Summer 2012 Reading Assignment for 8th Grade
Directions
Please write a response to the quotes from your required class novel. Use a
sentence starter and refer to the sample quote and response as a guide. Be
thoughtful and write neatly. Your response should be in complete sentences and
your own work.
MY RESPONSE SENTENCE STARTERS
This quote relates to a major event in the story because…
The setting…
The quote relates to the conflict between ___________ because...
The internal conflict...
The protagonist....
The antagonist...
This quote relates to the theme of social justice because...
This quote shows the importance of _________ in the story because...
This quote is an example of __________ because...
Summer 2012 Reading Assignment for 8th Grade
Name: _________________
Important Passages from Will Hobb’s
Crossing the Wire:
“It didn’t seem possible. ‘You’re leaving for
the other side?’
‘Yes, I’m leaving Mexico. I’m going to cross
the wire. Destination, the United State of
America” (Hobbs, 4).
“My father had traveled back and forth across
the wire many times, working in El Norte and
returning to the family for only a previous few
months every winter. Four years ago, he
returned home, in a coffin. Things were not
simple for my family, they were scary. Rico
knew I had to raise a crop of corn to sell every
year, but he didn’t know that the little money
my father had left behind was long gone, and
the price of corn kept falling like a crippled
bird. Rico didn’t know we were teetering on
the brink of disaster. And Rico didn’t know
what it felt like to be hungry, really hungry,
the way we had been this winter” (Hobbs 8).
Date: __________________
My Response:
This quote relates to a major event in the
story because the narrator Victor will
make the dangerous journey from Mexico
to the United States only after his friend
Rico decides to do so. Rico’s decision
influenced Victor to leave to look for work
to help his family. The expression ‘crossing
the wire’ is slang for the illegal crossing of
the border for undocumented workers and
refers to the barbed wire cattle fences that
are just one obstacle of many the boys will
face.
Summer 2012 Reading Assignment for 8th Grade
“Now that the time is so close, Mama, I am so
unsure. I have to go, but I don’t know where I
will find the strength, and the courage.”
She touched her heart. “In the part of you that
is always home, no matter where you are”
(Hobbs, 31).
“I was numb. I was ashamed. I had failed.
We were walked to one last gate, which was
padlocked. It was opened, and we field
through. I watched the gate close behind me,
heard the lock click shut. It was a strange
feeling, being locked inside your own
country” (Hobbs, 126).
I looked again and saw a creature out of my
dreams, out of my childhood in Chiapas: a
great spotted cat, silently and effortlessly
gliding in our direction. I blinked and the
jaguar was still there, big as life in the silvery
light. It saw me, or sensed I was there. Just
that fast, the jaguar turned around and
disappeared. I doubted the jaguar, but not the
message, whoever had sent it—maybe my
father? One of the jaguar’s powers, my father
once told me, was invisibility, the ability to
move unseen. Maybe Rico and I could cross
the peak unseen and escape before Jarra knew
we were gone” (Hobbs, 188).