interference. Complete skeletons become important, because they indicate areas of least disturbance. But such spots of calm are rare. Whole blocks of the tar pit can become displaced,9 making false sequences of the past, skewing the interpretation for what is the true order of nature. DURING READING That year before my sixteenth birthday, my mother seemed to spend a lot of time looking through my old scrapbooks, staring at all the Use Reading Skills Analyze Cause and eight-by-ten glossies of the shows that I had done. In the summer we Effect Why does the narrator’s visited with my grandmother often, since I wasn’t working and had mother spend so much time reviewing the past? lots of free time. I would go out to the garden to read or sunbathe, but I could hear my mother and grandmother talking. “She was so cute back then. She worked with Gene Kelly when she was five years old. She was so smart for her age. I don’t know what’s wrong with her.” “She’s fifteen.”

8. order of deposition. Sequence in which layers of sediment are left behind when water flows over an area and then recedes 9. Whole blocks of the tar pit can become displaced. Tar is warm enough to flow very slowly, and whole sections can move from one place to another.

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 147

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 147 10/29/14 3:51 PM “She’s too young to be an ingénue10 and too old to be cute. The studios forget so quickly. By the time she’s old enough to play an ingénue, they won’t remember her.” “Does she have to work in the movies? Hand me the scissors.” My grandmother was making false eyelashes using the hair from her hairbrush. When she was young she had incredible hair. I saw an old photograph of her when it flowed beyond her waist like a cascading black waterfall. At seventy, her hair was still black as night, which made her few strands of silver look like SCIENCE CONNECTION shooting stars. But her hair had thinned greatly with age. It sometimes fell out in Geologic Time Evidence in rocks indicates that Earth clumps. She wore it is more than four billion brushed back in a bun with years old. Scientists use big a hairpiece for added categories to measure this fullness. My grandmother much time. The largest had always been proud of category of geologic time is her hair, but once she the era. We are in the Cenozoic Era, which began sixty-five million started making false years ago, after dinosaurs became extinct. An era is divided into eyelashes from it, she periods, and periods are split into epochs. We live in the Quaternary Period, which started less than two million years ago. The La Brea Tar wasn’t proud of the way it Pits formed during the last part of the Pleistocene Epoch of the looked anymore. She said Quaternary Period, approximately forty-thousand years ago. In terms of she was proud of it now geologic time, would you say this is recently, or very long ago? because it made her useful. It was painstaking work—tying knots into strands of hair, then tying them together to form feathery little crescents. Her glamorous false eyelashes were much sought after. Theatrical makeup artists waited months for her work. But my grandmother said what she liked was that she was doing something, making a contribution, and besides it didn’t cost her anything. No overhead. “Till I go bald,” she often joked. She tried to teach me her art that summer, but for some reason strands of my hair wouldn’t stay tied in knots. “Too springy,” my grandmother said. “Your hair is still too young.” And because I was frustrated then, frustrated with everything about my life, she added, “You have to wait until your hair falls out, like mine. Something to look forward to, eh?” She had laughed and patted my hand.

10. ingénue. Inexperienced young woman

148 UNIT 2 FICTION

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 148 10/29/14 3:51 PM My mother was going on and on about my lack of work, what might be wrong, that something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. I heard my grandmother reply, but I didn’t catch it all: “Movies are just make-believe, not real life. Like what I make with my hair that falls out—false. False eyelashes. Not meant to last.” The remains in the La Brea Tar Pits are mostly of carnivorous animals. Very few herbivores are found—the ratio is five to one, a perversion of the natural food chain.11 The ratio is easy to explain. Thousands of years ago a thirsty animal sought a drink from the pools of water only to find itself trapped by the bottom, gooey with pred•a•tor (pred> @ t@r) subterranean oil. A shriek of agony from the trapped victim drew n., animal that gets food by flesh-eating predators, which were then trapped themselves by the capturing and eating other animals very same ooze which provided the bait. The cycle repeated itself countless times. The number of victims grew, lured by the image of

easy food, the deception of an easy kill. The animals piled on top scav•en•ger (scav> @n j@r) of one another. For over ten thousand years the promise of the n., animal that gets food by eating the dead bodies of other place drew animals of all sorts, mostly predators and animals 12 scavengers—dire wolves, panthers, coyotes, vultures—all DURING READING hungry for their chance. Most were sucked down against their will Use Reading Skills in those watering holes destined to be called the La Brea Tar Pits Analyze Cause and in a place to be named the City of Angels, home of Hollywood Effect Why are there so many predator and scavenger remains movie stars. in the tar pits? I spent a lot of time by myself that summer, wondering what it was that I didn’t have anymore. Could I get it back? How could I if I didn’t know what it was? That’s when I discovered the La Brea Tar Pits. Hidden behind the County Art Museum on trendy Wilshire Boulevard, I found a job that didn’t require me to be small or cute for my age. I didn’t have to audition. No one said, “Thank you very much, we’ll call you.” Or if they did, they meant it. I volunteered my time one afternoon, and my fascination stuck—like tar on the bones of a saber-toothed tiger. My mother didn’t understand what had changed me. I didn’t understand it myself. But I liked going to the La Brea Tar Pits. It meant I could get really messy and I was doing it with a purpose. I didn’t feel awkward there. I could wear old stained pants. I could wear T-shirts with holes in them. I could wear disgustingly filthy sneakers and it was all perfectly justified. It wasn’t a costume for a

11. perversion of the natural food chain. Plant-eaters (herbivores) usually greatly outnumber meat- eaters (carnivores); a perversion reverses this relationship. 12. dire wolves. Members of an extinct species of California wolf (Canis dirus)

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 149

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 149 10/29/14 3:51 PM role in a film or a part in a TV sitcom. My mother didn’t mind my dressing like that when she knew I was off to the pits. That was okay so long as I didn’t track tar back into the house. I started going to the pits every day, and my mother wondered why. She couldn’t believe I would rather be groveling in tar than going on auditions or interviews. While my mother wasn’t proud of the La Brea Tar Pits (she didn’t know or care what a fossil was), she didn’t discourage me either. She drove me there, the same way she used to drive me to the studios. “Wouldn’t you rather be doing a show in Las Vegas than scrambling around in a pit?” she asked. “I’m not in a show in Las Vegas, Ma. The Lee Sisters are retired.” My older sister had married and was starting a family of her own. “But if you could choose between…” DURING READING “There isn’t a choice.” Use Reading Strategies “You really like this tar-pit stuff, or are you just waiting until you Make Inferences How has the narrator’s relationship with can get real work in the movies?” her mother changed by this I didn’t answer. point in the plot? My mother sighed. “You could do it if you wanted, if you really wanted. You still have what it takes.” I didn’t know about that. But then, I couldn’t explain what drew me to the tar pits either. Maybe it was the bones, finding out what they were, which animal they belonged to, imagining how they got there, how they fell into the trap. I wondered about that a lot.

150 UNIT 2 FICTION

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 150 10/29/14 3:51 PM At the La Brea Tar Pits, everything dug out of the pit is saved— including the sticky sand that covered the bones through the ages. Each bucket of sand is washed, sieved, and examined for pollen grains, insect remains, any evidence of past life. Even the grain size is recorded—the percentage of silt to sand to gravel that reveals the history of deposition, erosion, and disturbance. No single fossil, no one observation, is significant enough to tell the entire story. All the evidence must be weighed before a semblance of truth emerges. The tar pits had its lessons. I was learning I had to work slowly, become observant, to concentrate. I learned about time in a way that I would never experience—not in hours, days, and months, but in thousands and thousands of years. I imagined what the past must have been like, envisioned Los Angeles as a sweeping basin, perhaps slightly colder and more humid, a time before people and studios arrived. The tar pits recorded a warming trend; the kinds of animals found there reflected the changing climate. The ones unadapted disappeared. No trace of their kind was found in the area. The ones adapted to warmer weather left a record of bones in the pit. Amid that collection of ancient skeletons, surrounded by evidence of death, I was finding a secret preserved over thousands and DURING READING thousands of years. There was something cruel about natural Use Reading Skills 13 Analyze Cause and selection and the survival of the fittest. Even those successful Effect Why does the narrator individuals that “had what it took” for adaptation still wound up in prefer the tar pits to a career the pits. in show business? I never found out if I had what it took, not the way my mother meant. But I did adapt to the truth: I wasn’t a Chinese Shirley DURING READING Temple any longer, cute and short for my age. I had grown up. Use Reading Skills D Analyze Cause and Maybe not on a Hollywood movie set, but in the La Brea Tar Pits. Effect How have the La Brea Tar Pits helped the narrator 13. natural selection. Process in which individuals and groups best adjusted to the environment survive gain perspective on her life?

and reproduce W At one point, the narrator says, “I didn’t know what I had had that I didn’t irrors seem to have anymore.” Do you ever feel like you’ve changed, but people W indows close to you don’t seem to notice? Why might this be a common feeling?

HOLLYWOOD AND THE PITS 151

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 151 10/29/14 3:51 PM & Apply the Model BEFORE READING DURING READING AFTER READING

Find Meaning Make Judgments 1. (a) How did the narrator’s experiences at 3. (a) What inspired the narrator to volunteer at auditions change? (b) How well does the the La Brea Tar Pits? (b) How did volunteering narrator understand why her experiences are there change her outlook on life? different? 4. (a) What kinds of animals were drawn to the 2. How does the narrator’s mother act toward tar pits? (b) How might they resemble people? the narrator? 5. Which part of her life do you think the narrator has enjoyed the most? Why?

Analyze Literature First-Person Third-Person Point of View Summarize how Cherylene Lee’s Narrator Narrator (The use of both first-person and third-person points (Hollywood) Pits) of view affects the mood and plot of “Hollywood How this Presents Presents and the Pits.” Make a graphic organizer like this influences an internal an external one so you can record your key impressions. the plot conflict conflict How this influences the mood

Extend Understanding Collaborative Learning Writing Options Infer the Author’s Purpose In a small group, discuss why the story includes the scientific Creative Writing Imagine that you are information on the tar pits. What might the tar creatingExtend a Understandingtime capsule in your backyard. What pits represent? Take notes on your discussion, objects would you include? Write a journal Writing Options and then summarize the group’s thoughts in one entry in which you describe these things and Creative Writing or two paragraphs. your reasons for including them. When you are Criticalfinished, shareWriting your entry with the class. Media Literacy Informative Writing How would you describe Dig for Details Use the Internet to find this story to a friend? Write a three-paragraph information on an archaeological site in or near literary response that describes the conflicts your state. Then write a letter to the site director the narrator and her mother experience. Identify with two or three questions about the site. For each conflict as internal or external and use example, ask about the fossils scientists have

examples from the story. In your final sentences, discovered there. tell how the plot resolves each of the conflicts. W Go to www.mirrorsandwindows.com for more. Make certain you summarize the story in a way W that maintains logical order.

152 UNIT 2 FICTION

0138-0162_Lit3eG07_U02.indd 152 10/29/14 3:51 PM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Build Vocabulary

Replace the underlined word or words with the correct vocabulary word in the box. Rewrite the sentences on a separate piece of paper.

barrage bewildered dubbed ingénue juvenile obsessed predator

1. The tiny mouse nibbled on a crumb while the whiskered attacker watched intently, ready to pounce.

2. The outpouring of e-mails from fans surprised the young actress.

3. The journalist interviewed the 16-year-old girl who would star as the inexperienced young woman in the newest Broadway musical.

4. A confused expression crossed my mother’s face as she searched for her car in the crowded parking lot.

5. My little sister was absolutely preoccupied with the youngest brother in the popular rock band.

6. Following their elders, the young animals in the area approached the watering hole.

7. I nicknamed my sister “Biza” because it was easier to say than Elizabeth. BEFORE READING

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 19 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Journal Response

Choose one of the following topics to write about on the lines below or in your journal.

1. Think about a time when you realized or were told that you were too old to do something. Write about the experience and about how it made you feel.

2. If you could achieve immediate fame in the entertainment industry, for what would you want to be famous? Describe your imaginary career.

3. What celebrity your age do you most admire? Explain who it is and why you admire him or her.

4. Have you visited an archaeological site? Describe what you saw and if you enjoyed the visit or not. If you could visit any archaeological site in the world, where would you visit? Explain the site and what interesting things you might see there. READING BEFORE

U2-20 LEVEL II, UNIT 2 Meeting the Standards © EMC Publishing, LLC

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 20 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Analyze Literature: Character

The narrator of “Hollywood and the Pits” draws comparisons between her experience as a child actress and the La Brea tar pits. Analyze each theme on the chart and explain in the appropriate column how the theme relates to the narrator’s acting career and the La Brea tar pits.

Theme The Narrator’s Acting Career The La Brea Tar Pits quenching desires

youth

vulnerability

being trapped

the passage of time DURING READING

studying the past

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 21 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date:______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Guided Reading Questions

As you read the selection, stop at the end of each page and write the answers to the questions below. Page 143 1. Which office is the narrator leaving? Why?

Page 144 2. Why had the animals gone to the tar pits? What happened when they got there?

Page 145 3. Why are the skeletons of young animals more scattered in the pits than are those of older animals?

Page 146 4. Why did the narrator get so many roles when she was younger?

5. How did the narrator change when she turned fifteen?

Page 147 6. Why is it difficult to interpret past events in the tar pits?

Page 149 7. What does the narrator’s grandmother say that the movies have in common with false eyelashes?

8. What draws the narrator to the tar pits at first?

Page 151 9. What does the narrator learn from the pits?

10. What does the narrator conclude about those animals that “had what it took” and were well adapted?

G07_DI.indb 13 2/25/15 11:46 AM Name: ______Date:______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Reading Strategies and Skills Practice: Take Notes Before Reading: Practice Note-Taking You can gain greater understanding of a story if you take notes as you read. When you take notes, you might do one or more the following: • record details or statements that you think might have importance • record details that describe a character or the setting • note important events in the plot, such as those that change a character’s attitude toward the central conflict or toward another character. These notes are especially useful if you also write down your responses to the details. You can use those responses later when you reflect on the story.

To practice taking notes, read this brief passage: It was a perfectly normal day—another day the same as the day before and the day before that and the day before that. The sun shone, the sky was clear blue, and a pleasant breeze meant that Darlene was not too warm in the sun. Darlene yawned and scowled. She was tired of everything being the same. She wished that something interesting would happen.

Use the Practice Response Chart to fill in your response to the key detail noted.

Practice Response Chart

Detail Response

Darlene yawned and scowled.

During Reading: Take Notes Copy the Response Chart on the next page onto another piece of paper to take notes on the selection “Hollywood and the Pits.” In this selection, the narrator describes her own experiences but also includes passages about the La Brea Tar Pits. Use your notes to help you see the connections between these two sets of information. Note that some pages do not have any information about the tar pits. You can still take notes about the narrator’s experiences. In the second column, you will write down one or two key comments or details from the narrator’s own story. In the third, write down key information about the

DR-14 LEVEL II, UNIT 2 Differentiated Instruction for Developing Readers © EMC Publishing, LLC

G07_DI.indb 14 2/25/15 11:46 AM tar pits from that page. In the right column, write your response to each note. The chart shows an example.

Response Chart

Page Narrator’s Life Tar Pits Response

142 “I lost myself there and found Full of bones The tar pits were important to the something else.” narrator.

As you read the story, continue taking notes. Try to include at least two items from each page. After Reading: Reflect on Your Notes

Review the notes you took. Based on those notes, and your responses, what do you think the narrator learned about herself from the tar pits?

Discuss your ideas with the rest of the class. Talk about how the strategy of taking notes and recording your responses helped in understanding the selection. Fix-Up Strategy: Reread

Monitor your reading progress. If you are having trouble taking notes, try rereading. The story is divided into several episodes, some of which are separated from one another by text about the tar pits. Read each episode through one time to get a sense of what happens. Then, go back and reread the episode again. As you reread, use these questions to guide your note-taking:

• What new details about the narrator’s life does the episode reveal? • What does each detail tell me about the narrator’s thoughts and feelings at the time? • What seems to be the narrator’s attitude toward each detail now?

With these questions in mind, read the story again, taking notes as you go.

G07_DI.indb 15 2/25/15 11:46 AM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Use Reading Skills: Cause and Effect

Write either the cause or the effect to complete each cause-and-effect relationship. One example is provided.

Cause Effect The narrator grows tall and matures. The sister act does not get invited to perform anywhere anymore.

Fossils are formed.

Animals shriek when they realize they are trapped in the tar pits.

The narrator receives many acting roles.

Filled with fascination, the narrator spends a lot of time at the tar pits.

The narrator is unable to emulate the knots that her grandmother makes with her hair. AFTER READING

U2-22 LEVEL II, UNIT 2 Meeting the Standards © EMC Publishing, LLC

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 22 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Extend Understanding: Creative Writing

The narrator’s mother asks her, “You really like this tar-pit stuff, or are you just waiting until you can get real work in the movies?” Imagine that you are the narrator as you respond to the preceding question. Be sure to include examples from the story to support your ideas. READING AFTER

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 23 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date:______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141

MEDIA LITERACY Dig for Details

This lesson supports the assignment Media Literacy on page 152 of your textbook.

Get Started

For this assignment, you will use the Internet to research an Caution archaeological site in or near your state. Then you will use what Choose sites that are reliable. you learned to generate questions about archaeological digs or The domain name .com about the site. Finally, you will write a letter to the site director indicates a commercial site, asking your questions. which may be simply trying to sell you something. Official sites Find an Appropriate Archaeological Site for archaeological digs most likely will contain the domain You may need a combination of key phrases including words such name .org (for organization), as archaeological digs and the name of your state or region. Look .gov (for government), or .edu through the list of websites your search engine returns. Remember, (for education). you are looking for a website about a place where archaeologists Look for the author of a find fossilized bones and artifacts that tell about the distant past. site. A site developed by an Keep a record of the key phrases you use and the names of eighth grader has information websites you visit. Also include the linked websites you explore. that is less reliable than one This information will be helpful when you revisit a website to developed by an archaeologist check information. Use a chart like the following for your records: with experience in the field.

Internet Resources Chart

Key Words/Phrases Names/Addresses of Search Engine Used Description of Sites Used to Search Websites Explored

Research and Brainstorm Questions

Explore a website about the archaeological dig you choose to research. As you read, make a list of questions for which you want answers, leaving space between questions for answers. Then you can make notes as you find answers. The website will answer some

00_G07_EtS.indb 5 2/26/15 2:03 PM of your questions. Choose at least three of the questions that have Tips for Site Visits not been answered by your research. For example, questions might Locate the home page for ask how fossils are removed from the site without destroying them the organization. Many sites or how archaeologists are able to determine the age of a fossil. will list headings such as Notice and write or print out the name of the director of the Programs, Calendar of Events, archaeological site and the mailing address of the archaeological About Us, Site Map, What’s organization or the e-mail address, if your teacher has given you New, and Frequently Asked a choice between writing a letter or sending an e-mail. Questions (FAQs). Explore the FAQs for information most often Write Your Letter or E-mail requested by visitors to the Compose your letter or e-mail to the director of the site, using the site. This may help you limit your list of questions or think of appropriate format. better questions.

LETTER E-MAIL

Your Name @ A Your Address Send Attach Address Fonts Save As Draft Date From: (your e-mail address) Name of Site Director To: (e-mail address of site director) Name of Site Subject: Address Greeting: Greeting: Body (in paragraphs) Body (in paragraphs)

Closing, Signature (your name) Closing, Signature (your name)

Organizing the Body of Your Letter or E-mail The body of your letter or e-mail should contain several paragraphs. Begin by introducing yourself and your interest in the site or organization. Then ask your questions, adding any explanations you feel are needed. Finally, conclude your letter or e-mail by acknowledging the director’s efforts to answer your questions. Revise and edit your letter or e-mail to correct any errors in the EVALUATE YOUR WORK use of language, grammar, spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. Media Literacy: Dig for Details For tips on revising and editing Evaluate your letter or e-mail according to these elements: your paper, see the Revise section Letter (or e-mail) is correctly formatted according to of The Writing Process, 4.1, in your conventions. textbook’s Language Arts Handbook. Addresses are correct in form and content. Hand in your letter or e-mail and Body shows familiarity with site and its purpose. record of Internet sites visited for Body is well organized and politely worded. your teacher’s approval before Questions are thoughtful and clear. sending the correspondence.

00_G07_EtS.indb 6 2/26/15 2:03 PM Name: ______Date: ______

LESSON 12

Subject and Object Pronouns

Personal pronouns are sometimes used as the subjects of sentences. Personal pronouns are also used as the objects of verbs or prepositions. A subject pronoun is used as the subject of a sentence. An object pronoun is used as the object of a verb or a preposition.

examples subject pronoun Betty likes to read. She often shops at the bookstore. (subject of sentence) object pronoun Suspense novels sometimes scare her. (direct object of the verb scare) object pronoun Betty’s friend sent her a suspense novel. (indirect object of the verb sent) object pronoun Betty might offer the book to you. (object of the preposition to)

Singular Plural

used as subjects I we you you he, she, it they

used as objects me us you you him, her, it them

E X E R C I S E 1 Identifying Subject and Object Pronouns in Literature

Identify each of the underlined words as either a subject pronoun or an object pronoun. Write your answers on the corresponding lines below.

My mother looked at my face hopefully when 1I came into the room. 2I gave 3her a quick shake of the head. 4She looked bewildered. 5I felt bad for my mother then. How could 6I explain 7it to 8her? 9I didn’t understand 10it myself. 11We left, saying polite good-byes to all the other mothers. from “Hollywood and the Pits,” page 141 Cherylene Lee

00_G07_EtS.indb 40 2/26/15 2:17 PM 1. 7.

2. 8.

3. 9.

4. 10.

5. 11.

Subject and object pronouns are also used in compound subjects and compound objects.

examples Mark and Claire walked quickly down the road. He and she walked quickly down the road. (He and she form the compound subject.)

Several flowers along the road looked pretty to Mark and Claire. Several flowers along the road looked pretty to him and her. (Him and her form the compound object.)

Use the subject pronoun I and the object pronoun me last when they are part of the compound subject or object.

examples compound subject incorrect I and Fred decided to climb the mountain. correct Fred and I decided to climb the mountain.

compound object incorrect Shelly wanted me and Sidney to finish the brief today. correct Shelly wanted Sidney and me to finish the brief today.

E X E R C I S E 2 Understanding Subject and Object Pronouns

Choose the correct subject or object pronoun(s) in parentheses to complete each sentence. Then identify each pronoun as either a subject pronoun or an object pronoun.

1. Fred sent (we, us) to the store to buy milk.

2. Julie and (I, me) finished addressing the invitations.

00_G07_EtS.indb 41 2/26/15 2:17 PM 3. Because of Kenneth’s incompetence, the boss gave (he, him) a pink slip.

4. Dorian discovered the gold coins and stuffed (they, them) into his bag.

5. Candace, needing a ride, got in the car with (she, her).

6. It is so exciting that they selected (I, me) to be on the game show.

7. How many times have (they, them) tried to rob that bank?

8. (She, her) and (he, him) will be getting married today.

9. (He, him) helped (we, us) hide the evidence before the police arrived.

10. Will you allow (I, me) the honor of introducing you?

E X E R C I S E 3 Using Subject and Object Pronouns in Your Writing

Write a paragraph recommending to a classmate a story or book that you have recently read. Provide details about the story or book, and correctly use subject and object pronouns in the paragraph.

00_G07_EtS.indb 42 2/26/15 2:17 PM Name: ______Date: ______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141 Selection Quiz

Fill in the Blank Fill in the blank with the word from the box that best completes each sentence. predator barrage ingénue bewildered obsessed juvenile dubbed

1. Even though we risked getting in trouble by our teacher, her ______behavior in class made us all laugh.

2. The ______of sympathy helped her accept the death of her grandmother.

3. The actor’s fans were ______with the details of his personal life.

4. ______by the announcement, the crowd did not how to react.

5. Without making a sound, the ______approached its victim.

6. The clever ______stole the show with her portrayal of Nancy Drew.

Short Answer Write your answer to each of the following questions in the space provided.

7. Where does the story takes place? ______

8. When the narrator was a young performer, what was she dubbed as? ______

9. What did the scientists discover in the La Brea tar pits? ______

10. What attributes and talents led the narrator to become a child star? ______

11. What caused the narrator’s popularity as a performer to decline?

AFTER READING ______

12. How did the La Brea tar pits help the narrator gain perspective on her life?

______

G07_MtS_1-2.indb 24 2/26/15 9:44 AM Name: ______Date:______

Hollywood and the Pits, page 141

Lesson Test

Multiple Choice

Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.

for Hollywood and the Pits

�� 1. What makes interpreting the record of past events from the study of the La Brea Tar Pits extremely difficult? A. the time period B. the churning action C. the changing climate D. the fossils themselves E. the narrator’s inexperience

�� 2. Why did the narrator get a lot of roles when she was younger? A. She was pretty. B. She had a successful sister. C. She was very small for her age. D. She was able to cry on command. E. She had much more talent than other children.

�� 3. The skeletons in the tar pits that are particularly likely to be incomplete are those of A. the young. B. the old and sick. C. herbivores. D. carnivores. E. animals that died first.

�� 4. Given its use in the following sentence, what does the word choreographer mean? “My father must have felt pride too, because he paid for a choreographer to put together our sister act: ‘The World Famous Lee Sisters,’ fifteen minutes of song and dance, real vaudeville stuff.” A. a show business arrangement or contract B. a person who plans the movements in a dance C. a set of detailed directions that tell how to act D. a lawyer who specializes in entertainment law E. a performance that includes both singing and dancing

Assessment Guides.indb 54 2/9/15 10:02 AM �� 5. The narrator says, “I breathed, ate, slept, dreamed about the La Brea Tar Pits.” What does this statement reveal about her? A. She was obsessed by the tar pits. B. She was a very imaginative teenager. C. She wanted to become an archaeologist. D. She spent all her time at the La Brea Tar Pits. E. She had to work extremely hard at the archaeological dig.

�� 6. Why does the following sentence contain so many details about the location? “Most were sucked down against their will in those watering holes destined to be called the La Brea Tar Pits in a place to be named the City of Angels, home of Hollywood movie stars.” A. to sound more literary B. to emphasize the passage of time C. to provide a sense of suspense and mystery D. to directly link the La Brea Tar Pits with Hollywood E. to tell the reader the exact location of the La Brea Tar Pits

�� 7. Which description best describes the narrator’s mother? A. a parent who is more concerned with money than happiness B. a pushy stage mom who forced her children into show business C. a highly critical parent who is disappointed with her children D. a supportive mother who doesn’t understand her daughter E. a highly protective parent who doesn’t let her daughter do what she wants

�� 8. Which of the following is not an effect of the order of the story and the intermingling of the italicized sections about the pits with the main story? A. The reader has a sense of uncovering bits of information. B. The narrator’s life and historical facts are shown to be related. C. The link between Hollywood and the La Brea Tar Pits is stressed. D. The order creates a feeling of suspense and a desire to keep reading. E. The scientific facts provide needed relief from the emotions of the narrator.

�� 9. What do you think is the main reason the narrator liked working in the pits? A. She liked to dig. B. She could get dirty. C. She didn’t have to dress up or perform. D. She wasn’t doing what her mother wants. E. She was being useful and finding meaning.

�� 10. What is the most important lesson that the narrator learned from the tar pits? A. Hollywood is not real. B. Time is not important. C. You have to adapt to survive. D. It doesn’t matter how you look. E. She did not have “what it takes” to succeed.

Assessment Guides.indb 55 2/9/15 10:02 AM Matching

for Hollywood and the Pits

Choose the best definition or description of each of the following.

A. era �� 11. animal that eats dead bodies of other animals B. bewildered �� 12. plant eater C. vaudeville D. ingénue �� 13. puzzled E. dub �� 14. animal that hunts other animals F. herbivore G. scavenger �� 15. theatrical variety show H. predator �� 16. inexperienced young woman

�� 17. largest category of geologic time

�� 18. give a nickname

Essay

for Hollywood and the Pits

19. Describe one internal and one external conflict that the narrator of this story faces. How do these conflicts change as the story goes on? Use information from the selection to support your response.

Assessment Guides.indb 56 2/9/15 10:02 AM