Teaching Packet: English 300
Jordan Neal
English 300
Melissa Knous
April 30, 2012
1
Table of Contents
Poems
“A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes
Word Game Focusing Worksheet
Focusing Activity Rationale
“Birches” by Robert Frost
Twenty Questions First-Draft Reading Worksheet
First-Draft Reading Rationale
“Fire and Ice” by Robert Frost
Say/Mean Chart Second-Draft Reading Worksheet
Second-Draft Reading Rationale
“Chicago” by Carl Sandburg
Trouble Slips Collaborative Worksheet
Collaborative Rationale
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost
Pencil/Eraser Metaphor Worksheet
Metaphor Rationale
“Dreams” by Langston Hughes
Most Valuable Idea Reflection Worksheet
Reflection Rationale
Works Cited
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
Short Stories
“This Is What It Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” by Sherman Alexia
K-W-L Focusing Worksheet
Focusing Activity Rationale
“The Lady or the Tiger” by Frank Stockton
Turning Headings or Titles Into Questions Prior Reading Worksheet
First-Draft Reading Rationale
“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson
Positive/Negative Chart Worksheet
Second-Draft Reading Rationale
“A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner
Silent Exchange Collaborative Worksheet
Collaborative Rationale
“The Scarlet Ibis” by James Hurst
Word Prediction Worksheet
Focusing Rationale
Brake Pedal/Accelerator Pedal Metaphor Worksheet
2
20
32
33
34
38
39
40
47
48
49
56
57
58
63
64
65
Metaphor Rationale
Anchor Question Worksheet
Reflection Rationale
Works Cited
66
67
68
69
Current Events
“Gunman Kills 7 in Rampage at a Northern California University
Shift Chart First-Draft Reading Worksheet
First-Draft Reading Rationale
Anchor Question Reflection Worksheet
Reflection Rationale
“Some cases being compared to Trayvon Martin”
Theme Spotlight Focusing Worksheet
Focusing Rationale
Positive/Negative Chart Second-Draft Reading Worksheet
Second-Draft Reading Rationale
Trouble Slips Collaborative Worksheet
Collaborative Rationale
Square Peg/Round Hole Metaphor Worksheet
Metaphor Rationale
Works Cited
70
72
73
74
75
76
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
Romeo and Juliet Link
Anticipation Guide Focusing Worksheet
Focusing Rationale
Character Chart First-Draft Reading Worksheet
First-Draft Reading Guide Rationale
Literary Dominoes Second-Draft Reading Worksheet
Second-Draft Reading Rationale
Mystery Envelopes Collaborative Worksheet
Collaborative Rationale
Backdrop/Props Metaphor Worksheet
Metaphor Rationale
Casting Call Reflection Worksheet
Reflection Rationale
Works Cited
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
West Side Story Information
Word Scramble Prediction Focusing Worksheet
Focusing Rationale
101
102
103
Play
Film
3
Character Chart First-Draft Reading Worksheet
First-Draft Reading Guide Rationale
Responsibility Pie Chart Second-Draft Reading Worksheet
Second-Draft Reading Rationale
Save the Last Word for Me Collaborative Worksheet
Collaborative Rationale
Archery Target Metaphor Worksheet
Metaphor Rationale
Anchor Question Reflection Worksheet
Reflection Rationale
Works Cited
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
Journal Articles
“Comprehension instruction in content area classes”
Journal Summary
“Literacy and Language as Learning in Content-Area Classes:
A Departure From “Every Teacher a Teacher of Reading”
Journal Summary
“Walking the Walk”
Journal Summary
4
115
116
117
A Dream Deferred
by Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore-And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over-like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
1
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“A Dream Deferred” Word Game
Focusing on the word deferred in the title of the poem, explain what you think the word deferred
means and how it could relate to you. What happens when you defer something?
*I would put the word on the board and we would discuss the word rather than use paper to
complete this assignment.
2
“A Dream Deferred”
Rationale
The best focusing activity for “A Dream Deferred” is the word game.
The word that I would put on the board for the students is deferred. I would ask the students if
they what the word deferred means. I would allow them to guess. I am sure that at least one
student would know. If one does not, I would tell them what the word deferred means. This
would lead to a discussion about putting things off. We could talk about deferring homework
(procrastination), deferring cleaning their room, anything that they can think of. All of this
discussion would lead into reading of the poem. We would read the title and make predictions
about the meaning of the poem.
3
Birches
By Robert Frost
When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal
shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the
load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are
bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows-Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.
4
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“Birches” Twenty Questions
While reading the poem, “Birches”, jot down 20 questions that you have about the poem. If you
are referring to a specific line in the poem, write down the line number.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
5
“Birches”
Rationale
I chose the Twenty Questions strategy for the first-draft reading activity of the poem “Birches.”
The first time students read a poem, they usually have a hard time with the vocabulary or the
phrasing in the poem. Twenty Questions would allow the students the opportunity to ask
questions about vocabulary or phrases, such as “What is a birch?” or “What is a swinger of
birches?” I would also encourage them to look for literary devices such as similes, metaphors,
imagery, tone, any devices that would help with the understanding of the poem. Many times
when the reading is directed in some way, it will help the students with understanding.
6
Fire and Ice
By Robert Frost
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
7
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“Fire and Ice” Say/Mean Chart
On the left side in the chart write what the author is saying (direct quote from the poem). On the
right side state what the author is meaning (your own words). If the line is a
Say
Mean
8
“Fire and Ice”
Rationale
I chose to use the Say/Mean Chart for the second-draft reading strategy.
Most students have a basic idea of what this poem is about the first time they read it. They
quickly see that the Frost is talking about whether the world will end by fire or ice. By having
this immediate understanding they should be able to complete the say side of the chart rather
quickly. After that, I would point out certain phrases or words that need to be read more closely,
such as “desire” or “hate”. The students will not only see that he is talking about the world
ending, he is also talking about how relationships end.
9
Chicago
By Carl Sandburg
Hog Butcher for the World,
Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,
Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;
Stormy, husky, brawling,
City of the Big Shoulders:
They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.
Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on
job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the
little soft cities;
Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning
as a savage pitted against the wilderness,
Bareheaded,
Shoveling,
Wrecking,
Planning,
Building, breaking, rebuilding,
Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with
white teeth,
Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young
man laughs,
Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has
never lost a battle,
Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse,
and under his ribs the heart of the people,
Laughing!
Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of
Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog
Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with
Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.
10
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“Chicago” Trouble Slips
On the following chart identify areas where you had trouble with comprehension. This must be
complete before you come to class tomorrow.
Trouble Spot 1:
Trouble Spot 2:
Trouble Spot 3:
Trouble Spot 4:
Trouble Spot5:
Trouble Spot 6:
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“Chicago”
Rationale
I chose to use the collaborative strategy of Trouble Slips for the poem “Chicago.”
This poem for some students may be very difficult. It is full of figurative language, which could
possibly confuse the students. I would encourage the students to read the poem more than once
to allow them the opportunity to begin forming ideas about the meaning of the poem. Trouble
Slips will help the students to feel more comfortable about asking questions because they know
that the assignment is to find areas that one does not understand. It will also help the students
feel more confident about their understanding of the poem if they are able to explain another
person’s trouble slip.
12
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
13
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Road Not Taken” Pencil/Eraser
On the writing end note the actions
the speaker wishes he had taken.
On the shaft of the pencil write the
speaker’s name
On the eraser end note the actions
the speaker wishes he could change.
14
“The Road Not Taken”
Rationale
The activity I chose to use for metaphor is Pencil,Eraser.
This is a good strategy for this poem because the speaker is at a cross road in his life and he has
to decide which way to go. Whichever path he chooses, he is making a decision that will affect
the rest of his life. The speaker would be written on the shaft of the pencil. On the writing end
of the pencil would be information about the road he took. On the other end would be the
student’s decision about whether the speaker chose the right road or not.
15
Dreams
By Langston Hughes
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.
16
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“Dreams”
Most Valuable Idea Form
In a complete sentence, write the most valuable idea found in the poem.
___________________________________________________________________
Affix an article here that illustrates the most
valuable idea.
This idea is still valuable today because…
17
“Dreams”
Rationale
The reflection strategy that will be used with this poem is The Most Valuable Idea.
I think this will be good because it will allow students to express what is valuable to them. This
poem will encourage students to relate this poem to their own dreams. It reinforces that point
that everyone has dreams, and everyone needs dreams. Without dreams the world becomes
stagnant. This will lead to a good discussion about how one person’s dream has lead to so many
inventions and conveniences that students use today. We could also discuss Martin Luther
King’s speech, “I Have a Dream” and how much that has impacted the world.
18
Poetry
Works Cited
Gallagher, Kelly. “Deeper Reading.” Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. Print.
McMichael, George, ed. Concise Anthology of American Literature. Second. New
York : Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985. 1520-1533. Print.
Owens, Brenda, and Nancy Papsin. Mirrors&Windows “Dreams and A Dream
Deferred”. St.Paul: EMC Publishing, 2009. 481-484. Print.
19
"This Is What It Means To Say Phoenix, Arizona"
by Sherman Alexie
Just after Victor lost his job at the BIA, he also found J out that his father had died of a heart
attack in Phoenix, Arizona. Victor hadn't seen his father in a few years, only talked to him on the
telephone once or twice, but there still was a genetic pain, which was soon to be pain as real and
immediate as a broken bone.
Victor didn't have any money. Who does have money on a reservation, except the cigarette and
fireworks salespeople? His father had a savings account waiting to be claimed, but Victor needed
to find a way to get to Phoenix. Victor's mother was just as poor as he was, and the rest of his
family didn't have any use at all for him. So Victor called the Tribal Council.
"Listen," Victor said. "My father just died. I need some money to get to Phoenix to make
arrangements."
"Now, Victor," the council said. "You know we're having a difficult time financially."
"But I thought the council had special funds set aside for stuff like this."
"Now, Victor, we do have some money available for the proper return of tribal members' bodies.
But I don't think we have enough to bring your father all the way back from Phoenix."
"Well," Victor said. "It ain't going to cost all that much. He had to be cremated. Things were
kind of ugly. He died of a heart attack in his trailer and nobody found him for a week. It was
really hot, too. You get the picture."
"Now, Victor, we're sorry for your loss and the circumstances. But we can really only afford to
give you one hundred dollars."
"That's not even enough for a plane ticket."
"Well, you might consider driving down to Phoenix."
"I don't have a car. Besides, I was going to drive my father's pickup back up here."
"Now, Victor," the council said. "We're sure there is somebody who could drive you to Phoenix.
Or is there somebody who could lend you the rest of the money?"
"You know there ain't nobody around with that kind of money."
"Well, we're sorry, Victor, but that's the best we can do."
Victor accepted the Tribal Council's offer. What else could he do? So he signed the proper
papers, picked up his check, and walked over to the Trading Post to cash it.
20
While Victor stood in line, he watched Thomas Buildsthe-Fire standing near the magazine rack,
talking to himself. Like he always did. Thomas was a storyteller that nobody wanted to listen to.
That's like being a dentist in a town where everybody has false teeth.
Victor and Thomas Builds-the-Fire were the same age, had grown up and played in the dirt
together. Ever since Victor could remember, it was Thomas who always had something to say.
Once, when they were seven years old, when Victor's father still lived with the family, Thomas
closed his eyes and told Victor this story: "Your father's heart is weak. He is afraid of his own
family. He is afraid of you. Late at night he sits in the dark. Watches the television until there's
nothing but that white noise. Sometimes he feels like he wants to buy a motorcycle and ride
away. He wants to run and hide. He doesn't want to be found."
Thomas Builds-the-Fire had known that Victor's father was going to leave, knew it before
anyone. Now Victor stood in the Trading Post with a one-hundred-dollar check in his hand,
wondering if Thomas knew that Victor's father was dead, if he knew what was going to happen
next.
Just then Thomas looked at Victor, smiled, and walked over to him.
"Victor, I'm sorry about your father," Thomas said.
"How did you know about it?" Victor asked.
"I heard it on the wind. I heard it from the birds. I felt it in the sunlight. Also, your mother was
just in here crying."
"Oh," Victor said and looked around the Trading Post. All the other Indians stared, surprised that
Victor was even talking to Thomas. Nobody talked to Thomas because he told the same damn
stories over and over again. Victor was embarassed, but he thought that Thomas might be able to
help him. Victor felt a sudden need for tradition.
"I can lend you the money you need," Thomas said suddenly. "But you have to take me with
you."
"I can't take your money," Victor said. "I mean, I haven't hardly talked to you in years. We're not
really friends anymore."
"I didn't say we were friends. I said you had to take me with you."
"Let me think about it."
Victor went home with his one hundred dollars and sat at the kitchen table. He held his head in
his hands and thought about Thomas Builds-the-Fire, remembered little details, tears and scars,
the bicycle they shared for a summer, so many stories.
21
Thomas Builds-the-Fire sat on the bicycle, waited in Victor's yard. He was ten years old and
skinny. His hair was dirty because it was the Fourth of July.
"Victor," Thomas yelled. "Hurry up. We're going to miss the fireworks."
After a few minutes, Victor ran out of his house, jumped the porch railing, and landed gracefully
on the sidewalk.
"And the judges award him a 9.95, the highest score of the summer," Thomas said, clapped,
laughed.
"That was perfect, cousin," Victor said. "And it's my. turn to ride the bike."
Thomas gave up the bike and they headed for the fairgrounds. It was nearly dark and the
fireworks were about to start.
"You know," Thomas said. "It's strange how us Indians celebrate the Fourth of July. It ain't like it
was our independence everybody was fighting for."
"You think about things too much," Victor said. "It's just supposed to be fun. Maybe junior will
be there."
"Which Junior? Everybody on this reservation is named junior."
And they both laughed.
The fireworks were small, hardly more than a few bottle rockets and a fountain. But it was
enough for two Indian boys. Years later, they would need much more.
Afterwards, sitting in the dark, fighting off mosquitoes, Victor turned to Thomas Builds-the-Fire.
"Hey," Victor said. "Tell me a story."
Thomas closed his eyes and told this story: "There were these two Indian boys who wanted to be
warriors. But it was too late to be warriors in the old way. All the horses were gone. So the two
Indian boys stole a car and drove to the city. They parked the stolen car in front of the police
station and then hitchhiked back home to the reservation. When they got back, all their friends
cheered and their parents' eyes shone with pride. You were very brave, everybody said to the two
Indian boys. Very brave."
"Ya-hey," Victor said. "That's a good one. I wish I could be a warrior."
"Me, too," Thomas said.
They went home together in the dark, Thomas on the bike now, Victor on foot. They walked
through shadows and light from streetlamps.
"We've come a long ways," Thomas said. "We have outdoor lighting."
22
"All I need is the stars," Victor said. "And besides, you still think about things too much."
They separated then, each headed for home, both laughing all the way.
Victor sat at his kitchen table. He counted his one hundred dollars again and again. He knew he
needed more to make it to Phoenix and back. He knew he needed Thomas Builds-theFire. So he
put his money in his wallet and opened the front door to find Thomas on the porch.
"Ya-hey, Victor," Thomas said. "I knew you'd call me."
Thomas walked into the living room and sat down on Victor's favorite chair.
"I've got some money saved up," Thomas said. "It's enough to get us down there, but you have to
get us back."
"I've got this hundred dollars," Victor said. "And my dad had a savings account I'm going to
claim."
"How much in your dad's account?"
"Enough. A few hundred."
"Sounds good. When we leaving?"
*
*
*
When they were fifteen and had long since stopped being friends, Victor and Thomas got into a
fistfight. That is, Victor was really drunk and beat Thomas up for no reason at all. All the other
Indian boys stood around and watched it happen. Junior was there and so were Lester, Seymour,
and a lot of others. The beating might have gone on until Thomas was dead if Norma Many
Horses hadn't come along and stopped it.
"Hey, you boys," Norma yelled and jumped out of her car. "Leave him alone."
If it had been someone else, even another man, the Indian boys would've just ignored the
warnings. But Norma was a warrior. She was powerful. She could have picked up any two of the
boys and smashed their skulls together. But worse than that, she would have dragged them all
over to some tipi and made them listen to some elder tell a dusty old story.
The Indian boys scattered, and Norma walked over to Thomas and picked him up.
"Hey, little man, are you okay?" she asked.
Thomas gave her a thumbs up.
23
"Why they always picking on you?"
Thomas shook his head, closed his eyes, but no stories came to him, no words or music. He just
wanted to go home, to lie in his bed and let his dreams tell his stories for him.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire and Victor sat next to each other in the airplane, coach section. A tiny
white woman had the window seat. She was busy twisting her body into pretzels. She was
flexible.
"I have to ask," Thomas said, and Victor closed his eyes in embarrassment.
"Don't," Victor said.
"Excuse me, miss," Thomas asked. "Are you a gymnast or something?"
"There's no something about it," she said. "I was first alternate on the 1980 Olympic team."
"Really?" Thomas asked.
"Really."
"I mean, you used to be a world-class athlete?" Thomas asked.
"My husband still thinks I am."
Thomas Builds-the-Fire smiled. She was a mental gymnast, too. She pulled her leg straight up
against her body so that she could've kissed her kneecap.
"I wish I could do that," Thomas said.
Victor was ready to jump out of the plane. Thomas, that crazy Indian storyteller with ratty old
braids and broken teeth, was flirting with a beautiful Olympic gymnast. Nobody back home on
the reservation would ever believe it.
"Well," the gymnast said. "It's easy. Try it."
Thomas grabbed at his leg and tried to pull it up into the same position as the gymnast. He
couldn't even come close, which made Victor and the gymnast laugh.
"Hey," she asked. "You two are Indian, right?"
"Full-blood," Victor said.
"Not me," Thomas said. "I'm half magician on my mother's side and half clown on my father's."
They all laughed.
24
"What are your names?" she asked.
"Victor and Thomas."
"Mine is Cathy. Pleased to meet you all."
The three of them talked for the duration of the flight. Cathy the gymnast complained about the
government, how they screwed the 1980 Olympic team by boycotting.
"Sounds like you all got a lot in common with Indians," Thomas said.
Nobody laughed.
After the plane landed in Phoenix and they had all found their way to the terminal, Cathy the
gymnast smiled and waved good-bye.
"She was really nice," Thomas said.
"Yeah, but everybody talks to everybody on airplanes," Victor said. "It's too bad we can't always
be that way."
"You always used to tell me I think too much," Thomas said. "Now it sounds like you do."
"Maybe I caught it from you."
"Yeah."
Thomas and Victor rode in a taxi to the trailer where Victor's father died.
"Listen," Victor said .as they stopped in front of the trailer. "I never told you I was sorry for
beating you up that time."
"Oh, it was nothing. We were just kids and you were drunk."
"Yeah, but I'm still sorry."
"That's all right."
Victor paid for the taxi and the two of them stood in the hot Phoenix summer. They could smell
the trailer.
"This ain't going to be nice," Victor said. "You don't have to go in."
"You're going to need help."
Victor walked to the front door and opened it. The stink rolled out and made them both gag.
Victor's father had lain in that trailer for a week in hundred-degree temperatures before anyone
25
found him. And the only reason anyone found him was because of the smell. They needed dental
records to identify him. That's exactly what the coroner said. They needed dental records.
"Oh, man," Victor said. "I don't know if I can do this."
"Well, then don't."
"But there might be something valuable in there."
"I thought his money was in the bank."
"It is. I was talking about pictures and letters and stuff like that."
"Oh," Thomas said as he held his breath and followed Victor into the trailer.
When Victor was twelve, he stepped into an underground wasp nest. His foot was caught in the
hole, and no matter how hard he struggled, Victor couldn't pull free. He might have died there,
stung a thousand times, if Thomas Builds-the-Fire had not come by.
"Run," Thomas yelled and pulled Victor's foot from the hole. They ran then, hard as they ever
had, faster than Billy Mills, faster than Jim Thorpe, faster than the wasps could fly.
Victor and Thomas ran until they couldn't breathe, ran until it was cold and dark outside, ran
until they were lost and it took hours to find their way home. All the way back, Victor counted
his stings.
"Seven," Victor said. "My lucky number."
*
*
*
Victor didn't find much to keep in the trailer. Only a photo album and a stereo. Everything else
had that smell stuck in it or was useless anyway.
"I guess this is all," Victor said. "It ain't much."
"Better than nothing," Thomas said.
"Yeah, and I do have the pickup."
"Yeah," Thomas said. "It's in good shape."
"Dad was good about that stuff."
"Yeah, I remember your dad."
26
"Really?" Victor asked. "What do you remember?"
Thomas Builds-the-Fire closed his eyes and told this story: "I remember when I had this dream
that told me to go to Spokane, to stand by the Falls in the middle of the city and wait for a sign. I
knew I had to go there but I didn't have a car. Didn't have a license. I was only thirteen. So I
walked all the way, took me all day, and I finally made it to the Falls. I stood there for an hour
waiting. Then your dad came walking up. What the hell are you doing here? he asked me. I said,
Waiting for a vision. Then your father said, All you're going to get here is mugged. So he drove
me over to Denny's, bought me dinner, and then drove me home to the reservation. For a long
time I was mad because I thought my dreams had lied to me. But they didn't. Your dad was my
vision. Take care of each other is what my dreams were saying. Take care of each other."
Victor was quiet for a long time. He searched his mind for memories of his father, found the
good ones, found a few bad ones, added it all up, and smiled.
"My father never told me about finding you in Spokane," Victor said.
"He said he wouldn't tell anybody. Didn't want me to get in trouble. But he said I had to watch
out for you as part of the deal."
"Really?"
"Really. Your father said you would need the help. He was right."
"That's why you came down here with me, isn't it?" Victor asked.
"I came because of your father."
Victor and Thomas climbed into the pickup, drove over to the bank, and claimed the three
hundred dollars in the savings account.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire could fly.
Once, he jumped off the roof of the tribal school and flapped his arms like a crazy eagle. And he
flew. For a second, he hovered, suspended above all the other Indian boys who were too smart or
too scared to jump.
"He's flying," junior yelled, and Seymour was busy looking for the trick wires or mirrors. But it
was real. As real as the dirt when Thomas lost altitude and crashed to the ground.
He broke his arm in two places.
"He broke his wing," Victor chanted, and the other Indian boys joined in, made it a tribal song.
27
"He broke his wing, he broke his wing, he broke his wing," all the Indian boys chanted as they
ran off, flapping their wings, wishing they could fly, too. They hated Thomas for his courage, his
brief moment as a bird. Everybody has dreams about flying. Thomas flew.
One of his dreams came true for just a second, just enough to make it real.
Victor's father, his ashes, fit in one wooden box with enough left over to fill a cardboard box.
"He always was a big man," Thomas said.
Victor carried part of his father and Thomas carried the rest out to the pickup. They set him
down carefully behind the seats, put a cowboy hat on the wooden box and a Dodgers cap on the
cardboard box. That's the way it was supposed to be.
"Ready to head back home," Victor asked.
"It's going to be a long drive."
"Yeah, take a couple days, maybe."
"We can take turns," Thomas said.
"Okay," Victor said, but they didn't take turns. Victor drove for sixteen hours straight north,
made it halfway up Nevada toward home before he finally pulled over.
"Hey, Thomas," Victor said. "You got to drive for a while."
"Okay."
Thomas Builds-the-Fire slid behind the wheel and started off down the road. All through
Nevada, Thomas and Victor had been amazed at the lack of animal life, at the absence of water,
of movement.
"Where is everything?" Victor had asked more than once.
Now when Thomas was finally driving they saw the first animal, maybe the only animal in
Nevada. It was a long-eared jackrabbit.
"Look," Victor yelled. "It's alive."
Thomas and Victor were busy congratulating themselves on their discovery when the jackrabbit
darted out into the road and under the wheels of the pickup.
"Stop the goddamn car," Victor yelled, and Thomas did stop, backed the pickup to the dead
jackrabbit.
28
"Oh, man, he's dead," Victor said as he looked at the squashed animal.
"Really dead."
"The only thing alive in this whole state and we just killed it."
"I don't know," Thomas said. "I think it was suicide."
Victor looked around the desert, sniffed the air, felt the emptiness and loneliness, and nodded his
head.
"Yeah," Victor said. "It had to be suicide."
"I can't believe this," Thomas said. "You drive for a thousand miles and there ain't even any bugs
smashed on the windshield. I drive for ten seconds and kill the only living thing in Nevada."
Yeah," Victor said. "Maybe I should drive."
"Maybe you should."
Thomas Builds-the-Fire walked through the corridors of the tribal school by himself. Nobody
wanted to be anywhere near him because of all those stories. Story after story.
Thomas closed his eyes and this story came to him: "We are all given one thing by which our
lives are measured, one determination. Mine are the stories which can change or not change the
world. It doesn't matter which as long as I continue to tell the stories. My father, he died on
Okinawa in World War II, died fighting for this country, which had tried to kill him for years.
My mother, she died giving birth to me, died while I was still inside her. She pushed me out into
the world with her last breath. I have no brothers or sisters. I have only my stories which came to
me before I even had the words to speak. I learned a thousand stories before I took my first
thousand steps. They are all I have. It's all I can do."
Thomas Builds-the-Fire told his stories to all those who would stop and listen. He kept telling
them long after people had stopped listening.
Victor and Thomas made it back to the reservation just as the sun was rising. It was the
beginning of a new day on earth, but the same old shit on the reservation.
"Good morning," Thomas said.
"Good morning."
29
The tribe was waking up, ready for work, eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, just like
everybody else does. Willene LeBret was out in her garden wearing a bathrobe. She waved when
Thomas and Victor drove by.
"Crazy Indians made it," she said to herself and went back to her roses.
Victor stopped the pickup in front of Thomas BuildstheFire's HUD house. They both yawned,
stretched a little, shook dust from their bodies.
"I'm tired," Victor said.
"Of everything," Thomas added.
They both searched for words to end the journey. Victor needed to thank Thomas for his help,
for the money, and make the promise to pay it all back.
"Don't worry about the money," Thomas said. "It don't make any difference anyhow."
"Probably not, enit?"
"Nope."
Victor knew that Thomas would remain the crazy storyteller who talked to dogs and cars, who
listened to the wind and pine trees. Victor knew that he couldn't really be friends with Thomas,
even after all that had happened. It was cruel but it was real. As real as the ashes, as Victor's
father, sitting behind the seats.
"I know how it is," Thomas said. "I know you ain't going to treat me any better than you did
before. I know your friends would give you too much shit about it."
Victor was ashamed of himself. Whatever happened to the tribal ties, the sense of community?
The only real thing he shared with anybody was a bottle and broken dreams. He owed Thomas
something, anything.
"Listen," Victor said and handed Thomas the cardboard box which contained half of his father. "I
want you to have this."
Thomas took the ashes and smiled, closed his eyes, and told this story: "I'm going to travel to
Spokane Falls one last time and toss these ashes into the water. And your father will rise like a
salmon, leap over the bridge, over me, and find his way home. It will be beautiful. His teeth will
shine like silver, like a rainbow. He will rise, Victor, he will rise."
Victor smiled.
"I was planning on doing the same thing with my half," Victor said. "But I didn't imagine my
father looking anything like a salmon. I thought it'd be like cleaning the attic or something. Like
letting things go after they've stopped having any use.
"Nothing stops, cousin," Thomas said. "Nothing stops."
30
Thomas Builds-the-Fire got out of the pickup and walked up his driveway. Victor started the
pickup and began the drive home.
"Wait," Thomas yelled suddenly from his porch. "I just got to ask one favor."
Victor stopped the pickup, leaned out the window, and shouted back. "What do you want?"
"Just one time when I'm telling a story somewhere, why don't you stop and listen?" Thomas
asked.
"Just once?"
"Just once."
Victor waved his arms to let Thomas know that the deal was good. It was a fair trade, and that
was all Victor had ever wanted from his whole life. So Victor drove his father's pickup toward
home while Thomas went into his house, closed the door behind him, and heard a new story
come to him in the silence afterwards.
31
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
K
“This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona” K-W-L-R Chart
W
L
32
R
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“This is What it Means to Say Phoenix, Arizona”
Rationale
The focusing strategy that I will use with this short story is K-W-L-R Chart.
I chose this strategy because the title does not necessarily reflect anything about the story. The
title also may not peak many student’s interest. I know that I would have to do something to get
the students prepared to read the story. With this particular story, I may start with a few “know”
facts to help them get started. We could possibly preview the story before reading, and from the
discussion. The students could develop their own questions about what they want to know and
learn from the story.
33
The Lady Or The Tiger?
By Frank Stockton
In the very olden time there lived a semi-barbaric king, whose ideas, though somewhat polished and
sharpened by the progressiveness of distant Latin neighbors, were still large, florid, and untrammeled, as
became the half of him which was barbaric. He was a man of exuberant fancy, and, withal, of an authority so
irresistible that, at his will, he turned his varied fancies into facts. He was greatly given to self-communing,
and, when he and himself agreed upon anything, the thing was done. When every member of his domestic
and political systems moved smoothly in its appointed course, his nature was bland and genial; but,
whenever there was a little hitch, and some of his orbs got out of their orbits, he was blander and more genial
still, for nothing pleased him so much as to make the crooked straight and crush down uneven places.
Among the borrowed notions by which his barbarism had become semified was that of the public arena,
in which, by exhibitions of manly and beastly valor, the minds of his subjects were refined and cultured.
But even here the exuberant and barbaric fancy asserted itself. The arena of the king was built, not to give
the people an opportunity of hearing the rhapsodies of dying gladiators, nor to enable them to view the
inevitable conclusion of a conflict between religious opinions and hungry jaws, but for purposes far better
adapted to widen and develop the mental energies of the people. This vast amphitheater, with its encircling
galleries, its mysterious vaults, and its unseen passages, was an agent of poetic justice, in which crime was
punished, or virtue rewarded, by the decrees of an impartial and incorruptible chance.
When a subject was accused of a crime of sufficient importance to interest the king, public notice was
given that on an appointed day the fate of the accused person would be decided in the king's arena, a
structure which well deserved its name, for, although its form and plan were borrowed from afar, its purpose
emanated solely from the brain of this man, who, every barleycorn a king, knew no tradition to which he
owed more allegiance than pleased his fancy, and who ingrafted on every adopted form of human thought
and action the rich growth of his barbaric idealism.
When all the people had assembled in the galleries, and the king, surrounded by his court, sat high up on
his throne of royal state on one side of the arena, he gave a signal, a door beneath him opened, and the
accused subject stepped out into the amphitheater. Directly opposite him, on the other side of the enclosed
space, were two doors, exactly alike and side by side. It was the duty and the privilege of the person on trial
to walk directly to these doors and open one of them. He could open either door he pleased; he was subject
to no guidance or influence but that of the aforementioned impartial and incorruptible chance. If he opened
the one, there came out of it a hungry tiger, the fiercest and most cruel that could be procured, which
immediately sprang upon him and tore him to pieces as a punishment for his guilt. The moment that the case
of the criminal was thus decided, doleful iron bells were clanged, great wails went up from the hired
mourners posted on the outer rim of the arena, and the vast audience, with bowed heads and downcast hearts,
wended slowly their homeward way, mourning greatly that one so young and fair, or so old and respected,
should have merited so dire a fate.
But, if the accused person opened the other door, there came forth from it a lady, the most suitable to his
years and station that his majesty could select among his fair subjects, and to this lady he was immediately
married, as a reward of his innocence. It mattered not that he might already possess a wife and family, or that
his affections might be engaged upon an object of his own selection; the king allowed no such subordinate
arrangements to interfere with his great scheme of retribution and reward. The exercises, as in the other
instance, took place immediately, and in the arena. Another door opened beneath the king, and a priest,
34
followed by a band of choristers, and dancing maidens blowing joyous airs on golden horns and treading an
epithalamic measure, advanced to where the pair stood, side by side, and the wedding was promptly and
cheerily solemnized. Then the gay brass bells rang forth their merry peals, the people shouted glad hurrahs,
and the innocent man, preceded by children strewing flowers on his path, led his bride to his home.
This was the king's semi-barbaric method of administering justice. Its perfect fairness is obvious. The
criminal could not know out of which door would come the lady; he opened either he pleased, without
having the slightest idea whether, in the next instant, he was to be devoured or married. On some occasions
the tiger came out of one door, and on some out of the other. The decisions of this tribunal were not only
fair, they were positively determinate: the accused person was instantly punished if he found himself guilty,
and, if innocent, he was rewarded on the spot, whether he liked it or not. There was no escape from the
judgments of the king's arena.
The institution was a very popular one. When the people gathered together on one of the great trial days,
they never knew whether they were to witness a bloody slaughter or a hilarious wedding. This element of
uncertainty lent an interest to the occasion which it could not otherwise have attained. Thus, the masses were
entertained and pleased, and the thinking part of the community could bring no charge of unfairness against
this plan, for did not the accused person have the whole matter in his own hands?
This semi-barbaric king had a daughter as blooming as his most florid fancies, and with a soul as fervent
and imperious as his own. As is usual in such cases, she was the apple of his eye, and was loved by him
above all humanity. Among his courtiers was a young man of that fineness of blood and lowness of station
common to the conventional heroes of romance who love royal maidens. This royal maiden was well
satisfied with her lover, for he was handsome and brave to a degree unsurpassed in all this kingdom, and she
loved him with an ardor that had enough of barbarism in it to make it exceedingly warm and strong. This
love affair moved on happily for many months, until one day the king happened to discover its existence. He
did not hesitate nor waver in regard to his duty in the premises. The youth was immediately cast into prison,
and a day was appointed for his trial in the king's arena. This, of course, was an especially important
occasion, and his majesty, as well as all the people, was greatly interested in the workings and development
of this trial. Never before had such a case occurred; never before had a subject dared to love the daughter of
the king. In after years such things became commonplace enough, but then they were in no slight degree
novel and startling.
The tiger-cages of the kingdom were searched for the most savage and relentless beasts, from which the
fiercest monster might be selected for the arena; and the ranks of maiden youth and beauty throughout the
land were carefully surveyed by competent judges in order that the young man might have a fitting bride in
case fate did not determine for him a different destiny. Of course, everybody knew that the deed with which
the accused was charged had been done. He had loved the princess, and neither he, she, nor any one else,
thought of denying the fact; but the king would not think of allowing any fact of this kind to interfere with
the workings of the tribunal, in which he took such great delight and satisfaction. No matter how the affair
turned out, the youth would be disposed of, and the king would take an aesthetic pleasure in watching the
course of events, which would determine whether or not the young man had done wrong in allowing himself
to love the princess.
The appointed day arrived. From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the
arena, and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his
court were in their places, opposite the twin doors, those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity.
All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess
35
walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and
anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. No wonder the princess
loved him! What a terrible thing for him to be there!
As the youth advanced into the arena he turned, as the custom was, to bow to the king, but he did not
think at all of that royal personage. His eyes were fixed upon the princess, who sat to the right of her father.
Had it not been for the moiety of barbarism in her nature it is probable that lady would not have been there,
but her intense and fervid soul would not allow her to be absent on an occasion in which she was so terribly
interested. From the moment that the decree had gone forth that her lover should decide his fate in the king's
arena, she had thought of nothing, night or day, but this great event and the various subjects connected with
it. Possessed of more power, influence, and force of character than any one who had ever before been
interested in such a case, she had done what no other person had done - she had possessed herself of the
secret of the doors. She knew in which of the two rooms, that lay behind those doors, stood the cage of the
tiger, with its open front, and in which waited the lady. Through these thick doors, heavily curtained with
skins on the inside, it was impossible that any noise or suggestion should come from within to the person
who should approach to raise the latch of one of them. But gold, and the power of a woman's will, had
brought the secret to the princess.
And not only did she know in which room stood the lady ready to emerge, all blushing and radiant,
should her door be opened, but she knew who the lady was. It was one of the fairest and loveliest of the
damsels of the court who had been selected as the reward of the accused youth, should he be proved innocent
of the crime of aspiring to one so far above him; and the princess hated her. Often had she seen, or imagined
that she had seen, this fair creature throwing glances of admiration upon the person of her lover, and
sometimes she thought these glances were perceived, and even returned. Now and then she had seen them
talking together; it was but for a moment or two, but much can be said in a brief space; it may have been on
most unimportant topics, but how could she know that? The girl was lovely, but she had dared to raise her
eyes to the loved one of the princess; and, with all the intensity of the savage blood transmitted to her
through long lines of wholly barbaric ancestors, she hated the woman who blushed and trembled behind that
silent door.
When her lover turned and looked at her, and his eye met hers as she sat there, paler and whiter than any
one in the vast ocean of anxious faces about her, he saw, by that power of quick perception which is given to
those whose souls are one, that she knew behind which door crouched the tiger, and behind which stood the
lady. He had expected her to know it. He understood her nature, and his soul was assured that she would
never rest until she had made plain to herself this thing, hidden to all other lookers-on, even to the king. The
only hope for the youth in which there was any element of certainty was based upon the success of the
princess in discovering this mystery; and the moment he looked upon her, he saw she had succeeded, as in
his soul he knew she would succeed.
Then it was that his quick and anxious glance asked the question: "Which?" It was as plain to her as if he
shouted it from where he stood. There was not an instant to be lost. The question was asked in a flash; it
must be answered in another.
Her right arm lay on the cushioned parapet before her. She raised her hand, and made a slight, quick
movement toward the right. No one but her lover saw her. Every eye but his was fixed on the man in the
arena.
He turned, and with a firm and rapid step he walked across the empty space. Every heart stopped beating,
every breath was held, every eye was fixed immovably upon that man. Without the slightest hesitation, he
36
went to the door on the right, and opened it.
Now, the point of the story is this: Did the tiger come out of that door, or did the lady ?
The more we reflect upon this question, the harder it is to answer. It involves a study of the human heart
which leads us through devious mazes of passion, out of which it is difficult to find our way. Think of it, fair
reader, not as if the decision of the question depended upon yourself, but upon that hot-blooded, semibarbaric princess, her soul at a white heat beneath the combined fires of despair and jealousy. She had lost
him, but who should have him?
How often, in her waking hours and in her dreams, had she started in wild horror, and covered her face
with her hands as she thought of her lover opening the door on the other side of which waited the cruel fangs
of the tiger!
But how much oftener had she seen him at the other door! How in her grievous reveries had she gnashed
her teeth, and torn her hair, when she saw his start of rapturous delight as he opened the door of the lady!
How her soul had burned in agony when she had seen him rush to meet that woman, with her flushing cheek
and sparkling eye of triumph; when she had seen him lead her forth, his whole frame kindled with the joy of
recovered life; when she had heard the glad shouts from the multitude, and the wild ringing of the happy
bells; when she had seen the priest, with his joyous followers, advance to the couple, and make them man
and wife before her very eyes; and when she had seen them walk away together upon their path of flowers,
followed by the tremendous shouts of the hilarious multitude, in which her one despairing shriek was lost
and drowned!
Would it not be better for him to die at once, and go to wait for her in the blessed regions of semi-barbaric
futurity?
And yet, that awful tiger, those shrieks, that blood!
Her decision had been indicated in an instant, but it had been made after days and nights of anguished
deliberation. She had known she would be asked, she had decided what she would answer, and, without the
slightest hesitation, she had moved her hand to the right.
The question of her decision is one not to be lightly considered, and it is not for me to presume to set
myself up as the one person able to answer it. And so I leave it with all of you: Which came out of the
opened door - the lady, or the tiger?
37
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Lady or the Tiger?”
First-Reading Strategy:
Turn Headings or Titles Into Questions Prior to Reading
1. Before we begin reading the story, brainstorm the meaning of the title. The title is
already a question, so what do you think the title means?
After reading the story, answer the following questions.
2. What was surprising about how the story ended? Did you expect something different?
3. The reader has to determine his/her own ending. Which decision do you think the
princess made? Fill in the following chart with evidence from the story to support both
sides.
The Lady
The Tiger
4. What do you think that your decision about whether the princess chose the lady or the
tiger says about yourself? Explain.
38
“The Lady or The Tiger?”
Rationale
The first-draft reading strategy that I chose for this short story is Turn Headings or Titles Into
Questions Prior to Reading because the title is already a question.
Immediately when the students read the title, they already know that some type of decision will
have to be made during the story. I would ask them to predict what they possibly think the title
could be referring to. Who do they think is going to have to make a choice? What do they think
the choice will be about? This is also a story that the students could gather information about
while reading to support either choice. It is also engaging because they are curious about the
ending.
39
The Lottery
By Shirley Jackson
The morning of June 27th was clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day; the
flowers were blossoming profusely and the grass was richly green. The people of the village
began to gather in the square, between the post office and the bank, around ten o'clock; in some
towns there were so many people that the lottery took two days and had to be started on June
26th. but in this village, where there were only about three hundred people, the whole lottery
took less than two hours, so it could begin at ten o'clock in the morning and still be through in
time to allow the villagers to get home for noon dinner.
The children assembled first, of course. School was recently over for the summer, and the feeling
of liberty sat uneasily on most of them; they tended to gather together quietly for a while before
they broke into boisterous play, and their talk was still of the classroom and the teacher, of books
and reprimands. Bobby Martin had already stuffed his pockets full of stones, and the other boys
soon followed his example, selecting the smoothest and roundest stones; Bobby and Harry Jones
and Dickie Delacroix-- the villagers pronounced this name "Dellacroy"--eventually made a great
pile of stones in one corner of the square and guarded it against the raids of the other boys. The
girls stood aside, talking among themselves, looking over their shoulders at the boys, and the
very small children rolled in the dust or clung to the hands of their older brothers or sisters.
Soon the men began to gather, surveying their own children, speaking of planting and rain,
tractors and taxes. They stood together, away from the pile of stones in the corner, and their
jokes were quiet and they smiled rather than laughed. The women, wearing faded house dresses
and sweaters, came shortly after their menfolk. They greeted one another and exchanged bits of
gossip as they went to join their husbands. Soon the women, standing by their husbands, began
to call to their children, and the children came reluctantly, having to be called four or five times.
Bobby Martin ducked under his mother's grasping hand and ran, laughing, back to the pile of
stones. His father spoke up sharply, and Bobby came quickly and took his place between his
father and his oldest brother.
The lottery was conducted--as were the square dances, the teen club, the Halloween program--by
Mr. Summers, who had time and energy to devote to civic activities. He was a round-faced,
jovial man and he ran the coal business, and people were sorry for him because he had no
children and his wife was a scold. When he arrived in the square, carrying the black wooden box,
there was a murmur of conversation among the villagers, and he waved and called, "Little late
today, folks." The postmaster, Mr. Graves, followed him, carrying a three- legged stool, and the
stool was put in the center of the square and Mr. Summers set the black box down on it. The
villagers kept their distance, leaving a space between themselves and the stool, and when Mr.
Summers said, "Some of you fellows want to give me a hand?" there was a hesitation before two
men, Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, came forward to hold the box steady on the stool
while Mr. Summers stirred up the papers inside it.
The original paraphernalia for the lottery had been lost long ago, and the black box now resting
on the stool had been put into use even before Old Man Warner, the oldest man in town, was
born. Mr. Summers spoke frequently to the villagers about making a new box, but no one liked
to upset even as much tradition as was represented by the black box. There was a story that the
present box had been made with some pieces of the box that had preceded it, the one that had
been constructed when the first people settled down to make a village here. Every year, after the
40
lottery, Mr. Summers began talking again about a new box, but every year the subject was
allowed to fade off without anything's being done. The black box grew shabbier each year: by
now it was no longer completely black but splintered badly along one side to show the original
wood color, and in some places faded or stained.
Mr. Martin and his oldest son, Baxter, held the black box securely on the stool until Mr.
Summers had stirred the papers thoroughly with his hand. Because so much of the ritual had
been forgotten or discarded, Mr. Summers had been successful in having slips of paper
substituted for the chips of wood that had been used for generations. Chips of wood, Mr.
Summers had argued, had been all very well when the village was tiny, but now that the
population was more than three hundred and likely to keep on growing, it was necessary to use
something that would fit more easily into he black box. The night before the lottery, Mr.
Summers and Mr. Graves made up the slips of paper and put them in the box, and it was then
taken to the safe of Mr. Summers' coal company and locked up until Mr. Summers was ready to
take it to the square next morning. The rest of the year, the box was put way, sometimes one
place, sometimes another; it had spent one year in Mr. Graves's barn and another year underfoot
in the post office. and sometimes it was set on a shelf in the Martin grocery and left there.
There was a great deal of fussing to be done before Mr. Summers declared the lottery open.
There were the lists to make up--of heads of families, heads of households in each family,
members of each household in each family. There was the proper swearing-in of Mr. Summers
by the postmaster, as the official of the lottery; at one time, some people remembered, there had
been a recital of some sort, performed by the official of the lottery, a perfunctory, tuneless chant
that had been rattled off duly each year; some people believed that the official of the lottery used
to stand just so when he said or sang it, others believed that he was supposed to walk among the
people, but years and years ago this part of the ritual had been allowed to lapse. There had been,
also, a ritual salute, which the official of the lottery had had to use in addressing each person who
came up to draw from the box, but this also had changed with time, until now it was felt
necessary only for the official to speak to each person approaching. Mr. Summers was very good
at all this; in his clean white shirt and blue jeans, with one hand resting carelessly on the black
box, he seemed very proper and important as he talked interminably to Mr. Graves and the
Martins.
Just as Mr. Summers finally left off talking and turned to the assembled villagers, Mrs.
Hutchinson came hurriedly along the path to the square, her sweater thrown over her shoulders,
and slid into place in the back of the crowd. "Clean forgot what day it was," she said to Mrs.
Delacroix, who stood next to her, and they both laughed softly. "Thought my old man was out
back stacking wood," Mrs. Hutchinson went on, "and then I looked out the window and the kids
was gone, and then I remembered it was the twenty-seventh and came a-running." She dried her
hands on her apron, and Mrs. Delacroix said, "You're in time, though. They're still talking away
up there."
Mrs. Hutchinson craned her neck to see through the crowd and found her husband and children
standing near the front. She tapped Mrs. Delacroix on the arm as a farewell and began to make
her way through the crowd. The people separated good-humoredly to let her through; two or
three people said, in voices just loud enough to be heard across the crowd, "Here comes your
Missus, Hutchinson," and "Bill, she made it after all." Mrs. Hutchinson reached her husband, and
Mr. Summers, who had been waiting, said cheerfully, "Thought we were going to have to get on
without you, Tessie." Mrs. Hutchinson said, grinning, "Wouldn't have me leave m'dishes in the
41
sink, now, would you. Joe?" and soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back
into position after Mrs. Hutchinson's arrival.
"Well, now," Mr. Summers said soberly, "guess we better get started, get this over with, so's we
can go back to work. Anybody ain't here?"
"Dunbar," several people said. "Dunbar, Dunbar."
Mr. Summers consulted his list. "Clyde Dunbar," he said. "That's right. He's broke his leg, hasn't
he? Who's drawing for him?"
"Me, I guess," a woman said, and Mr. Summers turned to look at her. "Wife draws for her
husband," Mr. Summers said. "Don't you have a grown boy to do it for you, Janey?" Although
Mr. Summers and everyone else in the village knew the answer perfectly well, it was the
business of the official of the lottery to ask such questions formally. Mr. Summers waited with
an expression of polite interest while Mrs. Dunbar answered.
"Horace's not but sixteen yet," Mrs. Dunbar said regretfully. "Guess I gotta fill in for the old man
this year."
"Right," Mr. Summers said. He made a note on the list he was holding. Then he asked, "Watson
boy drawing this year?"
A tall boy in the crowd raised his hand. "Here," he said. "I m drawing for m'mother and me." He
blinked his eyes nervously and ducked his head as several voices in the crowd said things like
"Good fellow, Jack," and "Glad to see your mother's got a man to do it."
"Well," Mr. Summers said, "guess that's everyone. Old Man Warner make it?"
"Here," a voice said, and Mr. Summers nodded.
A sudden hush fell on the crowd as Mr. Summers cleared his throat and looked at the list. "All
ready?" he called. "Now, I'll read the names--heads of families first--and the men come up and
take a paper out of the box. Keep the paper folded in your hand without looking at it until
everyone has had a turn. Everything clear?"
The people had done it so many times that they only half listened to the directions; most of them
were quiet, wetting their lips, not looking around. Then Mr. Summers raised one hand high and
said, "Adams." A man disengaged himself from the crowd and came forward. "Hi, Steve," Mr.
Summers said, and Mr. Adams said, "Hi, Joe." They grinned at one another humorlessly and
nervously. Then Mr. Adams reached into the black box and took out a folded paper. He held it
firmly by one corner as he turned and went hastily back to his place in the crowd, where he stood
a little apart from his family, not looking down at his hand.
42
"Allen," Mr. Summers said. "Anderson.... Bentham."
"Seems like there's no time at all between lotteries any more," Mrs. Delacroix said to Mrs.
Graves in the back row. "Seems like we got through with the last one only last week."
"Time sure goes fast," Mrs. Graves said.
"Clark.... Delacroix."
"There goes my old man," Mrs. Delacroix said. She held her breath while her husband went
forward.
"Dunbar," Mr. Summers said, and Mrs. Dunbar went steadily to the box while one of the women
said, "Go on, Janey," and another said, "There she goes."
"We're next," Mrs. Graves said. She watched while Mr. Graves came around from the side of the
box, greeted Mr. Summers gravely and selected a slip of paper from the box. By now, all through
the crowd there were men holding the small folded papers in their large hands, turning them over
and over nervously Mrs. Dunbar and her two sons stood together, Mrs. Dunbar holding the slip
of paper.
"Harburt.... Hutchinson."
"Get up there, Bill," Mrs. Hutchinson said, and the people near her laughed.
"Jones."
"They do say," Mr. Adams said to Old Man Warner, who stood next to him, "that over in the
north village they're talking of giving up the lottery."
Old Man Warner snorted, "Pack of crazy fools," he said. "Listening to the young folks, nothing's
good enough for them. Next thing you know, they'll be wanting to go back to living in caves,
nobody work any more, live that way for a while. Used to be a saying about 'Lottery in June,
corn be heavy soon.' First thing you know, we'd all be eating stewed chickweed and acorns.
There's always been a lottery," he added petulantly. "Bad enough to see young Joe Summers up
there joking with everybody."
"Some places have already quit lotteries," Mrs. Adams said.
"Nothing but trouble in that," Old Man Warner said stoutly. "Pack of young fools."
"Martin." And Bobby Martin watched his father go forward. "Overdyke.... Percy."
"I wish they'd hurry," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son. "I wish they'd hurry."
43
"They're almost through," her son said.
"You get ready to run tell Dad," Mrs. Dunbar said.
Mr. Summers called his own name and then stepped forward precisely and selected a slip from
the box. Then he called, "Warner."
"Seventy-seventh year I been in the lottery," Old Man Warner said as he went through the crowd.
"Seventy-seventh time."
"Watson." The tall boy came awkwardly through the crowd. Someone said, "Don't be nervous,
Jack," and Mr. Summers said, "Take your time, son."
"Zanini."
After that, there was a long pause, a breathless pause, until Mr. Summers, holding his slip of
paper in the air, said, "All right, fellows." For a minute, no one moved, and then all the slips of
paper were opened. Suddenly, all the women began to speak at once, saying, "Who is it?"
"Who's got it?" "Is it the Dunbars?," "Is it the Watsons?" Then the voices began to say, "It's
Hutchinson. It's Bill," "Bill Hutchinson's got it."
"Go tell your father," Mrs. Dunbar said to her older son.
People began to look around to see the Hutchinsons. Bill Hutchinson was standing quiet, staring
down at the paper in his hand. Suddenly, Tessie Hutchinson shouted to Mr. Summers, "You
didn't give him time enough to take any paper he wanted. I saw you. It wasn't fair!"
"Be a good sport, Tessie, " Mrs. Delacroix called, and Mrs. Graves said, "All of us took the same
chance."
"Shut up, Tessie," Bill Hutchinson said.
"Well, everyone," Mr. Summers said, "that was done pretty fast, and now we've got to be
hurrying a little more to get done in time." He consulted his next list. "Bill," he said, "you draw
for the Hutchinson family. You got any other households in the Hutchinsons?"
"There's Don and Eva," Mrs. Hutchinson yelled. "Make them take their chance!"
"Daughters draw with their husbands' families, Tessie," Mr. Summers said gently. "You know
that as well as anyone else."
"It wasn't fair," Tessie said.
44
"I guess not, Joe," Bill Hutchinson said regretfully. "My daughter draws with her husband's
family, that's only fair. And I've got no other family except the kids."
"Then, as far as drawing for families is concerned, it's you," Mr. Summers said in explanation,
"and as far as drawing for households is concerned, that's you, too. Right?"
"Right," Bill Hutchinson said.
"How many kids, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked formally.
"Three," Bill Hutchinson said. "There's Bill, Jr., and Nancy, and little Dave. And Tessie and me."
"All right, then," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you got their tickets back?"
Mr. Graves nodded and held up the slips of paper. "Put them in the box, then," Mr. Summers
directed. "Take Bill's and put it in."
"I think we ought to start over," Mrs. Hutchinson said, as quietly as she could. "I tell you it
wasn't fair. You didn't give him time enough to choose. Everybody saw that."
Mr. Graves had selected the five slips and put them in the box, and he dropped all the papers but
those onto the ground, where the breeze caught them and lifted them off.
"Listen, everybody," Mrs. Hutchinson was saying to the people around her.
"Ready, Bill?" Mr. Summers asked, and Bill Hutchinson, with one quick glance around at his
wife and children, nodded.
"Remember," Mr. Summers said, "take the slips and keep them folded until each person has
taken one. Harry, you help little Dave." Mr. Graves took the hand of the little boy, who came
willingly with him up to the box. "Take a paper out of the box, Davy," Mr. Summers said. Davy
put his hand into the box and laughed. "Take just one paper," Mr. Summers said. "Harry, you
hold it for him." Mr. Graves took the child's hand and removed the folded paper from the tight
fist and held it while little Dave stood next to him and looked up at him wonderingly.
"Nancy next," Mr. Summers said. Nancy was twelve, and her school friends breathed heavily as
she went forward, switching her skirt, and took a slip daintily from the box "Bill, Jr.," Mr.
Summers said, and Billy, his face red and his feet overlarge, nearly knocked the box over as he
got a paper out. "Tessie," Mr. Summers said. She hesitated for a minute, looking around
defiantly, and then set her lips and went up to the box. She snatched a paper out and held it
behind her.
"Bill," Mr. Summers said, and Bill Hutchinson reached into the box and felt around, bringing his
hand out at last with the slip of paper in it.
45
The crowd was quiet. A girl whispered, "I hope it's not Nancy," and the sound of the whisper
reached the edges of the crowd.
"It's not the way it used to be," Old Man Warner said clearly. "People ain't the way they used to
be."
"All right," Mr. Summers said. "Open the papers. Harry, you open little Dave's."
Mr. Graves opened the slip of paper and there was a general sigh through the crowd as he held it
up and everyone could see that it was blank. Nancy and Bill. Jr., opened theirs at the same time,
and both beamed and laughed, turning around to the crowd and holding their slips of paper above
their heads.
"Tessie," Mr. Summers said. There was a pause, and then Mr. Summers looked at Bill
Hutchinson, and Bill unfolded his paper and showed it. It was blank.
"It's Tessie," Mr. Summers said, and his voice was hushed. "Show us her paper. Bill."
Bill Hutchinson went over to his wife and forced the slip of paper out of her hand. It had a black
spot on it, the black spot Mr. Summers had made the night before with the heavy pencil in the
coal company office. Bill Hutchinson held it up, and there was a stir in the crowd.
"All right, folks," Mr. Summers said. "Let's finish quickly."
Although the villagers had forgotten the ritual and lost the original black box, they still
remembered to use stones. The pile of stones the boys had made earlier was ready; there were
stones on the ground with the blowing scraps of paper that had come out of the box. Mrs.
Delacroix selected a stone so large she had to pick it up with both hands and turned to Mrs.
Dunbar. "Come on," she said. "Hurry up."
Mrs. Dunbar had small stones in both hands, and she said. gasping for breath, "I can't run at all.
You'll have to go ahead and I'll catch up with you."
The children had stones already, and someone gave little Davy Hutchinson few pebbles.
Tessie Hutchinson was in the center of a cleared space by now, and she held her hands out
desperately as the villagers moved in on her. "It isn't fair," she said. A stone hit her on the side of
the head.
Old Man Warner was saying, "Come on, come on, everyone." Steve Adams was in the front of
the crowd of villagers, with Mrs. Graves beside him.
"It isn't fair, it isn't right," Mrs. Hutchinson screamed and then they were upon her.
46
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Lottery” Positive/Negative Chart
With your group, choose five major events in the story. Plot whether the events are high points
or low points and justify your answers. You may have to choose to follow one character
throughout the story and decide whether the events are high or low according to that character.
You may use your imagination, just be sure that you can explain your answers to the class.
47
“The Lottery”
Rationale
I will use the Positive-Negative Chart for the second-draft reading strategy for “The Lottery.”
I think this strategy is fitting for this story because the consequences in the story are positive for
some and negative for others. Some characters change their minds during the story because what
was once a positive action for them, changes to a negative action when it affects their family.
The students would be able to chart the positive and negative actions throughout the story and
how they relate to the different characters. It will be interesting to see if the students plot the
final stoning as positive or negative.
48
A Rose for Emily
by William Faulkner
I
WHEN Miss Emily Grierson died, our whole town went to her funeral: the men through a sort of
respectful affection for a fallen monument, the women mostly out of curiosity to see the inside of
her house, which no one save an old man-servant--a combined gardener and cook--had seen in at
least ten years.
It was a big, squarish frame house that had once been white, decorated with cupolas and spires
and scrolled balconies in the heavily lightsome style of the seventies, set on what had once been
our most select street. But garages and cotton gins had encroached and obliterated even the
august names of that neighborhood; only Miss Emily's house was left, lifting its stubborn and
coquettish decay above the cotton wagons and the gasoline pumps-an eyesore among eyesores.
And now Miss Emily had gone to join the representatives of those august names where they lay
in the cedar-bemused cemetery among the ranked and anonymous graves of Union and
Confederate soldiers who fell at the battle of Jefferson.
Alive, Miss Emily had been a tradition, a duty, and a care; a sort of hereditary obligation upon
the town, dating from that day in 1894 when Colonel Sartoris, the mayor--he who fathered the
edict that no Negro woman should appear on the streets without an apron-remitted her taxes, the
dispensation dating from the death of her father on into perpetuity. Not that Miss Emily would
have accepted charity. Colonel Sartoris invented an involved tale to the effect that Miss Emily's
father had loaned money to the town, which the town, as a matter of business, preferred this way
of repaying. Only a man of Colonel Sartoris' generation and thought could have invented it, and
only a woman could have believed it.
When the next generation, with its more modern ideas, became mayors and aldermen, this
arrangement created some little dissatisfaction. On the first of the year they mailed her a tax
notice. February came, and there was no reply. They wrote her a formal letter, asking her to call
at the sheriff's office at her convenience. A week later the mayor wrote her himself, offering to
call or to send his car for her, and received in reply a note on paper of an archaic shape, in a thin,
flowing calligraphy in faded ink, to the effect that she no longer went out at all. The tax notice
was also enclosed, without comment.
They called a special meeting of the Board of Aldermen. A deputation waited upon her, knocked
at the door through which no visitor had passed since she ceased giving china-painting lessons
eight or ten years earlier. They were admitted by the old Negro into a dim hall from which a
stairway mounted into still more shadow. It smelled of dust and disuse--a close, dank smell. The
Negro led them into the parlor. It was furnished in heavy, leather-covered furniture. When the
Negro opened the blinds of one window, they could see that the leather was cracked; and when
they sat down, a faint dust rose sluggishly about their thighs, spinning with slow motes in the
single sun-ray. On a tarnished gilt easel before the fireplace stood a crayon portrait of Miss
Emily's father.
49
They rose when she entered--a small, fat woman in black, with a thin gold chain descending to
her waist and vanishing into her belt, leaning on an ebony cane with a tarnished gold head. Her
skeleton was small and spare; perhaps that was why what would have been merely plumpness in
another was obesity in her. She looked bloated, like a body long submerged in motionless water,
and of that pallid hue. Her eyes, lost in the fatty ridges of her face, looked like two small pieces
of coal pressed into a lump of dough as they moved from one face to another while the visitors
stated their errand.
She did not ask them to sit. She just stood in the door and listened quietly until the spokesman
came to a stumbling halt. Then they could hear the invisible watch ticking at the end of the gold
chain.
Her voice was dry and cold. "I have no taxes in Jefferson. Colonel Sartoris explained it to me.
Perhaps one of you can gain access to the city records and satisfy yourselves."
"But we have. We are the city authorities, Miss Emily. Didn't you get a notice from the sheriff,
signed by him?"
"I received a paper, yes," Miss Emily said. "Perhaps he considers himself the sheriff . . . I have
no taxes in Jefferson."
"But there is nothing on the books to show that, you see We must go by the--"
"See Colonel Sartoris. I have no taxes in Jefferson."
"But, Miss Emily--"
"See Colonel Sartoris." (Colonel Sartoris had been dead almost ten years.) "I have no taxes in
Jefferson. Tobe!" The Negro appeared. "Show these gentlemen out."
II
So SHE vanquished them, horse and foot, just as she had vanquished their fathers thirty years
before about the smell.
That was two years after her father's death and a short time after her sweetheart--the one we
believed would marry her --had deserted her. After her father's death she went out very little;
after her sweetheart went away, people hardly saw her at all. A few of the ladies had the temerity
to call, but were not received, and the only sign of life about the place was the Negro man--a
young man then--going in and out with a market basket.
"Just as if a man--any man--could keep a kitchen properly, "the ladies said; so they were not
surprised when the smell developed. It was another link between the gross, teeming world and
the high and mighty Griersons.
A neighbor, a woman, complained to the mayor, Judge Stevens, eighty years old.
50
"But what will you have me do about it, madam?" he said.
"Why, send her word to stop it," the woman said. "Isn't there a law? "
"I'm sure that won't be necessary," Judge Stevens said. "It's probably just a snake or a rat that
nigger of hers killed in the yard. I'll speak to him about it."
The next day he received two more complaints, one from a man who came in diffident
deprecation. "We really must do something about it, Judge. I'd be the last one in the world to
bother Miss Emily, but we've got to do something." That night the Board of Aldermen met--three
graybeards and one younger man, a member of the rising generation.
"It's simple enough," he said. "Send her word to have her place cleaned up. Give her a certain
time to do it in, and if she don't. .."
"Dammit, sir," Judge Stevens said, "will you accuse a lady to her face of smelling bad?"
So the next night, after midnight, four men crossed Miss Emily's lawn and slunk about the house
like burglars, sniffing along the base of the brickwork and at the cellar openings while one of
them performed a regular sowing motion with his hand out of a sack slung from his shoulder.
They broke open the cellar door and sprinkled lime there, and in all the outbuildings. As they
recrossed the lawn, a window that had been dark was lighted and Miss Emily sat in it, the light
behind her, and her upright torso motionless as that of an idol. They crept quietly across the lawn
and into the shadow of the locusts that lined the street. After a week or two the smell went away.
That was when people had begun to feel really sorry for her. People in our town, remembering
how old lady Wyatt, her great-aunt, had gone completely crazy at last, believed that the
Griersons held themselves a little too high for what they really were. None of the young men
were quite good enough for Miss Emily and such. We had long thought of them as a tableau,
Miss Emily a slender figure in white in the background, her father a spraddled silhouette in the
foreground, his back to her and clutching a horsewhip, the two of them framed by the back-flung
front door. So when she got to be thirty and was still single, we were not pleased exactly, but
vindicated; even with insanity in the family she wouldn't have turned down all of her chances if
they had really materialized.
When her father died, it got about that the house was all that was left to her; and in a way, people
were glad. At last they could pity Miss Emily. Being left alone, and a pauper, she had become
humanized. Now she too would know the old thrill and the old despair of a penny more or less.
The day after his death all the ladies prepared to call at the house and offer condolence and aid,
as is our custom Miss Emily met them at the door, dressed as usual and with no trace of grief on
her face. She told them that her father was not dead. She did that for three days, with the
ministers calling on her, and the doctors, trying to persuade her to let them dispose of the body.
Just as they were about to resort to law and force, she broke down, and they buried her father
quickly.
We did not say she was crazy then. We believed she had to do that. We remembered all the
young men her father had driven away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to
cling to that which had robbed her, as people will.
51
III
SHE WAS SICK for a long time. When we saw her again, her hair was cut short, making her
look like a girl, with a vague resemblance to those angels in colored church windows--sort of
tragic and serene.
The town had just let the contracts for paving the sidewalks, and in the summer after her father's
death they began the work. The construction company came with riggers and mules and
machinery, and a foreman named Homer Barron, a Yankee--a big, dark, ready man, with a big
voice and eyes lighter than his face. The little boys would follow in groups to hear him cuss the
riggers, and the riggers singing in time to the rise and fall of picks. Pretty soon he knew
everybody in town. Whenever you heard a lot of laughing anywhere about the square, Homer
Barron would be in the center of the group. Presently we began to see him and Miss Emily on
Sunday afternoons driving in the yellow-wheeled buggy and the matched team of bays from the
livery stable.
At first we were glad that Miss Emily would have an interest, because the ladies all said, "Of
course a Grierson would not think seriously of a Northerner, a day laborer." But there were still
others, older people, who said that even grief could not cause a real lady to forget noblesse
oblige- without calling it noblesse oblige. They just said, "Poor Emily. Her kinsfolk should come to her."
She had some kin in Alabama; but years ago her father had fallen out with them over the estate
of old lady Wyatt, the crazy woman, and there was no communication between the two families.
They had not even been represented at the funeral.
And as soon as the old people said, "Poor Emily," the whispering began. "Do you suppose it's
really so?" they said to one another. "Of course it is. What else could . . ." This behind their
hands; rustling of craned silk and satin behind jalousies closed upon the sun of Sunday afternoon
as the thin, swift clop-clop-clop of the matched team passed: "Poor Emily."
She carried her head high enough--even when we believed that she was fallen. It was as if she
demanded more than ever the recognition of her dignity as the last Grierson; as if it had wanted
that touch of earthiness to reaffirm her imperviousness. Like when she bought the rat poison, the
arsenic. That was over a year after they had begun to say "Poor Emily," and while the two female
cousins were visiting her.
"I want some poison," she said to the druggist. She was over thirty then, still a slight woman,
though thinner than usual, with cold, haughty black eyes in a face the flesh of which was strained
across the temples and about the eyesockets as you imagine a lighthouse-keeper's face ought to
look. "I want some poison," she said.
"Yes, Miss Emily. What kind? For rats and such? I'd recom--"
"I want the best you have. I don't care what kind."
The druggist named several. "They'll kill anything up to an elephant. But what you want is--"
52
"Arsenic," Miss Emily said. "Is that a good one?"
"Is . . . arsenic? Yes, ma'am. But what you want--"
"I want arsenic."
The druggist looked down at her. She looked back at him, erect, her face like a strained flag.
"Why, of course," the druggist said. "If that's what you want. But the law requires you to tell
what you are going to use it for."
Miss Emily just stared at him, her head tilted back in order to look him eye for eye, until he
looked away and went and got the arsenic and wrapped it up. The Negro delivery boy brought
her the package; the druggist didn't come back. When she opened the package at home there was
written on the box, under the skull and bones: "For rats."
IV
So THE NEXT day we all said, "She will kill herself"; and we said it would be the best thing.
When she had first begun to be seen with Homer Barron, we had said, "She will marry him."
Then we said, "She will persuade him yet," because Homer himself had remarked--he liked men,
and it was known that he drank with the younger men in the Elks' Club--that he was not a
marrying man. Later we said, "Poor Emily" behind the jalousies as they passed on Sunday
afternoon in the glittering buggy, Miss Emily with her head high and Homer Barron with his hat
cocked and a cigar in his teeth, reins and whip in a yellow glove.
Then some of the ladies began to say that it was a disgrace to the town and a bad example to the
young people. The men did not want to interfere, but at last the ladies forced the Baptist
minister--Miss Emily's people were Episcopal-- to call upon her. He would never divulge what
happened during that interview, but he refused to go back again. The next Sunday they again
drove about the streets, and the following day the minister's wife wrote to Miss Emily's relations
in Alabama.
So she had blood-kin under her roof again and we sat back to watch developments. At first
nothing happened. Then we were sure that they were to be married. We learned that Miss Emily
had been to the jeweler's and ordered a man's toilet set in silver, with the letters H. B. on each
piece. Two days later we learned that she had bought a complete outfit of men's clothing,
including a nightshirt, and we said, "They are married." We were really glad. We were glad
because the two female cousins were even more Grierson than Miss Emily had ever been.
So we were not surprised when Homer Barron--the streets had been finished some time since-was gone. We were a little disappointed that there was not a public blowing-off, but we believed
that he had gone on to prepare for Miss Emily's coming, or to give her a chance to get rid of the
cousins. (By that time it was a cabal, and we were all Miss Emily's allies to help circumvent the
cousins.) Sure enough, after another week they departed. And, as we had expected all along,
within three days Homer Barron was back in town. A neighbor saw the Negro man admit him at
the kitchen door at dusk one evening.
53
And that was the last we saw of Homer Barron. And of Miss Emily for some time. The Negro
man went in and out with the market basket, but the front door remained closed. Now and then
we would see her at a window for a moment, as the men did that night when they sprinkled the
lime, but for almost six months she did not appear on the streets. Then we knew that this was to
be expected too; as if that quality of her father which had thwarted her woman's life so many
times had been too virulent and too furious to die.
When we next saw Miss Emily, she had grown fat and her hair was turning gray. During the next
few years it grew grayer and grayer until it attained an even pepper-and-salt iron-gray, when it
ceased turning. Up to the day of her death at seventy-four it was still that vigorous iron-gray, like
the hair of an active man.
From that time on her front door remained closed, save for a period of six or seven years, when
she was about forty, during which she gave lessons in china-painting. She fitted up a studio in
one of the downstairs rooms, where the daughters and granddaughters of Colonel Sartoris'
contemporaries were sent to her with the same regularity and in the same spirit that they were
sent to church on Sundays with a twenty-five-cent piece for the collection plate. Meanwhile her
taxes had been remitted.
Then the newer generation became the backbone and the spirit of the town, and the painting
pupils grew up and fell away and did not send their children to her with boxes of color and
tedious brushes and pictures cut from the ladies' magazines. The front door closed upon the last
one and remained closed for good. When the town got free postal delivery, Miss Emily alone
refused to let them fasten the metal numbers above her door and attach a mailbox to it. She
would not listen to them.
Daily, monthly, yearly we watched the Negro grow grayer and more stooped, going in and out
with the market basket. Each December we sent her a tax notice, which would be returned by the
post office a week later, unclaimed. Now and then we would see her in one of the downstairs
windows--she had evidently shut up the top floor of the house--like the carven torso of an idol in
a niche, looking or not looking at us, we could never tell which. Thus she passed from generation
to generation--dear, inescapable, impervious, tranquil, and perverse.
And so she died. Fell ill in the house filled with dust and shadows, with only a doddering Negro
man to wait on her. We did not even know she was sick; we had long since given up trying to get
any information from the Negro
He talked to no one, probably not even to her, for his voice had grown harsh and rusty, as if from
disuse.
She died in one of the downstairs rooms, in a heavy walnut bed with a curtain, her gray head
propped on a pillow yellow and moldy with age and lack of sunlight.
V
54
THE NEGRO met the first of the ladies at the front door and let them in, with their hushed,
sibilant voices and their quick, curious glances, and then he disappeared. He walked right
through the house and out the back and was not seen again.
The two female cousins came at once. They held the funeral on the second day, with the town
coming to look at Miss Emily beneath a mass of bought flowers, with the crayon face of her
father musing profoundly above the bier and the ladies sibilant and macabre; and the very old
men --some in their brushed Confederate uniforms--on the porch and the lawn, talking of Miss
Emily as if she had been a contemporary of theirs, believing that they had danced with her and
courted her perhaps, confusing time with its mathematical progression, as the old do, to whom all
the past is not a diminishing road but, instead, a huge meadow which no winter ever quite
touches, divided from them now by the narrow bottle-neck of the most recent decade of years.
Already we knew that there was one room in that region above stairs which no one had seen in
forty years, and which would have to be forced. They waited until Miss Emily was decently in
the ground before they opened it.
The violence of breaking down the door seemed to fill this room with pervading dust. A thin,
acrid pall as of the tomb seemed to lie everywhere upon this room decked and furnished as for a
bridal: upon the valance curtains of faded rose color, upon the rose-shaded lights, upon the
dressing table, upon the delicate array of crystal and the man's toilet things backed with tarnished
silver, silver so tarnished that the monogram was obscured. Among them lay a collar and tie, as
if they had just been removed, which, lifted, left upon the surface a pale crescent in the dust.
Upon a chair hung the suit, carefully folded; beneath it the two mute shoes and the discarded
socks.
The man himself lay in the bed.
For a long while we just stood there, looking down at the profound and fleshless grin. The body
had apparently once lain in the attitude of an embrace, but now the long sleep that outlasts love,
that conquers even the grimace of love, had cuckolded him. What was left of him, rotted beneath
what was left of the nightshirt, had become inextricable from the bed in which he lay; and upon
him and upon the pillow beside him lay that even coating of the patient and biding dust.
Then we noticed that in the second pillow was the indentation of a head. One of us lifted
something from it, and leaning forward, that faint and invisible dust dry and acrid in the nostrils,
we saw a long strand of iron-gray hair.
55
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“A Rose For Emily” Silent Exchange
After reading a story, many times there are unanswered questions. On the sheet write two
questions that you have about the story. The first question is a “fact” question. This is
something that is not open to interpretation. An example of this type of question is, “What is
arsenic?” The second question is one that is open to interpretation. An example of this type of
question is, “What is the significance of the colors grey and yellow in the story?”
1.
2.
56
“A Rose for Emily”
Rationale
The collaborative strategy I chose to use is Silent Exchange.
This is a good activity because students are able to get an answer to something that he/she did
not understand in the story. Not only does the student get an answer to their own question, he/she
also gets to see other questions and answers that students wrote. By the time the activity is
finished, many questions about the story should be answered. This is also a good collaborative
strategy because it keeps students focused and efficient. Sometimes it might be necessary to
require students to focus on particular aspect of the story so that not every student is just asking
about plot, setting, etc.
57
The Scarlet Ibis
by James Hurst
It was in the clove of seasons, summer was dead but autumn had not yet been born, that the ibis lit in the
bleeding tree. The flower garden was stained with rotting brown magnolia petals and ironweeds grew
rank amid the purple phlox. The five o'clocks by the chimney still marked time, but the oriole nest in the
elm was untenanted and rocked back and forth like an empty cradle. The last graveyard flowers were
blooming, and their smell drifted across the cotton field and through every room of our house, speaking
softly the names of our dead. It's strange hat all this is still so clear to me, now that that summer has since
fled and time has had its way. A grindstone stands where the bleeding tree stood, just outside the kitchen
door, and now if an oriole sings in the elm, its song seems to die up in the leaves, a silvery dust.
But sometimes (like right now), as I sit in the cool, green-draped parlor, the grindstone begins to turn, and
time with all its changes is ground away--and I remember Doodle. Doodle was just about the craziest
brother a boy ever had. Of course, he wasn't a crazy crazy like old Miss Leedie, who was in love with
President Wilson and wrote him a letter every day, but was a nice crazy, like someone you meet in your
dreams.
He was born when I as six and was, from the outset, a disappointment. He seemed all head, with a tiny
body which was red and shriveled like an old man's. Everybody thought he was going to die. Daddy had
Mr. Heath, the carpenter, build a little mahogany coffin for him. But he didn't die, and when he was three
months old, Mama and Daddy decided they might as well name him. They named him William
Armstrong, which was like tying a big tail on a small kite. Such a name sounds good only on a tombstone.
I thought myself pretty smart at many things, like holding my breath, running, jumping, or climbing the
vines in Old Woman Swamp, and I wanted more than anything else someone to box with, and someone to
perch with in the top fork of the great pine behind the barn, where across the fields and swamps you could
see the sea. But Mama, crying, told me that even if William Armstrong lived, he would never do these
things with me. He might not, she sobbed, even be "all there."
It was bad enough having an invalid brother, but having one who possibly was not all there was
unbearable, so began to make plans to kill him by smothering him with a pillow. However, one afternoon
as I watched him, my head poked between the iron posts of the foot of the bed, he looked straight at me
and grinned. I skipped through the rooms, down the echoing halls, shouting, "Mama, he smiled. he's all
there! He's all there!" and he was. As long as he lay all the time in bed, we called him William
Armstrong, even though it was formal and sounded as if we were referring to one of our ancestors, but
with his creeping around on the deerskin rug and beginning to talk, something had to be done about his
name.
It was I who renamed him. When he crawled, he crawled backwards, as if he were in reverse and couldn't
change gears. If you called him, he'd turn around as if he were going in the other direction, then he'd back
right up to you to be picked up. Crawling backward made him look like a doodlebug, so I began to call
him Doodle, and in time even Mama and Daddy thought it was a better name than William Armstrong.
Yes. Renaming my brother was perhaps the kindest thing I ever did for him, because nobody expects
much for someone called Doodle. Although Doodle learned to crawl, he showed no signs of walking, but
he wasn't idle. He talked so much that we all quit listening to what he said.
It was about this time that Daddy built him a go-cart and I had to pull him around. If I so much as picked
up my cap, he's start crying to go with me and Mama would call from wherever she was, "Take Doodle
with you." He was a burden in many ways. The doctor had said that he mustn't get too excited, too hot,
too cold, or too tired and that he must always be treated gently. A long list of don'ts went with him, all of
58
which I ignored once we got out of the house. His skin was very sensitive, and he had to wear a big straw
hat whenever he went out. When the going got rough and he had to climb to the sides of the go-cart, the
hat slipped all the way down over his ears. He was a sight. Finally, I could see I was licked. Doodle was
my brother and he was going to cling to me forever, no matter what I did, so I dragged him across the
burning cotton field to share with him the only beauty I knew, Old Woman Swamp. His eyes were round
with wonder as he gazed about him, and his little hands began to stroke the rubber grass. Then he began
to cry.
"For heaven's sake, what's the matter?" I asked, annoyed.
"It's so pretty," he said. "So pretty, pretty, pretty."
After that day Doodle and I often went down into Old Woman Swamp. There is within me (and with
sadness I have watched it in others) a knot of cruelty borne by the stream of love, much as our blood
sometimes bears the seed of our destruction, and at times I was mean to Doodle. One day I took him up to
the barn loft and showed him his casket, telling him now we all had believed he would die. It was covered
with a film of Paris green sprinkled to kill the rats, and screech owls had built a nest inside it.
Doodle studied the mahogany box for a long time, then said, "It's not mine."
"It is," I said. "And before I'll help you down from the loft, you're going to have to touch it."
"I won't touch it," he said sullenly.
"Then I'll leave you here by yourself," I threatened, and made as if I were going down. Doodle was
frightened of being left.
"Don't go leave me, Brother," he cried, and he leaned toward the coffin. His hand, trembling, reached out,
and when he touched the casket he screamed. A screech owl flapped out of the box into our faces, scaring
us and covering us with Paris green. Doodle was paralyzed, so I put him on my shoulder and carried him
down the ladder, and even when we were outside in the bright sunshine, he clung to me, crying. "Don't
leave me. Don't leave me."
When Doodle was five years old, I was embarrassed at having a brother of that age who couldn't walk, so
I set out to teach him. We were down in Old Woman Swamp and it was spring and the sick-sweet smell
of bay flowers hung everywhere like a mournful song.
"I'm going to teach you to walk, Doodle," I said.
"I can't walk, Brother," he said.
"Who says so?" I demanded.
"Mama, the doctor--everybody."
"Oh, you can walk," I said, and I took him by the arms and stood him up. He collapsed onto the grass like
a half empty flour sack. It was as if he had no bones in his little legs. "I'm going to teach you to walk." It
seemed so hopeless from the beginning that it's a miracle I didn't give up. But all of us must have
something or someone to be proud of, and Doodle had become mine. I did not know then that pride is a
wonderful, terrible thing, a seed that bears two vines, life and death. Every day that summer we went to
the pine beside the stream of Old Woman Swamp, and I put him on his feet at least a hundred times each
afternoon.
59
Occasionally I too became discouraged because it didn't seem as if he was trying, and I would say,
"Doodle, don't you want to earn to walk?" He'd nod his head, and I'd say, "Well, if you don't keep trying,
you'll never learn." Then I'd paint for him a picture of us as old men, white-haired, him with a long white
beard and me still pulling him around in the go-cart. This never failed to make him try again.
Finally one day, after many weeks of practicing, he stood alone for a few seconds. When he fell, I
grabbed him in my arms and hugged him, our laughter pealing through the swamp like a ringing bell.
Now we know it could be done. Hope no longer hid in the dark palmetto thicket but perched like a
cardinal in the lacy toothbrush tree, brilliantly visible. "Yes, yes," I cried, and he cried it too, and the grass
beneath us was soft and the smell of the swamp was sweet.
At breakfast on our chosen day, when Mama, Daddy, and Aunt Nicey were in the dining room, I brought
Doodle to the door in the go-cart just as usual and head them turn their backs, making them cross their
hearts and hope to die if they peeked. I helped Doodle up, and when he was standing alone I let them
look. There wasn't a sound as Doodle walked slowly across the room and sat down at his place at the
table. Then Mama began to cry and ran over to him, hugging him and kissing him. Daddy hugged him
too, so I went to Aunt Nicey, who was thanks praying in the doorway, and began to waltz her around. We
danced together quite well until she came down on my big toe with her brogans, hurting me so badly I
thought I was crippled for life. Doodle told them it was I who had taught him to walk, so everyone
wanted to hug me, and I began to cry.
They did not know that I did it for myself; that pride, whose slave I was, spoke to me louder than all their
voices, and that Doodle walked only because I was ashamed of having a crippled brother. Within a few
months, Doodle had learned to walk well and his go-cart was put up in the barn loft (it is still there)
beside his little mahogany coffin.
Once I had succeeded in teaching Doodle to walk, I began to believe in my own infallibility, and I
prepared a terrific development program for him, unknown to Mama and Daddy, of course. I would teach
him to run, to swim, to climb trees, and to fight. He, too, now believed in my infallibility, so we set the
deadline for these accomplishments less than a year away, when, it had been decided, Doodle could start
school. On hot days, Doodle and I went down to Horsehead Landing, and I gave him swimming lessons
or showed him how to row a boat. Sometimes we descended into the cool greenness of Old Woman
Swamp and climbed the rope vines or boxed scientifically beneath the pine where he had learned to walk.
Promise hung about us like the leaves, and wherever we looked, ferns unfurled and birds broke into song.
So we came to that clove of seasons. School was only a few weeks away, and Doodle was far behind
schedule. He could barely clear the ground when climbing up the rope vines, and his swimming was
certainly not passable. We decided to double our efforts, to make that last drive and reach our pot of gold.
I made him swim until he turned red and his eyes became glazed. Once, he could go no further, so he
collapsed on the ground and began to cry.
"Aw, come on, Doodle," I urged. "You can do it. Do you want to be different from everybody else when
you start school?"
"Does it make any difference?"
"It certainly does," I said. "Now, come on," and I helped him up. As we slipped through dog days, Doodle
began to look feverish, and Mama felt his forehead, asking him if he felt ill. At night he didn't sleep well,
and sometimes he had nightmares, crying out until I touched him and said, "Wake up, Doodle. Wake up."
It was Saturday noon, just a few days before school was to start. I should have already admitted defeat,
but my pride wouldn't let me. The excitement of our program had now been gone for weeks, but still we
kept on with a tired doggedness. It was too late to turn back, for we had both wandered too far into a net
60
of expectations and had left no crumbs behind. Daddy, Mama, Doodle, and I were seated at the diningroom table having lunch. It was a hot day, with all the windows and doors open in case a breeze should
come. In the kitchen Aunt Nicey was humming softly. Suddenly, from out in the yard, came a strange
croaking noise. Doodle stopped eating, with a piece of bread poised ready for his mouth, his eyes popped
round like two blue buttons.
"What's that?" he whispered. I jumped up, knocking over my chair, and had reached the door when Mama
called, "Pick up the chair, sit down again, and say excuse me." By the time I had done this, Doodle had
excused himself and had slipped out into the yard.
He was looking up into the bleeding tree. "It's a great big red bird!" he called. The bird croaked loudly
again, and Mama and Daddy came out into the yard. We shaded our eyes with our hands against the hazy
glare of the sun and peered up through the still leaves. On the topmost branch a bird the size of a chicken,
with scarlet feathers and long legs, was precariously. Its wings hung down loosely, and as we watched, a
feather dropped away and floated slowly down through the green leaves. Doodle's hands were clasped at
his throat, and I had never seen him stand still so long.
"What is it?" he asked. At that moment the bird began to flutter, but the wings were uncoordinated, and
amid much flapping and a spray of flying feathers, it tumbled down, bumping through the limbs of the
bleeding tree and landing at our feet with a thud. Its long, graceful neck jerked twice into an S, then
straightened out, and the bird was still. A white veil came over the eyes and the long white beak
unhinged. Its legs were crossed and its clawlike feet were delicately curved at rest. Even death did not
mar its grace, for it lay on the earth like a broken vase of red flowers, and we stood around it, awed by its
exotic beauty.
"Go bring me the bird book," said Daddy. I ran into the house and brought back the bird book. As we
watched, Daddy thumbed through its pages. "It's a scarlet ibis," he said, pointing to a picture. "It lives in
the tropics--South America to Florida. A storm must have brought it here." Sadly, we all looked back at
the bird. A scarlet ibis! How many miles it had traveled to die like this, in our yard, beneath the bleeding
tree.
"Dead birds is bad luck," said Aunt Nicey, poking her head from the kitchen door. "Specially red dead
birds!"
As soon as I had finished eating, Doodle and I hurried off to Horsehead Landing. Time was short, and
Doodle still had a long way to go if he was going to keep up with the other boys when he started school.
The sun, gilded with the yellow cast of autumn, still burned fiercely, but the dark green woods through
which we passed were shady and cool. When we reached the landing, Doodle said he was too tired to
swim, so we got into a skiff and floated down the creek with the tide. Doodle did not speak and kept his
head turned away, letting one hand trail limply in the water.
After we had drifted a long way, I put the oars in place and made Doodle row back against the tide. Black
clouds began to gather in the southwest, and he kept watching them, trying to pull the oars a little faster.
When we reached Horsehead Landing, lightning was playing across half the sky and thunder roared out,
hiding even the sound of the sea. The sun disappeared and darkness descended. Doodle was both tired and
frightened, and when he stepped from the skiff he collapsed onto the mud, sending an armada of fiddler
crabs rustling off into the marsh grass. I helped him up, and as he wiped the mud off his trousers, he
smiled at me ashamedly. He had failed and we both knew it, so we started back home, racing the storm.
The lightening was near now, and from fear he walked so close behind me he kept stepping on my heels.
The faster I walked, the faster he walked, so I began to run. The rain was coming, roaring through the
pines, and then, like a bursting Roman candle, a gum tree ahead of us was shattered by a bolt of
61
lightening. When the deafening peal of thunder had died, and in the moment before the rain arrived, I
heard Doodle, who had fallen behind, cry out, "Brother, Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave me!"
The knowledge that Doodle's and my plans had come to naught was bitter, and that streak of cruelty
within me awakened. I ran as fast as I could, leaving him far behind with a wall of rain dividing us. The
drops stung my face like nettles, and the wind flared the wet glistening leaves of the bordering trees. Soon
I could hear his voice no more. I hadn't run too far before I became tired, and the flood of childish spite
evanesced as well. I stopped and waited for Doodle. The sound of rain was everywhere, but the wind had
died and it fell straight down in parallel paths like ropes hanging from the sky.
As I waited, I peered through the downpour, but no one came. Finally I went back and found him huddled
beneath a red nightshade bush beside the road. He was sitting on the ground, his face buried in his arms,
which were resting on his drawn-up knees. "Let's go, Doodle," I said.
He didn't answer, so I placed my hand on his forehead and lifted his head. Limply, he fell backwards onto
the earth. He had been bleeding from the mouth, and his neck and the front of his shirt were stained a
brilliant red. Doodle! Doodle! I cried, shaking him, but there was no answer but the ropy rain. He say
very awkwardly, with his head thrown far back, making his vermilion neck appear unusually long and
slim. His little legs, bent sharply at the knees, had never before seemed so fragile, so thin. I began to
weep, and the tear-blurred vision in red before me looked very familiar.
"Doodle!" I screamed above the pounding storm and threw my body to the earth above his. For a long
time, it seemed forever, I lay there crying, sheltering my fallen scarlet ibis from the heresy of rain.
62
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Scarlet Ibis” Word Scramble Prediction
Dead
bleeding tree
stained
rotting
rand
untenanted
Empty cradle
graveyard
brown
ironweeds
63
“The Scarlet Ibis”
Rationale
The first strategy I chose to use with “The Scarlet Ibis” is Word Scramble Prediction.
I chose to use this strategy because the first paragraph of the story is so important. The first
paragraph sets the tone of the story. It lets the reader know that the story will probably not have
a happy ending. The tone is very bleak and reminds the reader of death. The activity will allow
the students to look at the words that have been chosen and make predictions about what they
think might happen. While they may not get the plot of the story, they will be able to see the
mood and tone.
64
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Scarlet Ibis”
Using the Brake Pedal/Accelerator Pedal strategy, list the major events in the story and decide
whether these events are a brake pedal or accelerator pedal and the character to which it applies.
Justify your answers. You may use the following chart if you find it helpful.
Event
1.
BP - Brother
AC - Brother
2.
3.
4.
5.
Justification for above choices
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
65
BP - Doodle
AC - Doodle
“The Scarlet Ibis”
Rationale
The second strategy is the metaphor strategy, Brake Pedal, Accelerator Pedal.
This strategy fits perfectly with this story because of the choices that Brother and Doodle make
throughout the story. They both feed off each other. When one slows, the other seems to speed
up. The reader also learns that the speeding up of Brother actually slows down Doodle. This
activity will really help the students see how each other’s actions have a direct affect on the
other. It is like they are connected. It is very important to focus on how each character interacts
with the other character. This assignment will be very helpful for the final assignment.
66
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
“The Scarlet Ibis” Anchor Question
Anchor Question. “Is Brother a savior or murderer?” Using the discussions we had in class and
the Brake Pedal/Accelerator Pedal chart, write a well developed essay defending your decision
about Brother. Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
67
“The Scarlet Ibis”
Rationale
The third strategy that I chose to use with this short story is the reflection strategy Anchor
Question.
The final assignment that will go with this story will be writing an essay. The prompt for the
essay will be, “Is Brother a savior or murderer?” This strategy will help keep the students
focused on the reading. While they are reading, they can search for support in the story that will
back up whatever conclusion they make about Brother. By knowing the question beforehand,
the students are able to read for a purpose, not just read to understand plot.
68
Short Stories
Works Cited
Alexie, Sherman. "This is What it Means to Say Phoenix Arizona." .N.p.,
1994.Web. 28 Apr 2012. <http://courses.csusm .edu /ltwr325bc/
phoenix.html>.
Allen, Janet, and Arthur N. Applebee. Holt McDougal Literature "The lady or The
Tiger". Illinois : Holt McDougal, 2010. 706-716. Print.
Gallagher, Kelly. “Deeper Reading.” Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. Print.
Hurst, James. "Scarlet Ibis." Calapitter. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr 2012.
<http://www.calapitter.net/dead/39/scarlet_ibis.html>.
Jackson, Shirley. "The Lottery." Classic Short Stories. B&L Associates,
2007. Web. 28 Apr 2012. <http://www.classicshorts.com/ stories /lotry
.html>.
McMichael, George, ed. Concise Anthology of American Literature. Second. New
York : Macmillan Publishing Company, 1985. 1771-1777. Print.
69
Gunman Kills 7 in
By MALIA WOLLA http://w w w .nytim default
nytimes.com
12
April 3, 2012
The New York Tim
April 2, 2012
Gunman Kills 7 in a Rampage at a Northern
California University
By MALIA WOLLAN and NORIMITSU ONISHI
OAKLAND, Calif. — A former student opened fire on students and staff at a religious college here on Monday
morning, killing seven people and wounding at least three more, the authorities said.
Shortly after the shootings, the suspect, identified as One L. Goh, 43, of Oakland, was taken into custody outside a
Safeway grocery in Alameda, several miles from the scene of the attack. Police said he had turned himself in to a
Safeway employee after driving there in a vehicle he had commandeered from one of his victims.
The shooting occurred around 10:30 a.m. at Oikos University, a Christian college affiliated with a Korean-American
church, Praise to God Korean Church, and situated in a commercial and industrial area of East Oakland near Oakland
International Airport where there are many Korean-American businesses.
Oakland’s police chief, Howard Jordan, said at a news conference on Monday night that Mr. Goh had acted alone and
had used a handgun.
“Today’s unprecedented tragedy was shocking and senseless,” said Chief Jordan, who did not offer a motive for the
attack.
Mr. Goh had been a nursing student at the college but was not enrolled at the time of the shooting, the university’s
founder, Pastor Jong Kim, told The Oakland Tribune.
Jean Quan, the Oakland mayor, appearing at the news conference with the police and a representative of the Korean
consulate general, said most of the victims were Korean. Chief Jordan said Mr. Goh is a naturalized American citizen
from Korea.
“This is the kind of situation where we need to pull together to support the Korean community in particular,” Mayor
Quan said. “I hope we will put our arms around these people and this community.”
The police got the first word of the shootings at 10:33 a.m. and were on the scene in less than 10 minutes, Chief
Jordan said.
He described the scene as “very chaotic” and said the killer was believed to have been inside a classroom when he
started shooting.
70
Tashi Wangchuk, 38, a videographer from Richmond, Calif., said he had gone to the college after getting a call from
his wife, Dechen, a nursing student at Oikos.
“My wife called and said, in a hushed voice, ‘Call 911. There’s a shooting going on in here,’ ” he said. “She told me
someone came in with a gun and started shooting randomly.”
Mr. Wangchuk’s wife, who was crouching inside a classroom with other students, said the gunman had shot through
the door of the classroom before leaving, her husband said. On Monday afternoon, she was still inside the university
as the police locked down the area around the small college.
Relatives clustered outside the college, along a grassy median, trying to get word from the authorities about when
their children or spouses would be released. What appeared to be four bodies were laid out, under sheets, on the
median. The wounded had been taken away in ambulances.
“It’s just a sad day in my city whenever there’s a loss of life,” said Larry Reid, who is the president of the Oakland City
Council and represents the district where the shooting occurred. “There are just too many guns in the hands of people
who are not afraid to use them.”
Gov. Jerry Brown, a former Oakland mayor, said in a statement: “The tragic loss of life at Oikos University today is
shocking and sad. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, their families and friends, and the entire
community affected by this senseless act of violence.”
According to the college’s Web site, “Oikos University was launched to provide highest standard education with
Christian value and inspiration.” Oikos offers courses in music, nursing, English, Bible studies and other subjects. It
caters largely to Korean and Korean-American students.
Deborah Lee, 25, who studies English as a second language at the university, said she was inside a classroom Monday
morning. “I heard some gunshots and women screaming: ‘Somebody has a gun — run!’ ” Ms. Lee said.
She said she had heard five or six gunshots. “My teacher yelled, ‘Run, run,’ and we all ran outside.”
Ms. Lee said she had not seen the gunman. “I heard a pop, pop, pop sound and then girls screaming,” she said. Ms.
Lee said she believed that the shooting had occurred in the same building as her classroom.
She was frightened, she said, but added, “I’m a Christian, and I believe God protects me.”
Chief Jordan said the department would not release names of victims until next of kin had been notified and further
investigations had been conducted.
Malia Wollan reported from Oakland, and Norimitsu Onishi from San Francisco.
71
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Current Event – Shift Change
After reading the current event, fill out the following chart.
Shift Chart
Character(s) (may be person or object) ________________________________________
Early Traits
What Caused the Shift
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Later Traits
Current Event First-Draft Reading Rationale
The first-draft reading strategy that I chose to use with this article is Shift Charts.
When this gunman killed the people at the university, he affected a lot of people and the
university. The students would focus on the families, the university and the gunman before it
happened and after it happened. They may even discuss how it affects policies and procedures at
the university before and after. I think that this activity would help the students see how far
reaching the effects are. Not only did it affect individuals, it also affected entire communities.
Many people probably saw this as a safe, quiet place to attend school, now it is in the media
spotlight.
73
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Current Event – Anchor Questions
Using the article, “Gunman Kills 7 in a Rampage at a Northern California University”, discuss
how events like this have caused changes in security in almost all aspects of the world. You may
discuss schools, airports, sporting events, and anything else you may think of.
74
Current Event Reflection Strategy Rationale
A second strategy that I chose to use was the reflection strategy, Anchor Question.
The anchor question that I would assign for this reading is, “How do events like this create
change?” The students would have to think about other schools shootings such as Columbine
and Jonesboro, Arkansas in order to answer this question. Many of the students may not know
much about the other two shootings, so we would probably have to discuss them. Hopefully the
students will see many of the changes that have taken place in schools because of these tragedies.
Schools now have metal detectors, secure entrances, surveillance cameras, and stricter gun
control laws. Depending on the age of the students, the stricter security in schools may be the
only thing they know.
75
Originally published Wednesday, April 4, 2012 at 2:01 PM
Some cases being compared to Trayvon
Martin
Since the Trayvon Martin shooting, celebrities, civil rights activists and families have been using
the case to push for the resolution of what they say is a string of other injustices and incomplete
investigations involving minorities. While the circumstances of each are different, Martin's name
has been used to try to bring more attention to each case.
Since the Trayvon Martin shooting, celebrities,
civil rights activists and families have been using the case to push for the resolution of what they
say is a string of other injustices and incomplete investigations involving minorities. While the
circumstances of each are different, Martin's name has been used to try to bring more attention to
each case.
Here are a few of them:
- In Atlanta, 17-year-old Canard Arnold, who was black, was fatally shot in the back by a white
security guard who police say was caught in a gunfight between the teenager and another person
at an apartment complex neighboring the one he was looking after. Authorities and the guard,
Christopher Hambrick, said the Dec. 30 shooting was justified.
Arnold's family said Tuesday that he was running away after an altercation with another man
when he was shot, and that the teen did not confront or threaten the security guard. Arnold
family Christopher Chestnut said the case was "very Trayvon Martin-like" and referred to
Hambrick, as "a rogue, vigilante security guard."
That language is similar to what many have called neighborhood watch volunteer George
Zimmerman, who said he shot Martin in self-defense. Zimmerman has not been charged.
76
Hambrick emphatically dismissed any parallels.
"Canard Arnold was not Trayvon Martin. ... I'm not like Zimmerman. I know when to use my
gun."
Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard said Hambrick fired because he believed he was
being shot at. He also said that Arnold died with a weapon just inches away from his hand,
indicating that it was likely he had been armed.
"At this time, it appears to us the actions of the security guard were justified," Howard said. "If
subsequent evidence reveals intentions to the contrary ... the district attorney's office will be led
by the facts."
- In New York City, an unarmed teenager was fatally shot by police during a drug investigation.
Police said they chased 18-year-old Ramarley Graham from the street into his second-floor home
and an officer shot him in the bathroom, mistakenly believing the teen had a gun, as his
grandmother and 6-year-old brother stood nearby. A bag of marijuana was found in the toilet,
suggesting Graham was trying to flush it away before the gunfire erupted. No weapon was
found.
The three officers involved have been stripped of their guns and badges and placed on desk duty
while the district attorney investigates. A grand jury will decide whether to charge the officers.
"The demonization of young, black men of color must stop," City Council member Letitia James
said.
- In White Plains, N.Y., an online petition is seeking further investigation into the case of
Kenneth Chamberlain, a 68-year-old black Marine veteran fatally shot in November by police
officers. The man's son said officers responding to a false alarm on Chamberlain's medic alert
bracelet used a racial slur before breaking into the apartment and shooting him.
The police commissioner said Chamberlain was emotionally disturbed and came at officers with
a knife, withstood a stun gun and bean bags fired at him and had to be shot. The Chamberlain
family's attorney said they have been promised a full investigation.
"Certainly given the explosion of attention on Trayvon, there's been an increased interest in this
case," attorney Randolph McLaughlin said. "But I have to say the Kenneth Chamberlain case is
unique."
--Associated Press writers Colleen Long in New York; Jim Fitzgerald in White Plains, N.Y., and
Errin Haines in Atlanta contributed to this report.
77
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Themes Spotlight
There are many types of discriminations in the world. Today and tomorrow we will go to the
computer lab and let your search for various articles about discrimination. You need to come up
with three different types of discrimination, print the article and write a brief description about
how this is discrimination. Also in your paragraph, address how this affects you.
78
Current Event - Focusing Rationale
I chose to do the focusing strategy, Theme Spotlights.
This strategy focuses on one major theme that is prevalent throughout the article. This article is
just one of many articles about the teenager who was shot in Florida. After this shooting, the
accusations of racism were brought to the forefront. The shooter was Hispanic and the teenager
was African American. Since this shooting happened, as this article states, other similar cases
are starting to emerge. The subject of racism is all over the news. Rallies in support of this
student are popping up around the country which is bringing even more attention to the racial
divide that still exists.
79
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Current Event – Positive/Negative Chart
While reading this current event, think of positives and negatives that come to light. While it
may appear that not many positive events happen, there could possibly some positive events that
happen because of this tragedy.
Positive Event
Rationale
Negative Event
80
Rationale
Current Event – Second Draft Reading Rationale
The second strategy that I chose for this article is the second-draft reading strategy, PositiveNegative Chart.
While there are not any positives that come from a teenager being shot, it does bring some
issues to the forefront. People need to be aware of their appearance. Many first impressions are
made by the way people dress. This is very important for students to realize. They need to know
that how they present themselves can either affect them positively or negatively. A negative that
comes from this article is the heightened image of racial discrimination. Many people are
assuming that the entire incident was racially motivated; therefore, people are on the defensive.
Whether that is the truth or not, people are just assuming that. Many people also assume that the
suspect was not arrested because the teenager was black.
81
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Current Event
Trouble Slip: On the following chart identify areas where you had trouble with comprehension
or questions that arose while reading. This must be complete before you come to class
tomorrow.
Trouble Spot 1:
Trouble Spot 2:
Trouble Spot 3:
Trouble Spot 4:
Trouble Spot5:
Trouble Spot 6:
82
Current Event Collaborative Strategy Rationale
A third strategy that I chose to use with this article is the collaborative strategy, Trouble Slips.
After reading the article and talking about the event, the students will be given an opportunity to
write down items that they do not fully understand. This activity would probably involve a lot of
discussion, so ground rules would have to be set about treating others with respect. Students
should be allowed to ask questions without retaliation. Not everyone is going to see the situation
in the same light, so everyone has to be respectful of other opinions. This article may not be
suitable for younger students. It would probably be safe with high school students because they
are more mature.
83
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Current Event – Square Peg/Round Hole
Many times in life people do not fit into the round hole that society has created. They are
considered a square peg. In this current event, the victim did not fit into the round hole that the
neighborhood had created. List some of the characteristics that made the victim seem like a
square peg. Name the round hole and then show how he was a square peg. Be prepared to
discuss how this relates to a more global picture such as school or society in general.
Round Hole
Square Peg
84
Current Event Metaphor Strategy Rationale
The fourth strategy that I decided to use for this article is the metaphor strategy, Square Peg,
Round Hole.
This strategy fits this article because that is the reason the shoot claims he shot the teenager.
According to the shooter, Trayvon looked like an outcast in the neighbor that he was walking
through. He had on a hoodie and saggy pants. The shooter claimed that he was a threat, but in
reality he was unarmed. The reason he was a “Square Peg” was because he did not look like
others in the neighborhood. From this article, I could easily make a jump to differences that are
in schools. This could lead to discussions about bullying, stereotyping and harassment.
85
Current Events
Works Cited
Gallagher, Kelly. “Deeper Reading.” Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. Print.
"Some Cases Being Compared to Trayvon Martin." The Seattle Times. Seattle
Times Newspaper, 04 April 2012. Web. 28 Apr 2012.
<http://seattletimes.nwsourc.com.html/nationworld/2017910384_apusneighb
orhoodwatchothercases.html>.
Wollan, Malia, and Norimitsu Onishi. "Gunman Kills 2 in a Rampage at a
Northern California University." The New York Times. New York Times
Magazine, 02 April 2012. Web. 28 Apr 2012. <http://nytimes.com
/2012/04/03/us/fatal-shootings-at-oikos-university-in-oakland-calif.html>.
86
Romeo and Juliet
http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html
87
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Anticipation Guide for Romeo and Juliet
Before Reading
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
After Reading
Teenagers can truly fall in
love.
Love at first sight is
possible.
It is important to always
keep secrets.
Violence is an acceptable
way to solve problems.
Children should always
respect their parent’s rules.
Parents should have a say
so in whom you date or
marry.
Adults always know better.
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Being a patient person will
pay off in the end.
You should always be
truthful with your parents
no matter what.
88
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The focusing strategy that I am using with Romeo and Juliet is the Anticipation Guide.
I will use this strategy because it will help the students focus on the issues in the play. The
questions that I create will focus on the main themes presented in the play. They will read these
questions before we begin reading and rate their belief about each question. By using these
questions as previews to the work, they will already have some knowledge about the topics that
will be discussed about reading. By referring back to the same questions after reading, the
students will be able to see if their opinions stayed the same or changed.
89
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Character Chart for Romeo and Juliet
Character
Montague
Capulet
Neutral
Romeo
Juliet
Friar
Lawrence
Lord/Lady
Montague
Lord/Lady
Capulet
Mercutio
Benvolio
Relationship
of the
character
Strength of
the
character
Weakness
of the
character
Defining
moment of
the
character
Essential
question for
the
character
Symbol for
the
character
90
Tybalt
Nurse
Prince
Escalus
Paris
Balthasar
Rosaline
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The first-draft reading strategy that I will use with this play is Character Charts.
The purpose of this strategy is to get the students to focus on the reading. Many times students
struggle with reading a play because there are so many characters. This chart will help the
students identify the important characters in the play and how they relate to each other. In this
play it is sometimes hard for students to remember which family the characters belong to. It is
important to know which character fits with the respective families because it drives the action of
the play. While they do not have to identify all the characters in the play, they do need to know
the ones who help progress the action of the play.
91
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Literary Dominoes in Romeo and Juliet
On a poster board, you will create a domino train that will depict the action in the play. You may
choose any formation that you choose. You may have curves, forks, dead ends, whatever works
for you. The one element that you need to keep in mind is, would the dominoes fall if you were
using real dominoes? Use the following example to get you started.
Romeo is
heartbroken over
Rosaline
Romeo reads the
invitation to the
party
Romeo decides
to go to party
Romeo meets
Juliet and kisses
her
Romeo finds out
Juliet is a Capulet
92
Juliet finds out
Romeo is a
Montague
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The second-draft reading strategy that I will use with this play is Literary Dominoes.
This strategy is fitting for this play because of the domino effect that happens throughout the
play. Each significant event that happens in this play is a result of prior action. This will help the
students visualize how everything happens. If one important piece of the domino train is
missing, they will not all fall. There will be gaps in the train. This can be a helpful tool for
students who are visual learners and need to see all the action lined up one event right after the
other. It will also help them see the relationships between the characters and how each
characters decision affects the others in the play.
93
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Romeo and Juliet Mystery Envelopes
On index cards, I will write questions and put them in an envelope. Each group will draw an
envelope and they need to answer the question on the card. Each group will share their answer
with the group.
What effect does the accelerated time
frame have on the events of the play? Why?
How would the play have been different
with a longer time frame?
Describe how Tybalt’s emotions advance
the action of the play. What changes
would have occurred if he had been more
level headed?
How do Romeo and Juliet and their
relationships with their parents compare to
the relationships that parents and children
of today have?
There were many deaths in this play. Tell
all the characters who died and why. What
impact did each death have on the play?
What question would your group like to
pose to other groups?
What question would your group like to
pose to other groups?
94
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The collaborative strategy that I will use with Romeo and Juliet is Mystery Envelopes.
In order to check for understanding, I need to be able to see that the students can answer
questions that I have posed. Since some students may not understand the material as well as
others, having the students work in groups develops a better understand for all. Another twist on
this could be for the students to write a question to students in another class. Maybe they could
try to see if they could stump one another. Perhaps if one group goes with their question
unanswered, then they win a prize or a few points on the test.
95
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Backdrop, Props
As discussed, the scenes and props in Shakespeare’s plays were minimal due to many factors. If
you were the director of this play, design three backdrops that could be used to produce the entire
play. Your sets need to be versatile enough to be used more than once. You also need to choose
five props that could be used in a variety of ways in order for the actors to be able to meet the
needs of their parts.
Below you need to give a rough outline of the backdrops you will design, what scenes they will
be used in and what props will be necessary for each scene and act.
96
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The metaphor strategy that I will use is Backdrop,Props.
Since Romeo and Juliet is a play, it is fitting to use a strategy that is about creating scenes. In
this play, there are several different scenes. Each class could choose three to four backdrops and
props that they think would be important to understanding the play. Each class would have to
discuss why they chose that backdrop and prop and why it is important to the understanding of
the play. This would also reach the students who are more creative. They may really have some
great ideas that they could share with the class.
97
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Casting Call
Fill in the chart below with people you would cast in each roll. You must be able explain why
you chose each person for each role. You must look deeper that just looks. You must explain a
particular person is qualified to play each role.
Character
Actor/Actress
Rationale
Romeo
Juliet
Friar Lawrence
Mercutio
Nurse
Tybalt
Capulet
Lady Capulet
Montague
Lady Montague
Paris
Benvolio
Prince Escalus
Balthasar
98
Romeo and Juliet
Rationale
The reflection strategy that I will use is Casting Call.
Once again I chose this strategy because it directly relates to theater. This is probably a strategy
that I would use with higher level students because they have to truly understand the dynamics of
the characters and the people they will cast. They have to be sure to cast people in certain roles
because of the qualities they possess that most directly relate to the characters in the play. Many
times higher level students are able to separate themselves from the emotional side of
assignments and not get offended. Some students might get offended if they were cast as a “bad
character”, but the higher level students would be able to explain why they cast the people the
way they did. They can be more objective about the assignment.
99
Play
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. "Romeo and Juliet." Romeo and Juliet. N.p., n.d.
Web. 28 Apr 2012. <http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo _juliet / full.html>.
Gallagher, Kelly. “Deeper Reading.” Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. Print.
100
West Side Story
Directors: Jerome Robbins, Robert Wise
Stars: Natalie Wood, George Chakiris, and Richard Beymer
Release Date: 1961
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc
Medium: Crime, Drama, Musical
Where to order: Amazon.com
101
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Word Scramble Prediction
Using the words listed below, write a prediction of how the words go together. Be prepared to
share your prediction with the class.
Gang
New York
Family
Dancing
Singing
Sharks
Jets
Love
Death
Teens
Fighting
Tragedy
102
West Side Story
Rationale
The focus strategy that I would use with this movie is Word Scramble Prediction.
I would put a series of words on the board that related to the movie such as gang, musical, New
York, dancing, fighting, kissing, racial tension, family, etc. Some students may have a hard time
connecting gang and dancing. From these words, the students need to come up with a prediction
about the connection among the words. Since we would watch this film right after reading
Romeo and Juliet, some of them may get the connection between the two works. It would be
interesting to see what type of predictions the students come up with.
103
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Character Chart for Romeo and Juliet/West Side Story
Character
Romeo
Juliet
Friar
Lawrence
Lord/Lady
Montague
Lord/Lady
Capulet
Mercutio
Benvolio
WWS
character
Relationship
of the
character
Strength of
the
character
Weakness
of the
character
Defining
moment of
the
character
Essential
question for
the
character
Symbol for
the
character
104
Tybalt
Nurse
Prince
Escalus
Paris
Balthasar
Rosaline
West Side Story
Rationale
The first-reading strategy that I will use with the students is Character Chart.
Since the final assignment after the movie will be to compare and contrast Romeo and Juliet and
West Side Story, I will give the students a chart with the characters from Romeo and Juliet to use
while watching the movie. This chart will help them focus on the similarities and the differences
between the two works. It will help with character identification, plot development and theme.
This activity will help the students stay engaged in the film and not get distracted by the musical
elements of the play. Some students would probably focus on the fact that gangs are dancing
instead of seeing which characters align with the Montagues and which align with the Capulets.
105
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Responsibility Pie Chart
Who should be responsible for the events that led to ending in West Side Story? Consider all the
characters and groups who play a part in the action. Draw a pie chart and assign a percentage of
responsibility to each person/group. The chart must equal 100%. Be prepared to share your
decisions about the percentages you assigned to each group.
106
West Side Story
Rationale
The second-draft reading strategy that I will use is Responsibility Pie Charts.
I chose this strategy because many different characters are responsible for the actions in the
movie. The chart that the students create will help them realize that almost everyone was
responsible for what happened. The interesting aspect of this assignment will be to see how
much blame each person places on each character. These choices will probably coincide with
each student’s personal beliefs. It will be interesting to see the differences from student to
student and if the charts are similar or very different. Differences may also happen from class to
class depending on the discussion that happened in each class.
107
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Save the Last Word for Me
Choose a scene from the movie West Side Story that you thought was very important or a scene
that should have been left out. On the sheet provide write the scene. Be prepared to discuss
why you chose this scene. Why was it important or why did it need to be left out?
108
West Side Story
Rationale
The collaborative strategy that I will use with West Side Story is Save the Last Word for Me.
Instead of choosing a passage in a novel that was thought-provoking, the students would choose
a scene in the movie that either was moving or unnecessary. Sometimes movies are great just the
way they are or sometimes the director needed to leave out a certain scene. There are also times
that nobody understands the purpose of a scene at all. This will give the students a chance to
discuss what worked, what did not, and what could have made it better. I have a feeling the
students will focus on leaving out the musical aspects.
109
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
Archery Target
Using the target below, place a character’s corresponding number on the target below to
represent how close they came to achieving their goal in the novel. On the space below, identify
ten characters, their goal and their level of achievement.
Character
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Goal
Level of Achievement
110
West Side Story
Rationale
The metaphor strategy that I will use with this movie is Archery Target.
I chose this strategy because the students can analyze whether a character served a purpose. The
students would choose a certain number of characters in the movie and describe their purpose.
Was their function to help the main character, to interfere with the main character, etc? After
they tell what the function of each character was, they have to decide where they would place the
character on the archery target. Did the character achieve the goal of the role or completely miss
the target. Was their character needed in the movie or not?
111
Name_______________
Date _______________
Period______________
West Side Story Anchor Question
Using all the information you have including assignments, notes, and class discussions, write a
well developed essay. The topic of the essay is, “How are Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story
alike and different. Use evidence from the text and film to support your claims.
112
West Side Story
Rationale
The reflection strategy that I would use with this movie is Anchor Question.
The purpose of showing the students the movie West Side Story is to see how it parallels Romeo
and Juliet. The anchor question that I would pose to the students is “How are West Side Story
and Romeo and Juliet alike and different?” The students would have to support their claims with
evidence from the play and the movie. For most students this will be an easy assignment
because the similarities and differences are obvious. At the same time, it gives the students a
good opportunity to write about two works that are different mediums.
113
Film
Works Cited
Gallagher, Kelly. “Deeper Reading.” Comprehending Challenging Texts, 4-12.
Portland: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. Print.
114
Comprehension Instruction in Content Area Classes
Before Reading
Neufeld, Paul. “Comprehension Instruction in Content Area Classes.” The Reading Teacher
59.4 (2005): 302-312. Print.
The journal, “Comprehension Instruction in Content Area Classes,” expresses many strategies
that can be used throughout reading. The Journal mainly focuses on clarifying the purpose for
reading and what strategies to provide to your students with to get them engaged. Neufeld
explains many before reading strategies such as, question asking and answering, clarifying a
purpose for reading, over viewing the text, activating prior knowledge relevant to the text, and
making predictions about this text. The getting ready to read strategies “… help students
comprehend texts more effectively by helping them think about what they are going to read
before they start reading.” By the students making predictions about what they are going to read,
it will help them stay more engaged to see if their predictions are correct.
Goal: My goal of before-reading strategies is to help students understand the importance of
maximizing their comprehension to text.
There are two main strategies I would use for pre-reading. The first one would be clarifying the
purpose for reading. Most students go into reading assignments not knowing what the point of it
is. By helping students understand why they are reading a particular text, may help engage their
focus. The second strategy I would use is over viewing the text. By giving the students a brief
understanding of what they are going to read, will help determine a relevance to the purpose for
reading. The only knowledge that the students will have of the text thus far is the title. By giving
students the opportunity to guess what the reading is about engaged their attention.
Link to article:
http://www.tc.edu/rwp/articles/Comprehension/Teaching%20Ideas-Strategy%20Instruction%20Middle-High%20School/RT-Content%20Area-Neufeld.pdf
115
Literacy and Language as Learning in Content-Area Classes
During Reading
Fisher, Douglas, and Gay Ivey. “ Literature and Language as Learning in Content-Area
Classes: A departure From “Every Teacher a Teacher of Reading”” Action in Teacher
Education 27.2 (2003): 3-17. Print.
In the Journal “ Literature and Language as Learning in Content-Area
Classes: A departure From “Every Teacher a Teacher of Reading,” the authors express the
importance of content literacy, as well as strategies to help students dissect the complex text.
One concept that Douglas Fisher brings to the reader’s attention is how Read-Alouds help
students comprehend a more difficult text than if they were reading it themselves. By teachers
reading aloud it gives the students a model to pursue reading and gives them a better
understanding of the aligned text. Another strategy that is discussed in this journal is writing
while reading. Students find reading more interesting when they can relate a character to their
own personal life. So by the reader jotting down events that happen to the character throughout
the story, it will give them a deeper meaning and relation to the text, as well as help the students
stay engaged.
Goal: For students to learn how to dissect complex texts with strategies while reading.
In my classroom I would use the strategy writing while reading. As students are reading, they
can forget what they are reading over the duration of the novel. By students writing down key
events throughout the novel, they can reflect on what they have previously read. In addition, if
students already know the end assignment associated with the text, they can take notes to help
them with this assignment. For example, if students have to write about themes throughout the
piece of literature, they can take notes on how the themes develop. When students write about
what they are reading, they will often remember more about what they read.
Link to article:
http://www.sandi.net/cms/lib/CA01001235/Centricity/Domain/101/RTI/Literacy%20and%20Lan
guage%20as%20Learning%20in%20Content-Area%20Classes.pdf
116
Walking the Walk
After Reading
Piper, Laurie Elish, and Susan K. L'Allier. "“Walking the Walk” With Teacher Education
Candidates: Strategies for Promoting Active Engagement With Assigned Readings." Journal of
Adolescent & Adult Literacy,. 50.5 (2007): 338-353. Print.
In the Journal “Walking the Walk,” goes in great depth to explain the importance of student engagement
while reading the text and understand what was read. The authors explain several strategies that will keep
the students engaged, such as, Alpha Boxes, Making Connection, Double Entry-Journals, and Text
Coding. All of these strategies are great for during and after reading. Laurie Piper and Susan L’Allier are
strong believers in “By engaging with text, they are thinking as read, which results in strong
comprehension.” Throughout the article the authors give prime examples of how to keep students
engaged to have a deeper comprehension of the assigned text.
Goal: For students to mentally stay engaged throughout the text, so they can understand what is being
read and be able to summarize the reading.
From the four strategies that were discussed throughout “Walking the Walk,” I would use the Alpha
Boxes. The Alpha Box requires students to find a deeper meaning to the text than just words written on
paper. They are required to identify concepts, connections and examples that correspond to each letter of
the alphabet. Because the students have to find meaning with each letter, they must think beyond the first
couple of words that pop into their head and require deeper thoughts, also revisiting the text. The process
of the Alpha box is a post-reading strategy that helps connect prior knowledge and enrich the student’s
comprehension.
Link to article:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=49e17ec8-319b-4693-bf2dd4dc35fd792a%40sessionmgr11&vid=2&hid=12
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