Week 9
October 29th, 2013
Story & Comprehension Questions
from
Barrio Boy
by Ernesto Galarza
What is prose?
• Prose is the ordinary form of written
language.
• Most writing that is not poetry, drama,
or song is considered prose.
• Prose is one of the genres, or forms, of
literature and occurs both in fiction and
nonfiction.
Narrator - a person who tells the story
Characters - the people living the story
Dialogue - the conversations that the
characters have
Events - make up the action in the story
Ernesto Galarza
1905 - 1984
• At eight, migrated to Sacramento, California
• worked as a farm laborer
• became one of the 1st poor Mexican-Americans to complete college
• M.A. from Stanford in 1929
• Ph.D. in history from Columbia University in 1944
• Returned to California
• organized unions for farm laborers
• joined effort to create the 1st multiracial farm worker union.
• failed but created the foundation for the United Farm Workers Union of
the 1960s.
• wrote the 1964 Merchants of Labor, on the exploitation of Mexican contract
workers, and the 1971 Barrio Boy, about his own childhood
• nominated for Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976.
from
Barrio Boy
by Ernesto Galarza
What is a
Barrio?
A barrio is a part of a
town or city where most
of the people are
Hispanic.
Open books to page 70
page 70
Look carefully at the expression on this boy’s
face.
• What emotions do you think he is feeling?
• Does this picture convey the emotions
that a child might feel as he enrolls in a
new school?
• Why?
What is a narrator?
It is the person telling the story
Who is the narrator of this work?
The author is the narrator.
1st person or 3rd person?
It is written from the 1st person point of view.
How do you know?
He is telling a story about himself because he
uses the words I, me, we and us.
Why does Ernesto Galarza discuss
the differences between Lincoln
School and his school in
Mazatlan?
He wants you to understand how
insecure he feels in the new school in the
new country.
Where do the narrator and his mother go?
The boy and his mother have gone to
his new school.
Where are they?
They have entered the office of Miss
Nettie Hopley, the school principal.
Why does Miss Hopley have
another boy come to her meeting
with Ernesto and his mother?
Ernesto and his mother do not
speak English
What words describe how young Ernesto is
feeling during the days at school in this
country?
Secure
Afraid
(when his mother is
there)
(when his mother
leaves)
What happens that makes Ernesto’s
feeling start to change?
His feelings begin to change when begins to be able to read
and speak English.
He stops being afraid and decides he really likes Miss Ryan.
What details in selection #8 on page 73
help you appreciate the importance of the
author’s actual experience?
The teacher feels such devotion to her students that
she gives some of them private lessons in a closet.
She keeps an eye on the rest of the class while
focusing on teaching a few students in the closet.
The teacher is very dedicated to teaching English.
On the first day of school, Miss
Ryan’s smile is reassuring to
Ernesto. How does she make
him feel?
She makes him feel confident.
Which students get private lessons
with Miss Ryan?
The first graders who do not know English
have private lessons with Miss Ryan.
What have you learned about
Ernesto’s classmates?
They come from many different
backgrounds and speak different
languages.
How does Miss Ryan
help Ernesto overcome
his fear of her?
She helps him learn English and
encourages him in front of the class.
How does Miss Ryan encourage
the students she tutors privately?
She praises their accomplishments
in front of the class.
What do the details in the
paragraph at the top of page
74 tell about each character in
the narrative?
The details reveal the nationalities of the
children and the physical characteristics
of a couple of the children.
What makes Ernesto similar to
several of his classmates?
There are other students in the class
that do not speak English.
Think again about the difficulties a
child might face when moving from
another country to the U.S.
Are your original ideas similar to the
events in the story?
What new ideas did you learn?
Page 74
Answer questions 1-4 in complete
sentences in your notebook.
Complete by the end of class and
show teacher to receive your
classwork credit.