UNIT 8
2
The
BIG
Question
What Is the
American Dream?
“
I have learned that if
one advances confidently
in the direction of his
dreams, and endeavors to
live the life he or she has
imagined, he will meet
with a success unexpected
in common hours.
”
—Henry David Thoreau
American Writer (1817–1862)
Bill Ross/CORBIS
LOOKING AHEAD
The skill lessons and readings in this unit will help you develop your own answer
to the Big Question.
UNIT 8 WARM-UP • Connecting to the Big Question
GENRE FOCUS: Historical Text
I Have a Dream . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1057
by Martin Luther King Jr.
READING WORKSHOP 1
Skill Lesson: Analyzing
Volar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1068
by Judith Ortiz Cofer
from The Century for Young People . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1076
by Alfred Levitt
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 1
Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082
READING WORKSHOP 2
Skill Lesson: Understanding Cause and Effect
Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1090
by Ellen Goodstein
The Gettysburg Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1098
by Abraham Lincoln
READING WORKSHOP 3
Skill Lesson: Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
I Chose Schooling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1106
by Jacqueling Nwaiwu
The Electric Summer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1114
by Richard Peck
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 2
Letter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1128
READING WORKSHOP 4
Skill Lesson: Identifying Author’s Purpose
I, Too . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1136
by Langston Hughes
from Dandelion Wine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1142
by Ray Bradbury
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Coming to America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1155
by Joe McGowan, Marisa Wong, Vickie Bane, and Laurie Morice
Coming to America . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1162
by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
UNIT 8 WRAP-UP • Answering the Big Question
1053
UNIT 8
WARM-UP
Connecting to
What Is the
American Dream?
The American dream means many things to many different people. One
thing that many people agree on is that the American dream means that
every person is free to achieve all that he or she is capable of. And every
person should be recognized for who he or she is regardless of social
class or ethnic background. In this unit, you’ll read about different people
and what the American dream means to them.
Real Kids and the Big Question
YURI and his family moved here from a country outside the
United States. His family had been displaced because of wars
in their county. Now Yuri and his family live in an apartment
near the school. Yuri and his sisters and brothers have made
many new friends. They are learning all about American culture. If you asked Yuri what the American dream means to
him, what do you think he would say?
ALEXANDRA was not at all sure that
she wanted to attend the new magnet
school. But she took the test and
was admitted. She knows that
getting a good education
can help her achieve her
goals. Her parents always
tell her that if she stays
in school, she can
accomplish anything. If
you ask Alexandra what
the American dream
means to her, what do
you think she would say?
Warm-Up Activity
In a small group, discuss what you think the American dream
means to you, Yuri, and Alexandra. Then discuss ways in which you
hope to achieve your American dream.
1054 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
(l)Corbis, (r)Doug Martin
UNIT 8 WARM-UP
You and the Big Question
Reading about how other people define the American dream will
help you think about how you would answer the Big Question.
Plan for the Unit Challenge
At the end of the unit, you’ll use notes from all your reading to
complete the Unit Challenge, which will explore your answer to the
Big Question.
Link
to Web resources to further
explore the Big Question at
www.glencoe.com.
You’ll choose one of the following activities:
A. The American Dream Newsletter Work in groups to write, design, and
produce a newsletter about people who achieve their American dreams.
B. An American Dream Spokesperson Write a short biography or speech, or
create a poster to honor your American dream spokesperson.
• Start thinking about which activity you’d like to do so that you can focus your
thinking as you go through the unit.
• In your Learner’s Notebook, write your thoughts about which activity you’d like
to do.
• Each time you make notes about the Big Question, think about how your ideas
will help you with the Unit Challenge activity you chose.
Keep Track of Your Ideas
As you read, you’ll make notes about the Big Question. Later, you’ll
use these notes to complete the Unit Challenge. See pages R8–R9 for
help with making Foldable 8. This diagram shows how it should look.
1. Use this Foldable for all of the selections in
this unit. Label the stapled edge with the
unit number and the Big Question.
2. Label each flap with a title. (See page 1053
for the titles.)
3. Open each flap. Near the top of the page,
write My Purpose for Reading. Below the
crease, write The Big Question.
Warm-Up
1055
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS:
HISTORICAL TEXT
Skillss Focus
• Keyy skills for reading
his
istorical text
is
•K
Key literary elements of
historical text
SSkills Model
Have you ever imagined what it might have been like to live in North
America before Europeans arrived, or during the Gold Rush in the West?
These times and places can be explored through a variety of historical
writings. Historical text can take many different forms including speeches,
autobiographies, biographies, and stories. It can be nonfiction or fiction.
Nonfiction historical text gives a factual account of past events, places, and
people. Historical fiction combines fact and fiction in a story set in the past.
Why Read Historical Text?
Historical text allows you to understand the problems and issues that
people faced in the past. Often this knowledge sheds light on the problems
of our own time, and helps us better understand the choices we face.
You will see how to use the
key reading skills and literary
elements as you read
How to Read Historical Text
• “I Have a Dream,” p. 1057
Key Reading Skills
These key reading skills are especially useful tools for reading and understanding historical text. You’ll learn more about these skills later in the unit.
■ Analyzing As you read a selection, think about how its parts work
together. Think about what the author is saying. Look at how the main
ideas are organized. (See Reading Workshop 1.)
■ Understanding Cause and Effect As you read, look for what makes
something happen. (See Reading Workshop 2.)
■ Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details Find the most
important idea in a paragraph or in a selection. Look for examples,
reasons, or details that help you know it’s the most important idea. (See
Reading Workshop 3.)
■ Identifying Author’s Purpose As you figure out the author’s purpose,
you can evaluate his or her point of view. (See Reading Workshop 4.)
Key Literary and Text Elements
Objectives (pp. 1056–1063)
Reading Read historical text
• Analyze text • Identify text
structure: cause and effect
• Identify main idea and
supporting details • Identify
author’s purpose
Informational text Identify text
element: chronological order
Literature Identify literary
elements: style, cultural reference
• Identify literary devices:
metaphor
Recognizing and thinking about the following literary and text elements will
help you understand historical texts more fully.
■ Chronological order: the order in which events happen in time
(See The Century for Young People.)
■ Style: an author’s personal way of using language (See “The
Gettysburg Address.”)
■ Cultural reference: the mention of a value, belief, tradition, or
custom practiced in a certain culture (See “I Chose Schooling.”)
■ Metaphor: a figure of speech that compares two unlike things without
using the words like and as (See “I, Too.”)
1056 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
by Martin Luther King Jr.
I
am happy to join with you today in what will go
down in history as the greatest demonstration for
freedom in the history of our nation.1
Fivescore years ago, a great American, in whose
symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the
Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous2 decree
came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro
slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering
injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long
night of their captivity. 1
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free;
one hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly
crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of
discrimination; 3 one hundred years later, the Negro lives
on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean
of material prosperity; one hundred years later, the Negro
is still languished4 in the corners of American society
and finds himself in exile in his own land. 2
So we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful
condition. In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to
1. King gave this speech at the March for Jobs and Freedom in Washington, D.C., on
August 28, 1963. The crowd was estimated at between 250,000 and 400,000 people.
2. One score is twenty, so fivescore is one hundred. King is echoing Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address, which begins with “fourscore and seven years ago.” Momentous
(moh MEN tus) means “extremely important.”
Historical Text
ACTIVE READING MODEL
1 Key Text Element
Cultural Reference The
references to Lincoln and
the end of slavery would
have had special significance to King’s audience.
2 Key Text Element
Chronological Order To
make the order very clear,
King uses signal words—
”fivescore years ago” in the
previous paragraph and
“one hundred years later”
repeatedly here.
3. Manacles (MAN uh kuls) are handcuffs. Segregation is the practice of separating
people because of their race or skin color. Discrimination is unfair treatment, especially
because of people’s race or skin color.
4. King uses languished (LANG wishd) to mean something like “suffering from neglect.”
1057
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
ACTIVE READING MODEL
cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the
magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration
of Independence, they were signing a promissory note5 to
which every American was to fall heir. This note was the
promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white
men, would be guaranteed the unalienable6 rights of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 3 4
It is obvious today that America has defaulted7 on this
promissory note in so far as her citizens of color are
concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation,
America has given the Negro people a bad check; a check
which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” We
refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the
great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve
come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon
demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot8 to remind
America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to
engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the
tranquilizing drug of gradualism.9 Now is the time to
make real the promises of democracy; now is the time to
rise from the dark and desolate10 valley of segregation to
the sunlit path of racial justice; now is the time to lift our
nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid
rock of brotherhood; now is the time to make justice a
reality for all God’s children. It would be fatal for the
nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This
sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent
will not pass until there is an invigorating11 autumn of
freedom and equality. 5
5. A promissory note is a written promise to pay a certain amount of money to someone
at a future date.
6. Unalienable rights, according to the Declaration of Independence, are rights that may
not be taken away.
7. Defaulted means “failed to do what was required.”
8. King spoke from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, a place many people consider holy
(hallowed).
9. Gradualism is the process of trying to bring about social change gradually, or slowly.
10. Desolate (DES uh lit) means “without comfort.”
11. Sweltering means “very hot and humid,” and invigorating means “bringing new life
and energy.” King is talking about more than just seasonal changes.
1058 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
3 Key Reading Skill
Identify Author’s Purpose King
makes his purpose clear when
he says he’s “come to dramatize
a shameful condition”—America’s
failure to live up to its promise of
equality for African Americans.
4 Key Literary Elements
Style; Metaphor Figurative language, including metaphors, are
a part of King’s style. Here he
introduces the check and promissory note metaphors and then
explains them in the final sentence and next paragraph.
5 Key Literary Elements
Style; Cultural Reference
References to literature are
another element of King’s style.
Here, “summer of . . . discontent”
echoes the phrase “winter of our
discontent” in Richard III by
William Shakespeare.
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
King Mural, 1986. Don Miller. District of Columbia Public Library.
Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning.
And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow
off steam and will now be content, will have a rude
awakening if the nation returns to business as usual.
There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America
until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The
whirlwinds of the revolt will continue to shake the
foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice
emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people,
who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the
Genre Focus: Historical Text
The King Mural” by Don Miller © District of Columbia Public Library”
1059
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful
place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us
not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking
from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever
conduct our struggle on the high plain of dignity and
discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to
generate into physical violence. Again and again we must
rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with
soul force; and the marvelous new militancy,12 which has
engulfed the Negro community, must not lead us to a
distrust of all white people. For many of our white
brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have
come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our
destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom
is inextricably13 bound to our freedom. We cannot walk
alone. And as we talk, we must make the pledge that we
shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. 6
There are those who are asking the devotees of Civil
Rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be
satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the
unspeakable horrors of police brutality; we can never be
satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of
travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways
and the hotels of the cities; we cannot be satisfied as long
as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a
larger one; we can never be satisfied as long as our
children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of
their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”; we
cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro in Mississippi
cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has
nothing for which to vote. No! no, we are not satisfied,
and we will not be satisfied until “justice rolls down like
waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.14” 7 8
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here
out of great trials and tribulations.15 Some of you have
come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come
12. Militancy (MIH luh tun see) refers to being ready to fight for a cause.
13. Inextricably (ih nik STRIH kuh blee) means “in a way that cannot be separated.”
14. This line is from the Old Testament’s book of Amos.
15. Tribulation (trih byuh LAY shun) is a great misery or distress.
1060 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
ACTIVE READING MODEL
6 Key Reading Skill
Determining Main Idea There
are two main ideas in this
paragraph. One is that African
Americans must use peaceful
methods to achieve freedom.
The other is that white people
who deny freedom to others
are victims of their own
ignorance and prejudice.
7 Key Reading Skill
Identifying Cause and Effect
King states one effect (dissatisfaction) and ties it to a number
of causes (police brutality and
so on).
8 Key Literary Element
Style Another key part of
King’s style is repetition. The
repetition gives the speech
emotional power, just as it does
in poems, song lyrics, and
music.
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
from areas where your quest
for freedom left you battered
by the storms of persecution
and staggered by the winds
of police brutality. You have
been the veterans of creative
suffering. Continue to work
with the faith that unearned
suffering is redemptive.16 Go
back to Mississippi. Go back
to Alabama. Go back to South
Carolina. Go back to Georgia.
Go back to Louisiana. Go
back to the slums and ghettos
of our Northern cities,
knowing that somehow this
situation can and will be
changed. Let us not wallow17
in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my
friends, so even though we
face the difficulties of today
and tomorrow, I still have a
dream. It is a dream deeply
rooted in the American
dream. I have a dream that
one day this nation will rise
At the Lincoln Memorial, the crowd listens as TV cameras capture King’s speech.
up and live out the true
meaning of its creed, “We hold
these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created
equal.” I have a dream that one day on the red hills of
Georgia, sons of former slaves and the sons of former
slave owners will be able to sit down together at the
table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day even
the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat
of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will
be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice. I
have a dream that my four little children will one day
16. If something is redemptive (rih DEMP tiv), it brings rescue or freedom.
17. In this context, to wallow is to become or remain helpless.
Genre Focus: Historical Text
FPG
1061
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
ACTIVE READING MODEL
live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color
of their skin, but by the content of their character. 9
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama—
with its vicious racists, with its Governor having his
lips dripping with the words of interposition and
nullification18—one day right there in Alabama, little
black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with
little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.
I have a dream today!
I have a dream that one day “every valley shall be
exalted19 and every hill and mountain shall be made low.
The rough places will be made plain and the crooked
places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord
shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.”20
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the
South with. With this faith we shall be able to transform
the jangling discords21 of our nation into a beautiful
symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able
to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to
go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together,
knowing that we will be free one day. And this will be
the day. This will be the day when all of God’s children
will be able to sing with new meaning, “My country ’tis
of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where
my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every
mountain side, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be
a great nation, this must become true. 10
So let freedom ring from the prodigious22 hilltops
of New Hampshire; let freedom ring from the mighty
mountains of New York; let freedom ring from the
heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania; let freedom
ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado; let
freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.
18. George Wallace, Alabama’s then-governor, opposed all efforts to end official segregation
in his state. Interposition and nullification are legal arguments regarding a state’s
right to reject or refuse to enforce federal laws.
19. Something that is exalted is raised in status, dignity, power, or glory.
20. This passage is taken from the Old Testament’s book of Isaiah.
21. Discords are disagreements or conflicts.
22. Here, prodigious (pruh DIJ us) means “enormous.”
1062 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
9 Key Reading Skill
Analyzing At the climax,
or high point, of his speech,
King offers his dream for a
better America.
10 Key Literary Element
Cultural Reference Earlier,
King quoted from the King
James Bible. Here, building
up to a powerful conclusion,
he quotes a patriotic song.
Finally, at the end of the
speech, he borrows from
another song to connect
with his audience.
UNIT 8 GENRE FOCUS
But not only that. Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain
of Georgia; let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain
of Tennessee; let freedom ring from every hill and
molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let
freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom
to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every
hamlet, from every state and every city; we will be able to
speed up that day when all God’s children, black men
and white men, Jews and gentiles,23 Protestants and
Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words
of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last. Free at last.
Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.” 11 ❍
23. People who are not Jews are known as gentiles (JEN tyls).
ACTIVE READING MODEL
11 Key Reading Skill
Identifying Cause and
Effect This is really a prediction of cause and effect.
King says that if we achieve
equality for African
Americans, the effect will
be that we are all free.
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook, jot down some of the
images you thought were full of power. How do you think these images
might have affected the people in the crowd when King spoke? Explain
your answer.
Partner Talk With a partner, discuss whether King’s dream for
America has been fulfilled since he gave this speech. Work together to
come to one conclusion and give reasons for it.
Study Central Visit www.glencoe.com and click on Study
Central to review historical text.
Genre Focus: Historical Text
Bob Adelman/Magnum Photos
1063
READING WORKSHOP 1
Skills Focus
You will practice using these skills when you
read the following selections:
• “Volar,” p. 1068
• from The Century for Young People, p. 1076
Reading
Skill Lesson
Analyzing
Learn It!
• Analyzing
Informational Text
• Understanding imagery
• Understanding chronological
order
Vocabulary
• Learning about English as a
changing language
Writing/Grammar
• Using words correctly:
misused and confused
words
icate.
n of King Features Synd
Reprinted with permissio
Objectives (pp. 1064–1065)
Reading Read historical text
• Analyze text
1064 UNIT 8
Reprinted with permission of King Features Syndicate.
A police detective analyzes a crime scene, searching
for clues. A medical researcher analyzes a cancer
cell, looking for a cure. A football coach analyzes last
week’s game, wanting to help the team improve. A
student analyzes a grammar assignment, intending
to master the topic and get a good grade.
When you analyze, you think critically. You think
about the various elements of an object or situation
in order to better understand the whole. What does
that mean for reading? It means you question what
you read. You break down a subject into separate
parts to determine its meaning. You demonstrate
awareness of a writer’s technique and craft.
Analyzing Cartoons
Hagar wants the guys to analyze their
battle behavior so they can improve.
What answer does one soldier give?
Is his answer a good analysis?
Why or why not?
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Why Is It Important? In today’s world, we’re offered loads of information about all sorts of subjects. To help make sense of it all, people need
critical thinking skills so that they can make smart, informed decisions.
Learning to analyze information is a good way to develop those critical
thinking skills. Analyzing helps you look critically at a piece of writing to
discover its theme or message.
Study Central Visit www.glencoe
.com and click on Study Central to
review analyzing.
How Do I Do It? Start by thinking about the author’s background, traditions, attitudes, and beliefs. To analyze fiction, think about what the author is
saying through the characters, setting, and plot. For example, look at a character’s words, actions, and purposes. Then use the knowledge you gain to better
understand the character’s behavior at other points of the story and the story
as a whole.
To analyze nonfiction, look at the organization, main ideas, and supporting
details. Here are some of the comments one student made in analyzing
Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
It’s important that King spoke at the Lincoln Memorial.
It makes the point that Americans gave high honor to
Lincoln but treated African Americans as second-class
citizens. King says that right up front.
He creates images that just stick in your head.
Freedom is a “beacon light of hope.” Injustice is “searing
flames.” The promise of freedom is a “bad check.”
I also like his references to the Bible, Declaration of
Independence, and even “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” He
makes me think about what the words really mean. He
makes me want to make those words be true.
Practice It!
Below are some things to look for as you analyze the selections in this
workshop. In your Learner’s Notebook, jot down thoughts that occur to you
as you read this list.
• the powers of super heroes
• the importance of oral history
• the importance of family origins • what America means to immigrants
Use It!
As you analyze “Volar” and The Century for Young People, refer to
your notes to help yourself focus on the important elements.
Reading Workshop 1 Analyzing
John Evans
1065
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Before You Read
Volar
Vocabulary Preview
Ju d
i t h O r t iz C o fer
Meet the Author
Judith Ortiz Cofer learned
English only after her family
moved to the U.S. mainland
from the island of Puerto
Rico. Her writing reflects the
split between her two childhood homes. She has written,
“The memories of [childhood
and my parents] emerge in
my poems and stories like
time-travelers popping up
with a message for me.” See
page R1 of the Author Files
for more on Cofer.
Author Search For more about
Judith Ortiz Cofer, go to www
.glencoe.com.
Objectives (pp. 1066–1071)
Reading Analyze text • Make connections
from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements:
sensory imagery
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
avid (AV id) adj. very eager or enthusiastic (p. 1068) The ranger, an avid
hiker himself, was happy to share trail information with park visitors.
recurring (rih KUR ing) adj. happening or coming back again; repeating
(p. 1068) It’s a recurring problem that must be solved once and for all.
adolescence (ad uh LES uns) n. the period between childhood and adulthood (p. 1070) In adolescence, people begin to develop their abilities.
abruptly (uh BRUPT lee) adv. suddenly; unexpectedly (p. 1071) Our discussion ended abruptly when the fire alarm went off.
refuse (REF yooz) n. trash; rubbish (p. 1071) During the garbage workers’
strike, great bags of refuse piled up on the street.
Partner Talk With a partner, use each vocabulary word in a separate
sentence. Then write one sentence that uses all five words correctly.
English Language Coach
English as a Changing Language There are living languages and dead
ones. Latin, the language of the Roman Empire, is dead. No one uses it
now in everyday life. In contrast, English is a living language. To stay alive,
a language drops words and meanings that are no longer needed or
wanted. It borrows words from other languages, from slang, and from culture. A living language invents terms to deal with new technologies. As an
example, see how the word program developed new meanings to keep up
with culture and technology.
Program
1 (1633) n.
2
n.
3 (1896) v.
4
n.
5
n.
6 (1940s) n.
7
v.
8
v.
Group Program In a group, brainstorm words and meanings that you think
are recent additions to English. Look closely at words related to technology
(computer) and culture (hip-hop) or borrowed from other languages (adios).
1066 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Miriam Berkley
a printed public notice or announcement
a printed outline of the order of a public performance
to arrange or provide a program for a performance
the performance of a program, especially on radio or TV
a plan or system for action toward a goal
the coded instructions for a computer or other machine
to write the instructions for a computer or other machine
to control as if by a program
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Analyzing
Connect to the Reading
Before you read the selection, reflect on what you
know about
• the feeling of flying in a dream
• sacrifices parents make for their families
Imagine that you had long dreamed of coming to the
United States for a better life. Then imagine that, after
being here for a time, you find it’s not what you had
hoped for. Or you miss your homeland and want to
go back. As you read “Volar,” imagine why the narrator’s parents brought the family to the United States
and how they felt about being here.
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook,
describe some of your thoughts on the topics above.
Literary Element: Imagery
An image may be a picture or statue, a copy, something reflected in a mirror, or something seen in the
mind. Imagery is language that appeals to any or all
of the senses—not just sight. Imagery helps readers
hear, feel, smell, and taste, as well as see, what is
described in a written text.
Imagery isn’t necessarily just a description. For example, the narrator of “Volar” wants to emphasize how
much she loved comic books as a child and to tell
how large her collection was. Using imagery, she says
that she had a stack of comics “as tall as I.”
As you read, use these tips to help you learn about
imagery:
• Look for language that paints a picture you can see
in your mind.
Stop and see the picture; then reread the words that
created that image for you.
• Look for language that activates your other senses—
hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting.
Reread the words and think about which specific
words bring these senses to mind.
Small Group Chat In a small group, talk about a
time when you hoped or wished or dreamed for something and what happened when it came true. Was it
the way you imagined it? Was it really what you were
wishing for? Take turns sharing your experiences.
Build Background
“Volar” is from a collection of stories and poems
called The Year of Our Revolution. This story is not
necessarily about Judith Ortiz Cofer and her family,
but it could be.
• In the 1960s, many Puerto Rican families came to
the mainland in search of better opportunities.
• In 1964 when the author was twelve, her family
moved to Paterson, New Jersey, an industrial town
very different from Puerto Rico. Cofer’s mother
never adjusted well to American city life.
• Comic books were a cheap and popular form of
entertainment for kids growing up in the 1960s.
• The Spanish verb volar means “to fly.”
Set Purposes for Reading
Read “Volar” to see how two
members of the same family see the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the selection to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your own purpose on the “Volar”
page of Foldable 8.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
Volar
1067
READING WORKSHOP 1
by Judith Ortiz Cofer
A
t twelve I was an avid consumer of comic books—
Supergirl being my favorite. I spent my allowance of a quarter
a day on two twelve-cent comic books or a double issue for
twenty-five. I had a stack of Legion of Super Heroes and
Supergirl comic books in my bedroom closet that was as tall
as I. I had a recurring dream in those days: that I had long
blonde hair and could fly. In my dream I climbed the stairs to
the top of our apartment building as myself, but as I went up
each flight, changes would be taking place. Step by step I
would fill out: my legs would grow long, my arms harden
into steel, and my hair would magically go straight and turn
a golden color. Of course, Supergirl had to be aerodynamic
and sleek and hard as a supersonic missile.1 Once on the roof,
my parents safely asleep in their beds, I would get on tip-toe,
arms outstretched in the position for flight, and jump out of
my fifth-story-high window into the black lake of the sky. 1
From up there, over the rooftops, I could see everything, even
1. To be aerodynamic (air oh dy NAM ik) is to be able to move through the air easily. To be
supersonic is to be faster than the speed of sound.
Vocabulary
avid (AV id) adj. very eager or enthusiastic
recurring (rih KUR ing) adj. happening or coming back again; repeating
1068 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
TRI-STAR/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
Practice the Skills
1
Literary Element
Imagery This paragraph has
imagery that appeals to the
senses of sight and touch (feeling). Here’s a sampling:
• arms harden into steel
• hair turns golden
• sky described as black lake
READING WORKSHOP 1
beyond the few blocks of our barrio; 2 with
my x-ray vision I could look inside the
homes of people who interested me.
Once I saw our landlord, whom I knew
Visual Vocabulary
my parents feared, sitting in a treasureThe ermine is a
room dressed in an ermine coat and a large
small, furry animal of
the weasel family. Its
gold crown. He sat on the floor counting his
fur makes luxurious
dollar bills. I played a trick on him. Going
and expensive coats.
up to his building’s chimney, I blew a little
puff of my super-breath into his fireplace, scattering his
stacks of money so that he had to start counting all over
again. 2
I could more or less program my Supergirl dreams in those
days by focusing on the object of my current obsession.3 3
2. In the United States, barrio refers to a city neighborhood in which most people are Hispanic.
3. An obsession is an idea or feeling, especially an unreasonable one, that takes over a person’s
thoughts.
Practice the Skills
2
Key Reading Skill
Analyzing Why do the narrator’s parents fear the landlord?
3
English Language Coach
A Changing Language What
does program mean here? (If
you need help, review the table
on page 1066.)
Analyzing the Photo Look at the facial expression of the
teenager in this photo. In what way do you think she is
similar to the narrator?
Volar
(t)blickwinkel / Alamy, (b)Alyson Aliano/Getty Images
1069
READING WORKSHOP 1
Supergirl, 1984. Tristar. Movie still.
Analyzing the Photo The narrator wants certain qualities. Which of those qualities are
shown in this picture from the movie Supergirl?
This way I saw into the private lives of my neighbors, my
teachers, and in the last days of my childish fantasy and the
beginning of adolescence, into the secret rooms of the boys I
liked. In the mornings I’d wake up in my tiny bedroom with
its incongruous4 —at least in our tiny apartment—white
“princess” furniture my mother had chosen for me, and find
myself back in my body; my tight curls still clinging to my
head, my skinny arms and legs unchanged. 4
4. Something that’s incongruous (in KAHN groo us) is out of place or not working in harmony
with something else. Here, the narrator feels her fancy furniture is out of place.
Vocabulary
adolescence (ad uh LES uns) n. the period between childhood and adulthood
1070
UNIT 8
Content Mine International/Alamy
What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
4
Literary Element
Imagery Notice how the narrator describes herself in the last
clause. How does this picture of
her compare with the image of
her as Supergirl?
READING WORKSHOP 1
In the kitchen my mother and father would be talking
softly over a café con leche.5 She would come “wake me”
exactly forty-five minutes after they had gotten up. It was
their time together at the beginning of each day, and even at
an early age I could feel their disappointment if I interrupted
them by getting up too early. So I would stay in my bed
recalling my dreams of flight, perhaps planning my next
flight. In the kitchen they would be discussing events in the
barrio. Actually, my father would be carrying that part of the
conversation; when it was her turn to speak she would, more
often than not, try shifting the topic toward her desire to see
her familia on the Island: How about a vacation in Puerto Rico
together this year, querido? We could rent a car, go to the
beach. We could . . . And he would answer patiently, gently:
Mi amor, do you know how much it would cost for all of us to
fly there? It is not possible for me to take the time off . . . Mi
vida,6 please understand . . . And I knew that soon she would
rise from the table. Not abruptly. She would look out the
kitchen window. The view was of a dismal alley that was
littered with refuse thrown from windows. The space was
too narrow for anyone larger than a skinny child to enter
safely, so it was never cleaned. My mother would check the
time on the clock over her sink, the one with a prayer for
patience and grace written in Spanish. A birthday gift. She
would see that it was time to wake me. She’d sigh deeply and
say the same thing the view from her kitchen window always
inspired her to say: “Ay, si yo pudiera volar.7” 5 6 ❍
Practice the Skills
5
Reviewing Elements
Conflict What is the main
conflict between the mother
and father? What are some possible ways this conflict might be
resolved?
6
5. Café con leche (kuh FAY kohn LAY chay) is Spanish for “coffee with milk.”
6. Familia (fah MEEL ee uh) is Spanish for “family,” querido (kay REE doh) means “darling,” mi
amor (mee ah MOR) means “my love,” and mi vida (mee VEE dah) means “my life.” Here, mi
vida is used the same way as “darling” and “my love.”
7. The mother says “Oh, if I could fly.”
Vocabulary
How do the mother’s wish and
the daughter’s dream reflect
one another? Write your answer
on the “Volar” page of Foldable
8. Your response will help you
answer the Unit Challenge later.
abruptly (uh BRUPT lee) adv. suddenly; unexpectedly
refuse (REF yooz) n. trash; rubbish
Volar
1071
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
After You Read
Volar
Answering the
1. How do you think the narrator’s mother would answer the question
“What is the American dream?”
2. Recall Who was the narrator’s favorite comic-book hero?
T IP Right There
3. Recall According to the narrator, why does her mother want to fly to
Puerto Rico?
T IP Right There
4. Describe In your own words, describe the view from the kitchen window of the apartment.
T IP Think and Search
Critical Thinking
5. Contrast What clues are there that the mother and father might have
different attitudes toward their life in the United States? Support your
answer with details from the story.
T IP Author and Me
6. Draw Conclusions The title is a Spanish word, and the father and
mother use Spanish words and phrases several times. Yet the narrator
never uses Spanish to describe her own thoughts and dreams. What do
you think accounts for the difference?
T IP Author and Me
7. Analyze Each of the three characters expresses at least a thought
about flying. What do you think flying represents to each person?
Explain your answers, using details from the story to support your ideas.
T IP Author and Me
Objectives (pp. 1072–1073)
Reading Analyze text • Make connections
from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements:
sensory imagery
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Respond to literature:
descriptive essay
Grammar Misused words
1072
UNIT 8
Write About Your Reading
Descriptive Writing Imagine that you’re a superhero in real life.
What powers do you have, and what do you do with them? Write a few
paragraphs describing
• your superhero self
• your most important superpowers
• how you use your powers
What Is the American Dream?
TRI-STAR/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Analyzing
8. Why does the narrator use one of her superpowers to “play a trick” on the landlord?
Literary Element: Imagery
9. List an image from the selection that appeals to
each one of the five senses.
10. Explain this image from the first paragraph: “the
black lake of the sky.” How is the sky like a lake
in the narrator’s dream? Why is it black?
Grammar Link:
Misused Words
English contains a number of confusing words, including the troublesome ones below. Some words are misused because they have slightly different meanings.
Others are misused even though they have very
different meanings.
between: used to talk about two people or things
• Choose between styles.
among: used to talk about groups of three or more
• Distribute the suits among the seven stores.
Reviewing Elements: Conflict
less: refers to a amount that you can’t count
• There is less milk in that glass.
11. What is the narrator’s main conflict in this story?
Is it internal or external? Support your answer.
fewer: refers to an amount that can be counted
• I made fewer mistakes in this paragraph.
Vocabulary Check
Choose the best word from the list to complete each
sentence below.
avid recurring adolescence abruptly refuse
in Europe and didn’t
12. She spent most of her
live in the United States until she was twenty.
13. Don’t throw your litter on the highway! No one
else wants your
!
14. Before finishing her meal, she stood up and
left the room.
15. Nathan has every album the Beatles made; he’s
been an
fan for decades.
16. In this
nightmare, I’m always in bare feet,
even in snow and freezing temperatures.
17. English Language Coach About when did
people begin to use program as a verb? Find the
answer in the chart on page 1066.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
bring: to carry from a distant place to a closer one
• We bring goods into this country.
take: to carry from a closer place to a distant one
• They take goods to other countries.
leave: to go away
• I will leave on a camping trip.
let: to allow
• Let them bring a snack.
set: to place or to put
• They set our books on the desk.
sit: to place oneself in a seated position
• Let’s sit here and talk about your problem.
Grammar Practice
Rewrite each sentence, filling in the correct word.
18. He evenly distributed the books (between, among)
the four new students.
19. Rescue workers (bring, take) food to disaster sites.
20. The president will (leave, let) soon to visit Ohio.
21. The guests will (set, sit) on these chairs.
22. She has read (less, fewer) pages than I.
Writing Application Look back at your descriptive
writing. If you used any of these troublesome words
incorrectly, fix the mistakes.
Volar
1073
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Before You Read
from The Century for
Young People
Vocabulary Preview
A lf r e d L e v i t t
Meet the Author
Alfred Levitt was born in
1894 in the Ukraine (then
part of Russia). He was one
of fourteen children. His family came to the United States
to escape the Russian government’s anti-Jewish campaigns. Here, Levitt became
an artist. When he grew
older, he gave this advice to
a young artist: “Don’t follow
what other people tell you to
do. [Your art] has to express
who you are inside!”
literally (LIT ur uh lee) adv. actually; exactly (p. 1076) The man couldn’t
even buy a pack of gum; he was literally penniless.
accumulated (uh KYOO myuh lay tid) v. gathered or piled up, little by little;
form of the verb accumulate (p. 1077) The snow started slowly but soon
accumulated into giant drifts that blocked the road.
overwhelmed (oh vur WELMD) v. overpowered in thought or feeling;
completely covered or flooded; form of the verb overwhelm (p. 1077)
We fell behind schedule because the work overwhelmed us.
means (meenz) n. methods useful for achieving a particular purpose or
goal; resources (p. 1078) She watched her means of getting home on
time disappear as the last bus of the night left without her.
Culture Shock Imagine that you’re an immigrant just arriving in the
United States. Use the vocabulary words to write a short paragraph describing your first impressions.
English Language Coach
English as a Changing Language The 12th century inhabitants of a certain island were the Engles. Where they lived was “the Engles’ land,” which
was later reduced to “England.” This simple history shows another way
English language changes—in place names. Of course, names often had more
complex origins. America was based on a mistake; here’s what happened:
1492
Author Search For more
about Alfred Levitt, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Objectives (pp. 1074–1079)
Reading Analyze text • Make connections
from text to self
Informational text Identify text element: chronological order
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
1074
UNIT 8
Christopher Columbus, the Italian explorer, lands
in what he believes to be India.
1498 On a second voyage, he “discovers” South America.
1499– Amerigo Vespucci, also Italian, explores the coast of
1501 South America. Back home, he writes letters to
friends, referring to these lands as the “New World.”
1507 Martin Waldseemueller, a German mapmaker,
reads Vespucci’s letters, thinks Vespucci discovered
the continent, and suggests naming it in his honor.
He prints a map with “America” across the southern continent, and the name sticks.
India
▼
New
World
▼
America
Naming of Names Research the name of your family, city, state, or
school. Write an encyclopedia-style entry explaining its origin.
What Is the American Dream?
Marian Goldman
1074-1075_U8BYR_845478.indd 1074
3/14/07 12:27:02 PM
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Analyzing
Connect to the Reading
The selection you’re about to read is an oral history.
The words were spoken by one person and written
down by someone else. As you read, consider its different parts to help you understand the whole selection. Think about what you already know about
• racism and religious discrimination
• what the Statue of Liberty represents
• how non-English-speaking immigrants learn English
How would you feel if people shouted insults at you
because you belonged to a particular ethnic group?
How would you feel if you were not allowed to attend
the same school as other students your age because
of your religion? This is what happened to Alfred Levitt
when he lived in Russia. As you read his selection,
think about what you might have done in his place.
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook, make
a few notes about your knowledge of these topics.
Partner Talk With a partner, talk about how it feels
to have hurtful words used against you. Talk about
how you act when you feel insulted, and explain why
you act that way.
Key Text Element: Chronological Order
Build Background
Chronological order is a kind of sequence, a way
of organizing events. The word chronological comes
from the Greek word for time, and chronological
order is the order in which events happen in time.
In real life, events always take place in chronological
order. These events are not directly related, but
they’re listed in the correct chronological order.
• Columbus discovers America.
• British colonies declare their independence.
• The Chicago White Sox win the 2005 World Series.
Shortly after his 100th birthday, Alfred Levitt gave the
interview that forms this oral history. As you’ll see, his
memories of life in Russia and his early years in
America were still very clear.
• In Russia in the early 1900s, Jews were discriminated
against, treated with violence, and often threatened
with death. Many were killed.
• During this time, thousands of Jews and other immigrants from Europe who hoped to enter the United
States came through New York City.
• Levitt’s parents and their fourteen children all
migrated to the United States by 1911. Levitt was
then 14; he lived to the age of 105.
In reading, it’s important to know the order of events.
Time order is the clearest way to present travel directions, product instructions, and biographical narratives. Sometimes, however, writers present events in
order of importance, trusting the reader to know—or
figure out—the time order.
To keep track of the actual order of events, watch for
signal words such as before, first, next, then, and later.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read the excerpt from The Century for Young People
to think about what the American dream meant to
Alfred Levitt.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the selection to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your purpose on the “Century for
Young People” page of Foldable 8.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
from The Century for Young People
1075
READING WORKSHOP 1
by Alfred Levitt
I
was born in a small Russian town of about ten thousand
people. We were a poor family. My father made the horsedrawn carriages that the bourgeoisie used on Sundays to
promenade1 down the street. It would take him about six
months to build each carriage because he couldn’t afford any
tools and he had to build each one with his own ten fingers.
During the six months it took my father to
finish a carriage, the family starved. We had
no money, and the rich people wouldn’t pay
my father until he finished his carriage. It
Visual Vocabulary
Horse-drawn
was a very hard life. 1
carriages are
My family was part of a population of
wheeled vehicles that
are pulled by horses
about two thousand Jews in our city. People
and carry people.
yelled out “bad Jew” and “Christ-killer,”
and they said that we shouldn’t be allowed to live. There was
a pogrom2 in 1905 where the Russians looted every store that
was either owned or operated by a Jew. I remember my
mother pulling me into a hiding place for fear that I would be
hurt. It was this abuse against the Jews that made my two
brothers decide to go to the United States. In Russia, everyone
thought that America was such a rich country that you could
literally find gold in the streets. At home there were no jobs
1. Bourgeoisie (burzh wah ZEE) is a French word meaning “middle class.” To promenade (prawm
uh NAYD) is to go for a slow, relaxed drive or stroll.
2. A pogrom (POH gruhm) was an organized attack against Jews. A great many pogroms were
carried out in eastern Europe up to the early 1900s. Often, all Jews in a certain area were
murdered; less often, few were killed but their homes and businesses were destroyed.
Vocabulary
literally (LIT ur uh lee) adv. actually; exactly
1076
UNIT 8
What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
1
Key Reading Skill
Analyzing In these first two
paragraphs, Levitt describes the
situation of his family and the
Jews in Russia. Explain why the
Levitts decided to go to America,
and tell whether you think they
made a wise decision.
READING WORKSHOP 1
for Jews, but in America surely my brothers would find work.
They went to New York, worked hard as house painters, and
accumulated enough money to buy passage3 for the rest of
2
the family. 2
I had never seen an ocean before we got on the boat for
America. I looked out onto the sea and saw these huge waves
crashing up against the rocks. It was a frightening experience.
But then I saw the openness of the ocean, and that great body R
of water opened my mind to a world that I never knew
BQ
existed. As we approached New York Harbor I saw the Statue
of Liberty, and I was overwhelmed with a feeling of hope for
a beautiful life in a new nation. Then we headed toward Ellis
Island and I could see the big buildings of New York. It was
Practice the Skills
How did Russians in the early
1900s picture America? Write your
answer on the “Century for Young
People” page of Foldable 8.
Your response will help you complete the Unit Challenge later.
3. One meaning of passage is “a trip; a going across.” Like most immigrants from Europe, the
family crossed the Atlantic Ocean by ship.
Vocabulary
accumulated (uh KYOO myuh lay tid) v. gathered or piled up, little by little
overwhelmed (oh vur WELMD) v. overpowered in thought or feeling;
completely covered or flooded
Analyzing the Photo Immigrants at Ellis Island see the Statue of Liberty.
How does this image suggest both hope and uncertainty?
from The Century for Young People
1077
Roger-Viollet/Topham/The Image Works
1076-1079_U8SEL_845478.indd 1077
3/12/07 6:08:57 PM
READING WORKSHOP 1
an amazing sight. The city I came from only had little shacks
made of wood and stone. Here everything was big and new.
At Ellis Island4 they looked in my eyes to see if I was healthy
and they checked my hair for lice. When they determined
that my family and I were not sick, they put us on another
boat and we were finally admitted to the United States. 3
At first I was afraid to go in the subway. I didn’t want to
climb down into that dark hole. In Russia the only means of
transportation that I knew about were horses and bicycles.
When I did go in, I discovered a whole new world. There
were advertisements that told me what to buy. And I saw
people—blacks, yellows, all sorts of different facial looks and
ethnic groups, people like I had never seen before. Most of all,
4. From 1892 to 1954, most European immigrants entered the United States at Ellis Island in
New York Bay.
Vocabulary
means (meenz) n. methods useful for achieving a particular purpose or goal;
resources
Analyzing the Photo What part of Levitt’s experience does this photograph show?
1078
UNIT 8
Bettmann/CORBIS
What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
3
Key Text Element
Chronological Order Notice
the words in this paragraph—
before, then, as, then, when, and
finally—that signal time order.
READING WORKSHOP 1
Practice the Skills
Analyzing the Photo Where do you think this picture was taken? What words would
you use to describe this picture?
I was amazed that I could go anywhere for five cents. I was
able to go all the way down to Battery Park, and then, if I
chose, I could transfer and turn around and go all the way up
to Yonkers5 for the same nickel. 4
My first school was on 103rd Street near Third Avenue, but
when I discovered that there were too many foreign boys in
the same class, I left it, because I wasn’t learning the
American language fast enough. I wanted to learn the
American language because I wanted to understand the
American people, the American mind, and the American
culture. I wanted to be completely American, and that
couldn’t happen in a school full of foreign boys. Mostly I
wanted to get a good job somewhere, and I knew if I didn’t
speak English, I couldn’t get a good job. So I walked down to
another high school in Harlem on 116th Street and asked the
supervisor to give me an audience.6 I told him I wanted to
learn the American language and I wasn’t getting it on 103rd
Street. He said, “I will give you two questions. If you pass
them, you are admitted.” He asked me to spell accident for
him, and I did right away, with two c’s. Then he asked me
what two-thirds of fifteen was, and I said, “Ten,” so he
admitted me to high school. In Russia, only a small
percentage of Jewish children could go to school, and then it
had to be a special Jewish school. In America, I could go to
school with everyone else. 5 6 ❍
5. Battery Park is a neighborhood at the southern edge of New York City, while Yonkers is a
separate city about 25 miles north of Battery Park.
6. Harlem is a neighborhood of New York City. Here, audience means “a hearing; an interview.“
4
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
early meaning of battery is “a
beating.” Later, a new meaning
was added: a grouping of cannons in battle. Battery Park
got its name from the second
meaning.
5
Key Reading Skill
Analyzing Why did the man
ask these two questions?
6
In what ways did the American
dream become a reality for
Levitt? Write your answer on the
“Century for Young People” page
of Foldable 8.
from The Century for Young People 1079
CORBIS
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
After You Read
from The Century for
Young People
Answering the
1. What did the American dream mean to Alfred Levitt?
2. Recall How long did it take Levitt’s father to build one carriage?
T IP Right There
3. Recall What work did Levitt’s brothers do after they came to
New York?
T IP Right There
4. Describe Describe Levitt’s impressions of his first experiences in
America.
T IP Think and Search
Critical Thinking
5. Compare How was the Russian city Levitt was born in different from or
similar to New York City? Give details from the oral history in your
answer.
T IP Think and Search
6. Infer What do you think would have happened if Levitt hadn’t decided
to change schools? Explain your answer.
T IP Author and Me
7. Interpret In your own words, tell what Levitt means when he says he
wanted to be “completely American.”
T IP Author and Me
Write About Your Reading
Objectives (pp. 1080–1081)
Reading Analyze text • Make connections
from text to self
Informational text Identify text element:
chronological order
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Respond to literature: postcard
Grammar Confused words
Postcards Pretend that you are Levitt at age 17, soon after he arrives in
New York City. You’re going to send two picture postcards to friends back
in Russia.
First, imagine the postcard scenes Levitt might have sent. Think of two
different things that impressed him or two important experiences he had.
Make a few notes about each scene and what it meant to Levitt.
Second, write the message for each postcard as Levitt might have written
it. Tell each friend about the picture, what it represents to Levitt, and why
he chose that image for his friend. Keep each message to four or five
sentences.
1080 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Roger-Viollet/Topham/The Image Works
READING WORKSHOP 1 • Analyzing
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Analyzing
8. What things about New York City’s subway system were especially impressive to Levitt? Why do
you suppose those things affected him so much?
9. Write a sentence stating the main subject of each
paragraph in the selection.
Key Text Element: Chronological Order
10. Put the following events from Levitt’s life in the
correct chronological order.
• His mother hides him during a pogrom.
• He is admitted to a new high school.
• He sees the ocean for the first time.
• He first sees the New York skyline.
• His brothers go to New York.
• He is born in Russia.
Vocabulary Check
For each vocabulary word, choose the word or phrase
that means most nearly the same thing.
11. literally
really completely unbelievably
12. accumulated
spent saved up bought
13. overwhelmed
late undone overcome
14. means
ways purposes explanations
15. English Language Coach What is the connection between these meanings of battery?
(a) a beating (b) a grouping of cannons in battle
Grammar Link:
Confused Words
These words are often confused because they sound
alike. Learning the correct use of these words will help
you as a speaker and as a writer.
accept: to receive
except: other than
• I accept your nomination.
• Except for Lois, we all came here as immigrants.
loose: not firmly attached
lose: to misplace or to fail to win
• These jeans are too loose.
• If you lose your way, call me on your cell phone.
then: at that time
than: introduces the second part of a comparison
• Then I asked him his name.
• My brother is a lot taller than I am.
who’s: contraction of who is
whose: possessive form of who
• Who’s going to the store this afternoon?
• Whose book is this?
it’s: contraction of it is
its: possessive form of it
• It’s almost time to go home.
• Its leaves had turned crimson and began to fall.
Grammar Practice
Rewrite each sentence, filling in the correct word.
16. Will you (accept, except) my apology?
17. We have to decide (who’s, whose) going to go first.
18. Did you put the camera back in (it’s, its) case?
19. Texas is bigger (than, then) some countries.
Writing Application Check the postcard messages
you wrote. If you used any of these troublesome
words incorrectly, fix the mistakes.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
from The Century for Young People
1081
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 1
Letter
Prewriting and Drafting
ASSIGNMENT Write
a letter
Purpose: To evaluate
and respond to the media
Audience: A TV producer or head of a media
company
Writing Rubric
As you work through this
writing assignment, you
should follow these
guidelines:
• clearly state your opinion
• develop and support your
ideas with well-chosen
details
• organize your ideas in a
logical order
• interview a friend, classmate, or family member
See page 1130 in Part 2 for a
model of a letter.
Objectives (pp. 1082-1085)
Writing Use the writing process:
prewrite, draft • Write persuasive or
critical letter • Conduct interviews
• Gather and organize information
Grammar Use irregular verbs
correctly
People watch more television than ever before. Most comedy series are sitcoms, short for “situation comedies.” In each episode, the characters deal
with a new situation, or a problem, in a humorous way.
You’ll evaluate the way one comedy series presents Americans, their relationships, “ordinary” life in America, and the American dream. Then you’ll
write a letter to the producer of that series. Your evaluation will help you
think about the Unit 8 Big Question: What is the American dream?
Prewriting
Get Ready to Write
Draw from your own experience as a TV viewer and from your knowledge of
the elements of fiction. Sitcoms are like ongoing short stories with characters, conflicts, dialogue, settings, and themes.
Gather Ideas
Follow these steps to generate ideas for your letter.
• List the sitcoms that you enjoy watching, and choose one to write about.
• Identify the main characters, and write a few words describing each.
What are their relationships? (Are they, for example, family members,
coworkers, friends, or classmates?) What does each character do?
(Teacher, garbage collector, student, or store clerk?)
• Describe the setting of the show. Is it urban, suburban, or rural? What city,
state, or region of the country? When does it take place? Most sitcoms are
set in the present. For an older show that’s set in the past, give the
decade—for example, the 1960s for The Wonder Years.
• Describe the sort of problem the characters face in a typical episode. Do
they usually solve their problems? How?
• Decide whether the characters are realistic people or stereotypes.
Stereotypes are characters with traits that are supposedly shared by all
members of a particular group. For example, a stereotype of old people is
that they’re all grumpy and hard of hearing. A stereotype of teenagers is
that they only want to have fun and don’t care about serious issues.
• Consider what the sitcom says about America and Americans. What
impressions do you think viewers in other countries would get from it?
• What advice do you have for the people who write or produce the show?
1082 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 1
Organize Your Thoughts
Gather your notes. Then follow these steps.
1. Decide whom to write to. You’ll need to do some research to find people who work behind the scenes. Check the Web site of the channel the
show is on. For example, one student liked The Simpsons and decided
to write to its creator, Matt Groening.
2. Write one sentence that clearly states your overall opinion about the
show and how it presents American life.
I think The Simpsons shows both our worst and best sides.
3. Give three or more reasons for your opinion. Later, you’ll develop each
reason into a paragraph.
The mix of characters is true to life.
Springfield’s problems ring true for viewers.
The main characters have their good points.
Writing Models For models and
other writing activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Writing Tip
Show Titles When you’re
typing the title of a TV series,
you should use italics. When
you’re handwriting it, you can
underline the title instead.
Writing Tip
4. Write one or two sentences that sum up your message of praise, criticism,
or a combination of both.
Thanks for making us laugh at ourselves while encouraging us to solve our problems.
Brainstorming If you
need help getting started, try
freewriting for three minutes
without stopping. Write down
anything that comes to mind
about the show. After a break,
read what you’ve written. You
may find something to use as
a starting point for your letter.
Drafting
Start Writing!
You have everything you need to get started: a topic, a clear position, some
organized points, and a concluding statement.
Get It on Paper
Writing Tip
These directions can help you get started on your first draft.
• Begin by explaining your purpose for writing and briefly stating your opinion of the show.
• Write a paragraph explaining each reason for your opinion. Back up your
points with specific examples from the show. You might use a quotation
from a classmate or family member to support one of your points.
• Write a conclusion that explains how well or how badly you think the
show portrays America and Americans.
• Finish by complimenting or criticizing the show. If you’re critical, make
suggestions for how to improve it.
Drafting Remember that
this is only a first draft. When
you go back to revise, you can
add, delete, and move ideas.
Writing Workshop Part 1 Letter 1083
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 1
Listening, Speaking, and Viewing
Conducting an Interview
Analyzing Cartoons
Is this a good interview?
Why or why not?
As part of your evaluation, it’s a good idea to
ask other people what they think about the
show. Interview at least two people.
What Is an Interview?
An interview is a conversation with the purpose of getting information about a particular
topic. You hear, see, and read plenty of interviews, whether you realize it or not.
TV and radio shows, Web sites, newspapers, and
magazines—they all make frequent use of interviews with all kinds of people, including
• government officials, crime victims, disaster
survivors, and other people in the news
• movie stars, authors, coaches, athletes, and
other celebrities
• sports fans, shoppers, and weather watchers
What Skills Do I Need, and Why
Are They Important?
The same skills that help you talk to classmates,
teachers, family members, and store clerks can
help you interview them. You need to be organized and prepared. You need to be able to listen
without interrupting. You need patience and
understanding.
Listening to other people’s ideas can reinforce or
challenge your own opinions. Quoting other people can add spice to your writing.
How Do I Do an Interview?
Prepare by making a list of questions.
• Think about what supporting information you
need and ask for opinions about those ideas.
Example: If you believe the Simpson characters
have their good points, you might ask, “What do
you think of Bart? Why?”
1084 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Reprinted with permission of King Features Syndicate.
• Don’t ask leading questions. That is, don’t phrase a
question so that it suggests the answer you want.
Example: Don’t ask, “Do you agree that The
Simpsons is biased against rural people?”
Instead, ask, “Do you think the show portrays
rural people in a fair way?”
• Phrase your questions so that the interviewee
can’t answer with a simple yes or no.
When you’re ready to do an interview, don’t rely
on your memory. Write your questions down on
note cards or paper. Record the conversation
(only after asking permission), or take good notes.
• Start with your prepared questions, but be
ready to respond to what the interviewee says.
• Try not to show your own opinions. You want
people to tell you what they really think, not
what they think you want to hear.
• Be a good listener. Nodding and making eye
contact show that you’re paying attention.
Encourage people to keep talking by saying, “Go
on” or “I see.”
• If you don’t understand something, ask the interviewee to clarify it. Paraphrase what the person
said to check whether you understood correctly.
Example: “When you said ‘they,’ did you mean
the characters or the writers?”
Write to Learn Use your interviewees’
responses in your letter. If you quote someone
directly, use quotation marks and give the person’s name. If you paraphrase, be sure you’re
presenting the interviewee’s opinion accurately.
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 1
Grammar Link
Irregular Verbs
Why Are They Important?
It is important to learn how to form verb tenses so
you can use verbs correctly in a sentence. However,
that is just the beginning. You also need to learn
about irregular verbs that may be confusing.
When you use verbs incorrectly, it makes you
sound less knowledgeable than you are. Also, you
may confuse your readers if you use the wrong
form or tense of a verb by treating an irregular
verb as if it follows the regular pattern. For example, by using falled instead of fell or have fell
instead of have fallen, you make it unclear when
an action takes place.
What Are Irregular Verbs?
For regular verbs, you form the past tense and
past participle by adding -d or –ed to the verb’s
base form.
• I want to live in Toledo, Ohio. (base form)
• I lived in Toledo, Ohio. (past tense)
• I have lived in Toledo, Ohio for a year. (past
participle)
The past tense and past participle of irregular
verbs are not formed this way.
• I am going to be in Toledo, Ohio. (base form)
• I went to Toledo, Ohio. (past tense)
• I have been to Toledo, Ohio. (past participle)
Several patterns are used to form irregular verbs.
With time and practice, you’ll remember them.
A. One vowel changes to form the past tense and
the past participle. (begin, began, have begun)
B. The past tense and the past participle are the
same. (fight, fought, has fought)
C. The base form and the past participle are the
same. (run, ran, had run)
D. The past tense ends in -ew, and the past participle ends in -wn. (draw, drew, have drawn)
E. The past participle ends in -en. (shake, shook,
has shaken)
F. The base form, the past tense, and the past
participle are the same. (cost, cost, have cost)
G. The past tense and the past participle don’t follow any pattern. (be, was/were, had been)
Incorrect: I have fell out of a tree while climbing.
Correct: I have fallen out of a tree while climbing.
How Do I Use Irregular Verbs?
To express an action that happened at a fixed time
in the past, use the past tense of the verb.
• The water froze in the pond.
To express an action that happened before
another action in the past, use had before the
past participle.
• The water had frozen in the pond by noon.
To express an action that will occur before a set
time in the future, use will have before the past
participle.
• The water will have frozen by the time we get
home.
To express an action that occurred at an unspecified time in the past or an action that continues to
happen into the present time, use have or has
before the past participle.
• In the past, the water has frozen enough to
allow ice skating.
Write to Learn Review your draft and fix any
mistakes involving irregular verbs. If you need
help, use a dictionary. The past tense and past
participle of irregular verbs are usually included in
the entry for the base form of the verb.
Looking Ahead
Keep the writing you’ve done so far. In Writing Workshop Part 2,
you’ll learn how to turn your writing into a strong and compelling letter.
Writing Workshop Part 1 Letter 1085
READING WORKSHOP 2
Skills Focus
You will practice using these skills when you
read the following selections:
• “Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions,”
p. 1090
• “The Gettysburg Address,” p. 1098
Reading
• Understanding cause and
effect
Informational Text
• Understanding theme and topic
• Identifying author’s style
Vocabulary
• Learning about English as a
changing language
Writing/Grammar
• Using capitalization with
proper nouns, proper
adjectives, and family
relationships
Skill Lesson
Understanding
Cause and Effect
Learn It!
What Is It? Cause and effect is a kind of text structure that writers can use to organize information.
• A cause is a condition or event that makes something happen.
• What happens as the result of that condition or
event is an effect.
For example, a person does something wrong (a
cause), and a bad thing happens (an effect).
A cause-and-effect relationship can be difficult to
identify exactly. Causes and effects can overlap. They
may not seem directly linked. Not all events that seem
to have a cause-and-effect relationship actually do.
icate, Inc.
of King Features Synd
inted with Permission
© Zits Partnership. Repr
Analyzing Cartoons
Objectives (pp. 1086–1087)
Reading Identify text structure:
cause and effect
1086 UNIT 8
© Zits Partnership. Reprinted with Permission of King Features Syndicate, Inc.
Jeremy thinks that eating
sandwiches is making Hector grow
taller. Do you agree with that causeand-effect statement? Why?
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Why Is It Important? When you understand cause-and-effect relationships, you have another tool to help you think critically as a reader. You
can see why characters are in the situations they’re in. You can recognize
when events are connected and when they aren’t.
How Do I Do It? To identify cause-and-effect relationships in a selection,
use your prior knowledge. Ask yourself what you know about the subject,
what events may have caused it, and what events may have resulted from it.
Study Central Visit www.glencoe
.com and click on Study Central to
review evaluating.
Here’s how one student used his prior knowledge about Abraham Lincoln’s
Gettysburg Address.
I know this is one of Lincoln’s most famous speeches. I
know from history class that there was a huge Civil War
battle at Gettysburg. And I think Lincoln spoke at a service honoring the soldiers who died there. So two effects
of the battle were soldiers’ deaths and Lincoln’s speech.
Actually, there must be a whole chain of causes and
effects related to this battle and the war. I wonder
what effects the Gettysburg Address had.
Practice It!
Below are some things to look for as you analyze the selections in this
workshop. Jot down a few notes in your Learner’s Notebook about causes
and effects related to the following topics:
• the dream of being rich
• winning millions of dollars
• the Civil War
• the idea that “all men are created equal”
Use It!
As you read “Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions” and “The
Gettysburg Address,” remember the notes you made. They’ll help you
focus on cause and effect as you read.
Reading Workshop 2 Understanding Cause and Effect
Laura Sifferlin
1087
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Before You Read
Lottery Winners Who
Lost Their Millions
Vocabulary Preview
Ellen
G o o d st ein
Meet the Author
Ellen Goodstein is a freelance
writer based in Florida. She
contributes news stories and
feature articles to both print
and online publications.
siblings (SIB lingz) n. brothers and sisters (p. 1091) My siblings and I gave
our parents flowers for their anniversary.
eventually (ih VEN choo ul lee) adv. happening at last; in the end (p. 1091)
Be patient; you’ll eventually get to the front of the line.
inevitable (in EV uh tuh bul) adj. sure to happen; unavoidable (p. 1093)
With its weak design and cheap materials, the car’s failure to sell
seemed inevitable.
consequences (KON suh kwen suz) n. results or effects (p. 1093) If you
break the law, you will have to face the consequences.
Write to Learn With a small group, choose a familiar board game or
gameshow that involves making—and losing—money. Together, write a
paragraph explaining how the game is played. Use each vocabulary word
at least once.
English Language Coach
Author Search For more about
Ellen Goodstein, go to www
.glencoe.com.
English as a Changing Language Many English words have roots in
ancient, long-dead languages. The base of lottery is lot, a word that goes
back more than eight hundred years. (In Old English it was spelled hlot,
but there isn’t a hlot more to say about that.)
Originally, lots were pieces of shell, bone, or wood. They were used to help
decide questions or issues, just as dice are used in many modern games.
You threw the lots to the ground and “read” an answer to your question.
Soon people started betting on how the lots would land. From there, it
was a short leap to lotteries as we now know them. Over the centuries, the
word lot took on additional meanings, including these:
Objectives (pp. 1088–1093)
Reading Identify text structure: cause and
effect • Make connections from text to self
Informational text Identify text elements:
theme and topic
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
lot
a share
a portion of land
an article or group of articles sold at auction
a large quantity or amount
Small Group Discussion With your group, look again at the paragraph
you wrote about a board game or gameshow. Do any of the meanings of
lot noted above relate to the game? Is any kind of lottery (or “throwing of
lots”) involved? How important is chance or luck in playing the game?
1088 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Bankrate.com, N. Palm Beach, FL 2006
1088-1089_U8BYR_845478.indd 1088
3/12/07 6:09:28 PM
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Understanding
Cause and Effect
Connect to the Reading
A fiction writer invents causes and effects to direct a
story where he or she wants it to go. A nonfiction
writer doesn’t need to make them up; they’re right
there in real life. Nonfiction writing tries to present
events so that the causes and effects are clear.
The next article you’ll read tells what happened to
a number of people who won millions of dollars. In
each case, the cause can be described as winning
money in a lottery. The article focuses on
• the effects that sudden wealth can cause
• the belief that money can fix anything
• strategies for dealing with unexpected wealth
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook, note
ideas you have about causes and effects relating to
money. What are possible effects of having no money?
What are possible effects of having lots of money?
Add to your notes as you read the selection.
Text Element: Theme and Topic
A story’s theme is its central message. Sometimes the
theme is stated directly; sometimes it’s implied, and
you must figure it out.
Don’t confuse theme with topic. Topic is the broad
subject that a story is about. It can be stated in a word
or phrase. For example, both “Volar” and the selection from The Century for Young People are about the
immigrant experience. However, the theme of “Volar”
involves escaping what is unpleasant in life, and the
theme of Century involves embracing what is new and
exciting.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Imagine becoming a millionaire overnight. Would
money solve your problems? What’s the first thing
you’d do? Buy things? Give money to charities? How
would you deal with friends and relatives who would
expect you to help them out? Who would you turn to
for advice?
Money Talks With a partner, talk about the problems and solutions money can bring. Draw on your
own experience and the experiences of people you
know or have read about.
Build Background
As of 1999, thirty-seven U.S. states operated lotteries
to raise money for public services. Canada, France,
Great Britain, Japan, Mexico, and other countries run
national lotteries. In a modern lottery, you pay a small
sum of money for a chance to win a huge sum. Your
chances and your prize depend on how many people
enter the lottery.
A lottery can be very profitable for its sponsor because
most participants don’t win anything. Since ancient
times, lotteries have been used to raise money for
projects including the Great Wall of China; Jamestown
(the first British colony in America); and Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, and Columbia universities.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read this article to study the
role of money in the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the article to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your purpose on the “Lottery
Winners” page of Foldable 8.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions
1089
READING WORKSHOP 2
by Ellen Goodstein
F
or a lot of people, winning the lottery is the American
dream. But for many lottery winners, the reality is more like
a nightmare. 1
“Winning the lottery isn’t always what it’s cracked up to
be,” says Evelyn Adams, who won the New Jersey lottery not
just once, but twice (1985, 1986), to the tune of $5.4 million.
Today the money is all gone and Adams
lives in a trailer.
“I won the American dream but I lost it,
too. It was a very hard fall. It’s called rock
Visual Vocabulary
A trailer is a vehicle
bottom,” says Adams. “Everybody wanted
that can be parked
my money. Everybody had their hand out.
and serve as a home.
I never learned one simple word in the
English language—‘No.’ I wish I had the chance to do it all
over again. I’d be much smarter about it now,” says Adams,
who also lost money at the slot machines in Atlantic City.1 2
“I was a big-time gambler,” admits Adams. “I didn’t drop a
million dollars, but it was a lot of money. I made mistakes,
some I regret, some I don’t. I’m human. I can’t go back now so
I just go forward, one step at a time.”
Living on food stamps William “Bud” Post won $16.2 million
in the Pennsylvania lottery in 1988 but now lives on his Social
Security.2
“I wish it never happened. It was totally a nightmare,” says
Post.
1. Atlantic City, New Jersey, offers many forms of gambling.
2. The federal Social Security program works like a savings account for old age. A small portion of
a worker’s paycheck goes to the program, along with a matching amount paid by the employer.
Upon retirement, the worker receives a monthly income from the program. Most U.S. employees
participate in Social Security.
1090 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
(t)Getty Images, (b)CORBIS
INFORMATIONAL TEXT
WEB ARTICLE
Bankrate.com
Practice the Skills
1
English Language Coach
A Changing Language In
Old English, a mere was either
a female horse or an evil being
that brought bad dreams. In
modern English, the spelling has
changed, and we have different
ideas about what causes a
nightmare. A mare is still a
horse, of course.
2
Key Reading Skill
Understanding Cause and
Effect What does Adams say
was the main cause of her problems after she won the lottery?
What additional cause does she
identify in the next paragraph?
READING WORKSHOP 2
A former girlfriend successfully sued him for a share of his
winnings. It wasn’t his only lawsuit. A brother was arrested
for hiring a hit man to kill him, hoping to inherit a share of
the winnings. Other siblings pestered him until he agreed to
invest in a car business and a restaurant in Sarasota, Fla.—
two ventures3 that brought no money back and further
strained his relationship with his siblings.
Post even spent time in jail for firing a gun over the head of
a bill collector. Within a year, he was $1 million in debt.
Post admitted he was both careless and foolish, trying to
please his family. He eventually declared bankruptcy.4 Now
he lives quietly on $450 a month and food stamps. 3
“I’m tired, I’m over 65 years old, and I just had a serious
operation for a heart aneurysm.5 Lotteries don’t mean
(anything) to me,” says Post. 4
Deeper in debt Suzanne Mullins won $4.2 million in the
Virginia lottery in 1993. Now she’s deeply in debt.
She borrowed $197,746.15, which she agreed to pay back
with her yearly checks from the Virginia lottery through
2006. When the rules changed allowing her to collect her
winnings in a lump sum, she cashed in the remaining
amount. But she stopped making payments on the loan.
She blamed the debt on the lengthy illness of her uninsured
son-in-law, who needed $1 million for medical bills.
Practice the Skills
3
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word bankruptcy comes from
two Old Italian words—banca,
“bank,” and rotta, “broken.”
4
Key Reading Skill
Understanding Cause and
Effect What were some of
the effects of Post’s winning
the lottery?
Back to the basics Ken Proxmire was a machinist6 when he
won $1 million in the Michigan lottery. He moved to
California and went into the car business with his brothers.
Within five years, he had filed for bankruptcy.
“He was just a poor boy who got lucky and wanted to take
care of everybody,” explains Ken’s son Rick. “It was a good
ride for three or four years, but now he lives more simply.
3. Ventures (VEN churz) are risky business projects.
4. Bankruptcy is a legal status for people or businesses that are ruined financially and can’t pay
their debts.
5. An aneurysm (AN yuh rih zum) is a blocked blood vessel.
6. A machinist (muh SHEE nist) makes, assembles, or repairs machinery.
Vocabulary
siblings (SIB lingz) n. brothers and sisters
eventually (ih VEN choo ul lee) adv. happening at last; in the end
Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions
1090-1093_U8SEL_845478.indd 1091
1091
3/14/07 12:28:13 PM
READING WORKSHOP 2
There’s no more talk of owning a helicopter or riding
in limos. We’re just everyday folk. Dad’s now back to
work as a machinist,” says his son.
Missourian Janite Lee won $18 million in 1993. Lee
was generous to a variety of causes,7 giving to
politics, education and the community. But according
to published reports, eight years after winning, Lee
had filed for bankruptcy with only $700 left in two
bank accounts and no cash on hand.
One Southeastern family won $4.2 million in the
early ‘90s. They bought a huge house and gave in to
repeated family requests for help in paying off debts.
The house, cars and relatives used up all their winnings.
Eleven years later, the couple is divorcing, the house is sold
and they have to split what is left of the lottery proceeds.8
The wife got a very small house. The husband has moved in
with the kids. Even the life insurance they bought ended up
getting cashed in.
“It was not the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” says
their financial advisor.
Luck is fleeting These sad-but-true tales are not uncommon,
say the experts.
“For many people, sudden money can cause disaster,” says
Susan Bradley, a certified financial planner in Palm Beach,
Fla., and founder of the Sudden Money Institute, a resource
center for people who have received large amounts of money
and their advisors.
“In our culture, there is a widely held belief that money
solves problems. People think if they had more money, their
troubles would be over. When a family receives sudden
money, they frequently learn that money can cause as many
problems as it solves,” she says. 5
Winning plays a game with your head Bradley, who
authored “Sudden Money: Managing a Financial Windfall,”9
says winners get into trouble because they fail to deal with
the emotional connection to their unexpected wealth.
7. That is, Lee gave to charities. A charity is called a cause because it tries to bring about some sort
of change and to produce some effect.
8. Here, proceeds (PROH seedz) refers to the money received.
9. A windfall is any unearned, unexpected, or sudden gain.
1092 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Blend Images/SuperStock
Analyzing the Photo How does this
image illustrate the fact that money
management takes work?
Practice the Skills
5
According to Bradley, what
role does money play in the
American dream? Write your
answer on the “Lottery Winners”
page of Foldable 8. Your
response will help you complete
the Unit Challenge later.
READING WORKSHOP 2
“Often they can keep the money and lose family and
friends—or lose the money and keep the family and
friends—or even lose the money and lose the family and
friends,” says Bradley.
Bill Pomeroy, a certified financial planner in Baton Rouge, La.,
has dealt with a number of lottery winners who went broke.
“Because the winners have a large sum of money, they
make the mistake of thinking they know what they’re doing.
They are willing to plunk down large sums on investments
they know nothing about or go in with a partner who may
not know how to run a business.”
What if you get so (un)lucky? To avoid bad early decisionmaking and the inevitable requests of friends, relatives and
strangers, Bradley recommends lottery winners start by
setting up a DFZ or decision-free zone.
“Take time out from making any financial decisions,” she
says. “Do this right away. For some people, it’s smart to do it
before you even get your hands on the money.
“It’s not a time to decide what stocks to buy or jump into a
new house purchase or new business venture,” she warns.
“It’s a time to think things through, sort things out and seek an
advisory team to help make those important financial choices.”
As an example, Bradley says that people who come into a
windfall will usually put buying a house as No. 1 in list of 12
choices, whereas investing is No. 11.
“You really don’t want to buy a new house before taking
the time to think about what the consequences are. A lot of
people who don’t have money don’t realize how much it costs
to live in a big house—decorators, furniture, taxes, insurance,
even utility costs are greater. People need a reality check
before they sign the contract,” she says.
Evelyn Adams, the N.J. lottery double-winner, learned these
lessons the hard way. “There are a lot of people out there like
me who don’t know how to deal with money,” says Adams.
“Hey, some people went broke in six months. At least I held
on for a few years.” 6 ❍
Vocabulary
inevitable (in EV uh tuh bul) adj. sure to happen; unavoidable
consequences (KON suh kwen suz) n. results or effects
Practice the Skills
6
Text Element
Theme and Topic A stated
theme usually appears near the
beginning or ending of a work. Do
you find a sentence that you think
states the theme of this article?
Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions
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READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
After You Read
Lottery Winners Who
Lost Their Millions
Answering the
1. Financial advisor Susan Bradley says, “In our culture, there is a widely
held belief that money solves problems.” Do you agree with her?
Explain your answer.
2. Recall According to Suzanne Mullins, what caused her to go into debt?
T IP Right There
3. Contrast Contrast Ken Proxmire’s life today with his life after he won
$1 million in the Michigan lottery.
T IP Think and Search
Critical Thinking
4. Interpret Evelyn Adams says in the article, “I won the American dream
but I lost it, too.” What does she mean?
T IP Author and Me
5. Explain According to the article, what are some of the different ways
that friends and family members of a lottery winner react?
T IP Think and Search
6. Evaluate According to one expert, lottery winners need to deal with
the emotional connection to their unexpected wealth. What is an
“emotional connection” to money? Explain your answer.
T IP On My Own
7. Analyze Susan Bradley recommends that lottery winners set up a
“DFZ,” or decision-free zone. How would this work? Could it be effective? Could the idea apply to other areas of life? Explain your answers.
T IP Author and Me
Objectives (pp. 1094–1095)
Reading Identify text structure: cause and
effect
Informational text Identify text elements:
theme and topic
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Grammar Capitalize proper nouns
Talk About Your Reading
Group Discussion Buying a house and investing were two of the top
twelve choices that people made after they came into a lot of money. What
were the other ten choices? In a small group, discuss the possibilities, and
have one person write down your ideas. As a group, pick the other ten
things that you think people did with their new wealth. Then, as a class,
combine all the lists to create a single list of the Top Twelve Choices. What
things did every group include? What surprising choices were listed?
1094 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Getty Images
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Understanding
Cause and Effect
8. Financial expert Bill Pomeroy says, “Because the
winners have a large sum of money, they [think]
they know what they’re doing.”
• What does Pomeroy identify specifically as a
cause?
• What does he identify as an effect?
• What one word indicates this cause-and-effect
relationship?
9. What do you think leads people in our culture to
believe that money can solve all their problems?
Text Element: Theme and Topic
10. What is the topic of this article?
11. Is the article’s theme stated or implied? If stated,
copy the sentence in which it’s given. If implied,
write the theme in your own words.
12. Tell why you think the statement below is or is
not a good expression of this article’s theme.
“Money always causes problems.”
Vocabulary Check
Rewrite each statement, filling in the blank with the
best word from the list.
siblings eventually inevitable consequences
.
13. If you delay your homework, you do it
14. If you don’t tell the truth, there will be
.
15. If you are an only child, you have no
.
16. If you can’t avoid something, it is
.
English Language Coach
17. Five meanings of the word lot were given on
page 1088. Which two meanings are related to
the modern meaning of lottery?
18. The rupt part of bankruptcy means “broken.”
How does “bank-broken” (or “broken bank”)
make sense with the modern meaning of
bankruptcy?
Grammar Link:
Capitalization
of Proper Nouns
A common noun is the general name of a person,
place, thing, feeling, or idea. A proper noun names a
particular person, place, or thing. Common nouns are
not capitalized; proper nouns are. When proper nouns
name people, capitalize all parts of their names and
all initials that stand for their names.
• Roy J. Wilks called the manager into his office.
Capitalize a title or its abbreviation when it comes
before a person’s name. Do not capitalize a title that
follows a person’s name or is used as a common
noun.
• It was Treasurer Sanchez who gave the first report.
• Janet Molloy was promoted to vice president.
Capitalize words that show family relationships when
used as titles or substitutes for a person’s name. Do
not capitalize these words when they follow an article
(a, an, or the) or a possessive noun or pronoun.
• In 2000 Father and Uncle Ray participated in a
reenactment of the Battle of Gettysburg.
• My aunt Lisbeth wrote an article about the experience.
Grammar Practice
Rewrite the following sentences, correcting the six
capitalization errors.
19. Joe stephenson played the role of a Villager from
Gettysburg.
20. My dad played Brigadier-General james j. Pettigrew.
21. The Soldiers passed by my aunt Lila’s house.
22. Looking up, uncle Ray yelled, “Don’t be afraid!”
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Lottery Winners Who Lost Their Millions
1095
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Before You Read
The Gettysburg Address
Vocabulary Preview
Abr
a ha m Linc oln
Meet the Author
conceived (kun SEEVD) v. formed; imagined (p. 1098) As conceived by
Jim, the plan would solve several problems at once.
proposition (prah puh ZIH shun) n. a plan or proposal (p. 1098) Until the
proposition is approved, we’ll deal with things as we have in the past.
endure (en DUR) v. to carry on; survive; last (p. 1098) When we started
out, no one thought the band would endure for three decades.
detract (dih TRAKT) v. to take away from; reduce the value of (p. 1098)
One small flaw won’t detract much from the final price.
resolve (rih ZOLV) v. to decide firmly (p. 1099) It’s one thing to resolve to
get up earlier and another thing to actually do it.
perish (PAIR ish) v. to become ruined or destroyed; die (p. 1099) My
garden will perish if the weather doesn’t warm up soon.
Abraham Lincoln, born in
1809, worked hard to educate himself and become a
lawyer. While a member of
the Illinois legislature, he lost
a race for the U.S. Senate.
Still, he earned a national
reputation and, in 1860, was
elected President. He is
remembered as the president who saved the union.
English Language Coach
Author Search For more
about Abraham Lincoln, go to
www.glencoe.com.
English as a Changing Language In Abraham Lincoln’s time, the most
common translation of the Bible was the King James Version. England’s
King James I had published this “modern” English version in 1611. It had a
strong influence on Lincoln’s writing style, and it has a strong influence on
how speakers of English use the language today.
Write to Learn Pretend you’re writing a speech that includes a proposition for your audience to consider. Your suggested plan involves a way to
make a better school, neighborhood, or world. Don’t write the speech, but
write a paragraph explaining your idea and using all the vocabulary words.
However, many words from the 1600s are archaic (ar KAY ik) in the
twenty-first century; they’re old-fashioned or out of use. For example, score
R used to be a number word, meaning “twenty,” and was used like decade
and dozen. If someone said “six score and five,” the reader or listener had
to do a bit of math (6 ⫻ 20, ⫹ 5). Now you have to do the sums. Write the
numbers represented by these words:
Objectives (pp. 1096–1099)
Reading Identify text structure: cause and
effect • Make connections from text to self
• Read historical text
Literature Identify literary elements: style
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
three score
four score and seven
five score and two
=
=
=
What’s the Score? With a partner, research the meanings of score, as a
noun and a verb. Note whether each meaning is archaic or still in use.
1096 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Bettmann/CORBIS
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READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Understanding
Cause and Effect
Connect to the Reading
Before you read the selection, reflect on what you
know about
• the causes of the Civil War
• the effects of the Civil War
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook, jot
down some of your thoughts on the topics above.
Key Literary Element: Style
Style is a writer’s personal way of using language. It
includes qualities that make one writer’s work unlike
the work of all other writers. These qualities include
• word choice
• use of imagery
• sentence lengths
• sentence patterns
• ways of moving from one idea to the next
As you read the Gettysburg Address, use these tips to
learn about Lincoln’s style:
• Look at Lincoln’s word choice.
Which words seem carefully chosen? Which words
are particularly effective, and why are they so
effective?
• Look at the way he arranged the words and
sentences.
Can you follow his thoughts easily? Does each sentence add to the power of what he said before, yet
say something new?
For many of us, the American dream is about working
to make a good life for our families. It’s easy to forget
that the American dream is rooted in American history, back to the founding of our nation. Lincoln refers
to this in the Gettysburg Address.
Group Discussion People often say it is important
to know history. But is it really true? If so, why? Does it
change anything in the present? Can it influence the
future? Do we learn from our mistakes? In small
groups discuss these questions.
Build Background
Nowadays, presidents have speech writers. Lincoln
himself wrote the Gettysburg Address for the dedication of a cemetery.
• A major battle of the Civil War was fought near the
town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 1–3, 1863.
Casualties (killed and wounded) were estimated at
more than 40,000 soldiers.
• The people of Gettysburg had to bury the dead.
The federal government bought the battleground for
a cemetery, and it provided the coffins.
• At the cemetery dedication on November 19, 1863,
the main speaker went on for two hours. Lincoln
spoke for two minutes. His speech is considered one
of the finest speeches of all time.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read the Gettysburg Address to
see the American dream in terms of our history.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the speech to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your own purpose on the
“Gettysburg Address” page of Foldable 8.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
The Gettysburg Address
1097
READING WORKSHOP 2
by Abraham Lincoln
F
our score and seven years ago our fathers1 brought forth
on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and
dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether
that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can
long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We
have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting
place for those who here gave their lives that that nation
might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should
do this. 1
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not
consecrate—we can not hallow2—this ground. 2 The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated
it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will
1. Four score and seven is 87. Lincoln refers to the “founding fathers,” the men who wrote and
adopted the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.
2. In the first paragraph, dedicated meant “given completely.” Here, dedicate means “set aside for
a certain purpose.” Similarly, both consecrate and hallow mean “make or honor as holy.”
Practice the Skills
1
Key Literary Element
Style Pay close attention to
Lincoln’s word choices throughout the speech. What does he
say in place of the word cemetery? How does he describe the
dead? Does he talk about North
and South?
2
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word hallow is very nearly
archaic. One place it is still used
is in the name of a popular
American holiday. Can you think
of which one?
Vocabulary
conceived (kun SEEVD) v. formed; imagined
proposition (prah puh ZIH shun) n. a plan or proposal
endure (en DUR) v. to carry on; survive; last
detract (dih TRAKT) v. to take away from; reduce the value of
1098 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
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READING WORKSHOP 2
little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can
never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather,
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who
fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 3 It is rather for
us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before
us—that from these honored dead we take increased
devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full
measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these
dead shall not have died in vain3—that this nation, under
God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that
government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall
not perish from the earth. 4 ❍
Practice the Skills
3
Key Reading Skill
Understanding Cause and
Effect Lincoln is saying that the
result of the Battle of Gettysburg
should be—what? Rewrite this
last sentence in your own words.
4
3. The phrase in vain means “for no good purpose; uselessly.”
Vocabulary
resolve (rih ZOLV) v. to decide firmly
Lincoln suggests that more than
the American dream is at stake.
What is he talking about? Write
your answers on the “Gettysburg
Address” page of Foldable 8.
Your response will help you complete the Unit Challenge later.
perish (PAIR ish) v. to become ruined or destroyed; die
The Angle, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1863, 1988. Mort Küntsler. Oil on canvas, 18 x 24 in.
Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Sharpe.
Analyzing the Painting What words or ideas in the Gettysburg Address does this painting illustrate?
The Gettysburg Address
1099
“The Bloody Angle” Mort Kunstler, 1988, “The Bloody Angle” Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1863, Collection: Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Sharpe
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READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
After You Read
The Gettysburg Address
Answering the
1. After reading the Gettysburg Address, how do you think Lincoln would
answer the question: What is the American dream?
2. Recall According to Lincoln, how many years ago did the forefathers of
this nation establish the country?
T IP Right There
Critical Thinking
3. Interpret Lincoln says that the people attending the cemetery dedication cannot make the battleground a holy place. He says that the men
who “struggled” there have already made it holy. What does he mean?
T IP Think and Search
4. Evaluate Lincoln was wrong when he said, “The world will little note,
nor long remember what we say here.” On the contrary, the world has
long remembered what he said at Gettysburg. In your own words,
explain why Lincoln’s speech is so memorable.
T IP Author and Me
5. Infer What was Lincoln’s purpose in this speech? Was he trying to
persuade the crowd to think or believe or do something? Explain.
T IP Author and Me
Write About Your Reading
Objectives (pp. 1100–1101)
Reading Identify text structure: cause and
effect • Make connections from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements: style
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Respond to literature:
eyewitness report
Grammar Capitalize proper nouns
Eyewitness Report Suppose you were there at Gettysburg and heard
Lincoln’s speech. Describe the day.
Step 1: Decide on a point of view. You might write from the point of
view of one of the following: a survivor of the Battle of Gettysburg; a
family member who lost someone in the battle; a newspaper reporter
observing the event.
Step 2: Jot down notes for sensory details (what that person might
have seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched on that day).
Step 3: Jot down notes about your own (or the crowd’s) feelings and
mood before, during, and after Lincoln’s speech. Write down how you
feel about Lincoln’s message, and if you agree or disagree with it.
Write to Learn Use your notes to create an “eyewitness” report of the
Gettysburg Address.
1100 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
“The Bloody Angle” Mort Kunstler, 1988, “The Bloody Angle” Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, July 3, 1863, Collection: Mr. & Mrs. Robert L. Sharpe
READING WORKSHOP 2 • Understanding Cause and Effect
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Understanding
Cause and Effect
6. Suppose the South had won the Civil War, and
the United States did not survive as one nation.
What do you think would have been some of
the effects?
Key Literary Element: Style
7. Count the number of times Lincoln uses a form
of the word dedicate. What does this suggest
about his attitude and his purpose?
8. Compare and contrast Lincoln’s style with that
of Martin Luther King Jr. in his “I Have a Dream”
speech. How are their styles similar? How are
they different? Explain your answer.
Vocabulary Check
Write the vocabulary word that each clue describes.
conceived proposition endure
detract resolve perish
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
make it through hard times
a suggestion for action
decide; settle
lessen; lower
die; decay
thought up
English Language Coach Research the word
hallow and the origins of Halloween. How did
the two originally relate to one another? What
relation, if any, do they have today in common
American custom?
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Grammar Link:
Capitalization of Places
and Things
Capitalize the names of cities, counties, states, countries,
continents, bodies of water, and geographic features.
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is a city on Lake Michigan.
Capitalize a compass-point name when it refers to a
specific section of the country: the West Coast, the
North. Do NOT capitalize a compass-point name if it
refers to a general direction.
• I’m from the East, and I’m heading west to see the
Rocky Mountains.
Capitalize the names of streets, highways, buildings,
bridges, monuments, and celestial bodies.
• We live on Fifth Avenue, near the Empire State
Building, on Planet Earth, in the Milky Way.
Capitalize the names of important historical events,
periods of time, documents, and holidays.
• Battle of Yorktown
• Bill of Rights
• Bronze Age
• New Year’s Eve
Capitalize the first word and the last word in titles.
Also capitalize all other words except articles, conjunctions, or prepositions with fewer than five letters.
• It’s Not About Me
• Washington Post
• “The Raven”
• “On Top of the World”
Grammar Practice
Rewrite these sentences, capitalizing words properly.
16. We spent thanksgiving day in columbus, ohio.
17. A southerly wind came in across the gulf coast.
18. I read about the middle ages in the new york times.
19. Have you read the poem “casey at the bat”?
20. The north won the american civil war.
Writing Application Make sure you capitalized
proper nouns in your Gettysburg eyewitness account.
The Gettysburg Address
1101
READING WORKSHOP 3
Skills Focus
You will practice using these skills when you
read the following selections:
• “I Chose Schooling,” p. 1106
• “The Electric Summer,” p. 1114
Skill Lesson
Identifying
Main Idea and
Supporting Details
Reading
• Identifying the main idea and supporting
details
Literature
• Understanding cultural references
• Understanding the use of dialogue
Vocabulary
• Learning about English as a
changing language
Writing/Grammar
Learn It!
What Is It? The main idea is the most important
idea in a paragraph or in a whole selection. It’s the
point, or message, the writer wants to communicate.
Sometimes the writer directly states the main idea.
Other times you have to figure out the main idea by
looking at supporting details—facts that back up the
author’s ideas, or the actions of characters and the
events in a story that support the message.
• Using correct capitalization
in writing
d.
PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserve
ted with permission of UNIVERSAL
FOXTROT © 2003 Bill Amend. Reprin
Analyzing Cartoons
What’s the main idea of this
cartoon?
Objectives (pp. 1102–1103)
Reading Identify main idea and
supporting details
1102 UNIT 8
FOXTROT © 2003 Bill Amend. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Why Is It Important? Finding the main idea helps you better understand
the writer’s message and reason for writing the selection. Finding details
that support the idea helps you decide if that message is a good one.
How Do I Do It? Some writers directly state the main idea. When they
don’t and you have to figure it out, use these tips:
• In a work of nonfiction, ask yourself: What is the writer saying about this
topic? In a short story or other work of fiction, ask: What is the writer
saying about the characters and situations?
• To see if you’ve correctly identified the main idea, ask: Do the important
details explain or give evidence that supports this idea?
Study Central Visit www.glencoe
.com and click on Study Central to
review evaluating.
One student used a diagram to figure out the main idea of this paragraph:
“Dad, do you believe it?” Musa exclaimed. “With
this paycheck, I have enough money to buy that car
at Sam’s Used Cars I asked you to buy me! When
you told me to get a job and save for it, I wasn’t sure
I could do it. Thanks, Dad.”
Main Idea: Hard work pays off.
Detail 1:
Musa wants a
car from Sam’s
Used Car Sales.
Detail 2:
Musa’s dad told him
to work and save.
Detail 3:
Musa has
enough money
to buy the car.
Practice It!
Draw your own diagram of the ideas in the paragraph below. It will help
you get ready to write your response.
“You ‘n me, Darren,” Isaak said. “We’ve finally got
a chance at Friday’s game. Scouts from State will be
there. If we look good, we can get full scholarships.
Wouldn’t that be awesome? A free college education
for shootin’ hoops!”
Use It!
As you read “I Chose Schooling” and “The Electric Summer,” use a
diagram to find the main idea and supporting details. Then you can decide
if the writers made their points.
Reading Workshop 3 Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
File photo
1103
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Before You Read
I Chose Schooling
Vocabulary Preview
Ja c
q u e li n g N w a i w u
Meet the Author
Jacqueling Nwaiwu was born
in Nigeria and came to the
United States as a teenager.
She is one of the “sisters” in
My Sisters’ Voices, a collection of writings by American
teenage girls. The book was
put together by 18-year-old
Iris Jacob, who is biracial. In
the introduction Jacob says:
“We come from all different
ethnic, cultural, and spiritual
traditions. We are immigrants, some of us. We are
beauties, inner and outer.
We are heroines. . . . [W]e
are the future!”
prevailed (prih VAYLD) v. conquered; won; overcame; form of the verb
prevail (p. 1106) It was many years before peace finally prevailed.
monumental (mon yuh MEN tul) adj. great and meaningful (p. 1107)
Climbing any mountain is a monumental accomplishment, if you ask me.
attaining (uh TAY ning) n. the act of achieving, accomplishing, or succeeding (p. 1107) Attaining a passing score will be impossible if I don’t study.
crucial (KROO shul) adj. extremely important (p. 1107) A crucial part of
every person’s diet is some form of protein; it’s necessary to live.
agitated (AJ uh tay tud) adj. disturbed; upset (p. 1108) The man wasn’t
harmed, but he was so agitated by the robbery that he couldn’t speak.
English Language Coach
English as a Changing Language Did you ever wonder how some
words get into the English language? The chart below shows the origins of
two words from “I Chose Schooling.”
Word
Origin & Meaning
Modern Meaning
slacker
Old English sleac
careless in behavior
someone who avoids
work or responsibility
There’s nothing very unusual about the origins of these words, but another
word in the selection—geek—has a more surprising history. Copy the chart
below into your Learner’s Notebook. Then look up geek’s origin and meanings, and fill in the chart.
Author Search For more about
Jacqueling Nwaiwu, go to www
.glencoe.com.
Word
Objectives (pp. 1104 –1109)
Modern Meanings 1
2
Reading Identify main idea and
supporting details • Make connections
from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements:
cultural reference
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
geek
Origin & Meaning
1104 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Jacqueline Nwaiwu
clammy
Old English claeman
to smear or stick
damp, soft, sticky,
usually cool
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Identifying Main Idea
and Supporting Details
Connect to the Reading
As you read “I Chose Schooling,” pause to look for the
main idea of a paragraph.
• What does the writer say is important to her?
This could be a directly stated main idea.
• How do the details add to your understanding of the
writer’s ideas?
Look for descriptions of her feelings, behavior, and
actions.
To help identify the main idea of the entire selection,
ask yourself these questions:
• What is the writer’s most important idea or overall
message?
• Which parts of the selection support this idea?
Write to Learn What was the main idea or message
of a movie you’ve seen recently? List details (action,
dialogue, and so on) that supported that idea.
Key Literary Element: Cultural Reference
Cultural references are mentions of objects, activities,
products, forms of entertainment, and so on that are
tied to a particular culture, place, and time. Slang is also
a type of cultural reference. Notice the slang expressions as you read “I Chose Schooling.” What does the
slang tell you about the students’ culture and time?
Partner Work Geek started as carnival slang, then
took a different (but related) meaning in American culture. With a partner, explore the slang word bling-bling
(or bling). Explain its meaning, who invented it, and
why. (Your best bet is to search online for “word definitions,” “online dictionaries,” or something similar.)
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
In most schools, students tend to divide up into
groups according to their interests and goals. There
are the athletes, the musicians, the kids who study a
lot, the kids who don’t, and so on. These kinds of
groups are called cliques. Members of a clique share
similar interests and leave out those who have different interests. In this essay, the writer describes her
school’s cliques and offers her opinions of them.
Build Background
This essay comes from the book My Sisters’ Voices:
Teenage Girls of Color Speak Out. Published in 2001,
the collection features writings by girls from Hispanic,
African American, Asian American, Native American,
and biracial backgrounds. Some were native-born;
some were immigrants.
U.S. Census Bureau statistics for the year 2000 reveal
the following information:
• Total U.S. population
281.4 million
• Hispanic or non-white
21.0% 59.1 million
• Born in other countries
11.0% 30.9 million
• Ages 13–19
10.1% 28.4 million
• Girls, ages 13–19
4.9% 13.8 million
• Girls, ages 13–19, of color 1.0%
2.9 million
Set Purposes for Reading
Read “I Chose Schooling” to see
what a student born in another country thinks about
education as part of the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the selection to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your own purpose on the “I Chose
Schooling” page of Foldable 8.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
I Chose Schooling
1105
READING WORKSHOP 3
by Jacqueling Nwaiwu
A
s I walked down the crowded halls of Central High on
the first day of school, I was overcome with many emotions. I
was physically tired because I was not accustomed to waking
up so early, and I was also scared and nervous. It was my
freshman year, and above all other emotions, nervousness
prevailed. I was trembling; my hands were clammy and
sweaty. Students were greeting each other. There were
clusters of students by lockers chatting away, catching up on
all the summer gossip. I continued to walk through the halls
observing the madness. Kids were running through the halls
playing tag and ramming into each other. Bewildered, I
muttered, “So this is high school. It looks more like the circus.
So much for thinking that high school is exactly like the
preppy, well-mannered students in the weekly TV show
Saved by the Bell.1” 1 2 3
I managed to find my homeroom after walking around for
fifteen minutes. When I went in, I noticed that over half of the
students in my homeroom were students who attended the
same junior high as me. I was annoyed with that fact because
I wanted to meet new people and make new friends instead
of interacting with the same old students from junior high.
And with that, I quickly sat down next to a girl with spiky,
blue hair, whom I did not know.
1. Saved by the Bell, which first aired in 1989, was a comedy focusing on six students at the
fictional Bayside High School.
Vocabulary
prevailed (prih VAYLD) v. conquered; won; overcame
1106 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Terry Vine/Getty Images
Practice the Skills
1
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Main Idea The
main idea of this paragraph is
directly stated. Nwaiwu says she
is scared and nervous on her first
day of school. Her description of
her “clammy and sweaty” hands
is a supporting detail that shows
how she felt.
2
English Language Coach
A Changing Language As an
adjective, preppy describes a
style of clothing. In the 1960s, as
a noun, it meant a student preparing for college at a preparatory (or “prep”) school.
3
TV characters often have the lives
real people dream of having.
Name a character or show that,
to you, represents the American
dream (or part of it).
READING WORKSHOP 3
Right at that moment, my blond, skinny homeroom teacher,
Ms. Larsen, shouted, “Welcome to high school!” She went on,
saying, “These next four years will be monumental. These
four years will define your character; you will either choose
that path of excelling in school or you will decide that
socializing with friends is more important. You have two
paths to choose from. Today is the first day of school, choose
your path wisely.”
That statement remained with me for the whole day. I kept
thinking to myself, This is the beginning of my high school
career, I must do well in school. I must pick the right path.
Attaining a sound education has been my goal since
before I could remember. Every day from the time I was in
kindergarten to the present, my parents have always said,
in their thick Nigerian 2 accents, “Read hard so that you
may be successful.” (To my parents, “reading hard” is
synonymous with studying rigorously.) I have always
endeavored to excel in school and a large portion of my
motivation is because of that overused quote. Whenever
stress mounts, and I feel that I never want to do another
paper or another homework assignment, I always remember
what my parents would tell me, “Read hard so that you
may be successful.” 4
Schooling is crucial to me. I believe that the better one does
in school, the more successful he or she becomes in the real
world. I define a successful person as one who is happy, has a
great family, and has a great-paying job.
Over the course of the year, every student in my homeroom
chose either to take school seriously or to slack off. In
homeroom, cliques started to form. The slackers sat on one
side of the room, while the studious, grade-conscious
students sat on the other side. 5 Students on the slacker side
of the room constantly yelled and were rowdy, while the
2. Nigeria was governed by Great Britain from the early 1900s until 1964, and most Nigerians
speak English.
Practice the Skills
4
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Main Idea
Again, Nwaiwu states the idea
of the paragraph directly. What
is that idea, and how does she
support it?
5
Key Literary Element
Cultural Reference The
slackers (a slang term) are one
clique. Do you know of a slang
term for the “grade-conscious”
students?
Vocabulary
monumental (mon yuh MEN tul) adj. great and meaningful
attaining (uh TAY ning) n. the act of achieving, accomplishing, or succeeding
crucial (KROO shul) adj. extremely important
I Chose Schooling
1107
READING WORKSHOP 3
students on the grade-conscious
side of the room were busy trying
to study or complete homework.
One day, I came into homeroom
and sat in my designated spot: the
studious, grade-conscious side of
the room. The morning
announcements were blaring while
I frantically tried to complete my
homework. I was completing my
math problems when suddenly the
bell rang, indicating that it was time
for first hour. I ignored it and
continued to finish the problems
due that hour. Before I knew it, the
second bell rang and I was late for
math class.
I quickly jammed my books in
my bag and ran out of my fourthfloor homeroom. I ran down the
hall and up the stairs to the fifth
floor. When I got to the fifth floor, I
was blocked by a group of African
American girls. The five rowdy girls
stood in the entrance of the
stairwell. I was so agitated. I wanted to push the girls out
of my way so I could get to class. But instead, I
maneuvered3 through the crowd. As I was doing that, one
of the girls loudly said, “Who do she think she is anyway,
huh?” The group of girls roared with laughter. Another girl
said, “Ya’ll leave her alone. She trying to get her an
edgamacation.” And with that, everyone laughed even
more. I turned around and looked at them, but said
nothing. I simply walked to my math class humiliated. 6
3. When Nwaiwu maneuvered (muh NOO vurd) through the crowd, she changed directions
several times to get where she wanted to be.
Vocabulary
agitated (AJ uh tay tud) adj. disturbed; upset
1108 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Black Girl with Wings (acrylic on canvas) by James, Laura (Contemporary Artist) Private Collection/ The Bridgeman Art Library
Black Girl with Wings, 20th century. Laura
James. Acrylic on canvas, 31.8 x 43.2 cm.
Private Collection.
Analyzing the Painting In what ways
does the girl in the painting reflect
Nwaiwu’s ideas about herself?
Practice the Skills
6
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word rowdy means “loud, rude,
and rough.” It most likely comes
from row, “a noisy disturbance.”
(With this meaning, row rhymes
with how.)
READING WORKSHOP 3
At that moment, I strongly regretted running down
the halls like some geek. I strongly regretted not saying
something to them. I strongly regretted having the intense
desire to go to my math class and do well in school. It was as
if the girls were saying, “Who do she think she is, huh? A
black girl trying to be white. An oreo black on the outside,
but white on the inside. 7 Do she think she betta than us?
She betta not, ‘cause she ain’t. School ain’t that important for
her to be running like that to some class. Some black girls
don’t know their race. Education ain’t all that important. I’d
rather clown wit my homies than run to class actin’ like I’m
white tryin’ ta git an education.”
“Who she think she is anyway, huh?” I was furious. What
exactly did she mean by that! I was only trying to get to class.
Excuse me if school means a little more to me than “hangin’
out wit da homies.” I couldn’t believe I gave those girls so
much power that they were able to ruin my day.
The next day, I went to homeroom. I mentioned the story to
Meg, the girl with the spiky, blue hair. 8 Meg said, “Forget
them. School is more important than trying to fit into some
popular clique. Look at me. I have blue hair. I try not to fit
into groups who don’t accept me for me. School is much more
important. Don’t waste your energy on ignorant people.”
Right as she said that, everything was clear. I didn’t have to
waste my energy on them. I chose schooling over socializing.
I chose to study for tests instead of “gossiping over someone’s
baby’s mamma.” I selected education over ignorance. I
thought to myself, Maybe I am not “ghetto” and maybe I do
choose to speak properly. I am not any less black; I am just
being me. I preferred work over play, homework instead of
fitting into a crowd where I don’t belong. I chose schooling.
When looking back at the experience I had with those
girls, I thank God every day. That particular experience
reaffirmed5 my goal, which was to attain a sound education.
I thank God for giving me the initiative to select the right
path, despite all odds. 9 ❍
5. Nwaiwu’s experience supported and strengthened (reaffirmed) her goal.
Practice the Skills
7
Key Literary Element
Cultural Reference The word
oreo is a cultural reference in
two ways. Capitalized, it’s the
brand name of a cookie. Here,
it’s a slang term that suggests
certain values and beliefs.
8
Key Literary Element
Cultural Reference Even this
girl provides a cultural reference,
since no one would even have
thought of having “spiky, blue
hair” before a certain time.
9
How does Nwaiwu’s idea of the
American dream compare with
yours? Write your answer on
the “I Chose Schooling” page
of Foldable 8. Your response
will help you complete the Unit
Challenge later.
I Chose Schooling
1109
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
After You Read
I Chose Schooling
Answering the
1. How important is education for achieving the American dream?
2. Recall How did Nwaiwu feel on her first day at Central High?
T IP Right There
3. Give Examples Give examples of what Nwaiwu considers a successful
person to be.
T IP Right There
Critical Thinking
4. Infer Why does Nwaiwu sit where she does in her homeroom?
T IP Think and Search
5. Infer How and why might Nwaiwu’s goals have been influenced by the
fact that she was the daughter of immigrants?
T IP Author and Me
6. Conclude How does working toward her dream affect Nwaiwu’s life?
T IP Author and Me
7. Analyze Explain how the blue-haired girl’s comments show that
Nwaiwu does “belong to a group.”
T IP Author and Me
8. Evaluate Is Nwaiwu’s goal worth working for?
T IP Author and Me
Talk About Your Reading
Objectives (pp. 1110–1111)
Reading Identify main idea and
supporting details
Literature Identify literary elements:
cultural reference
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Grammar Capitalize proper nouns
1110
UNIT 8
Terry Vine/Getty Images
Literature Groups Different people have different ideas about the
American dream. In a small group, compare the ideas of group members.
Then discuss how your versions of the American dream compare to
Nwaiwu’s.
• What are your goals? How do you plan to reach them?
• What kind of life do you want for yourself ten years from now?
• How is your American dream similar to or different from Nwaiwu’s
dream? Why?
• How is your American dream similar to or different from the dreams of
others in your group? Why?
What Is the American Dream?
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Identifying
Main Idea and Supporting Details
9. What is the main idea of the selection? Is it directly
stated? If so, give the page number and the first few
words of the paragraph that contain the main idea.
If it is not directly stated, explain how and where
you identified it.
10. Name three supporting details for the main idea
you identified.
Key Literary Element: Cultural Reference
11. One of the girls in Nwaiwu’s class uses the slang
edgamacation instead of the word education.
What does her use of this term tell you about her
and her values?
12. Nwaiwu mentions Saved by the Bell. TV shows
often reflect the culture and times in which they
are made. Name a show that you think reflects
today’s culture. Give examples that tie this show
to current American culture.
13. Explain the slang expressions “hanging out with”
and “homies.”
Vocabulary Check
Label the following statements true or false.
14. Attaining an important goal means failing to
meet the goal.
15. The team that prevailed on the soccer field won
the game.
16. Finding a cure for cancer would be a
monumental accomplishment.
17. When people are agitated, they’re calm, cool,
and confident.
18. A good diet is crucial to lasting good health.
19. English Language Coach Nwaiwu writes,
“Attaining a sound education has been my goal
since before I could remember.” Look up the history of the word sound and explain how the
word’s origin relates to its meaning in Nwaiwu’s
statement.
Grammar Link:
More Capitalization
Why do we capitalize the first letter of certain words?
Capital letters are “look at me” flags! They tell readers
that there’s something special about these words.
Capitalize the first letter of a language name or a
nationality. Capitalize the names of ethnic groups. In a
multiple-word name, capitalize both words.
• Luc speaks English, but his first language is French.
• Eva’s an American citizen; her origins are Mexican.
• Jose’s Mexican American family lives on one side of
us, and a Jewish family lives on the other side.
Capitalize the names of clubs, organizations, businesses, institutions, and political parties. Capitalize
brand names but not the nouns following them.
• We have an International Club meeting tomorrow.
• The Data Corporation is expanding into Europe.
• We prefer Cruncho peanut butter.
Grammar Practice
For each of the following, choose the sentence that
shows the correct use of capitalization.
20. A. I saw a film about native Americans.
B. The Spanish weren’t the first to settle the West.
21. A. One of the dialects in Louisiana is French
Creole.
B. I ate french food at a restaurant yesterday.
22. A. Jorge is proud to be a canadian.
B. It will take work to preserve your Spanish
heritage.
Writing Application Write a paragraph about
someone you know who worked hard to achieve
a dream.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
I Chose Schooling
1111
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Before You Read
The Electric Summer
Vocabulary Preview
R i c h a rd P e c k
Meet the Author
A former high school teacher,
Richard Peck began writing
novels for the same age
group he taught. His books
focus on the problems that
teens face. Peck uses the
characters in his books to
show young people how others their age overcome problems as they take one step
closer to adulthood. His novels include Don’t Look and It
Won’t Hurt, Are You in the
House Alone?, and Father
Figure. See page R5 of the
Author Files for more on
Peck.
Author Search For more about
Richard Peck, go to www.glencoe.
Objectives (pp. 1112–1125)
Reading Identify main idea and
supporting details • Make connections
from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements:
dialogue
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
1112
UNIT 8
novelty (NAH vul tee) n. anything new, strange, or unusual (p. 1114)
I grew up in the city, so seeing a cow face-to-face was a novelty.
grandeur (GRAN jur) n. the state of being large and impressive; greatness
(p. 1121) I was deeply impressed by the grandeur of the mountains.
hovering (HUV ur ing) v. remaining in or near one place in the air; form of
the verb hover (p. 1122) One eagle, hovering high above our heads, was
the only living creature we saw as we hiked to the cabin.
replica (REP lih kuh) n. a faithful copy (p. 1123) The shop had row upon
row of miniature buildings, each a replica of an original structure.
rapture (RAP chur) n. a feeling of great joy (p. 1124) The two felt that
nothing could destroy the rapture of their wedding day.
seasoned (SEE zund) adj. made fit by experience; adjusted to (something)
because of experience (p. 1125) A more seasoned player might have
been able to predict what was coming next.
English Language Coach
English as a Changing Language In “The Electric Summer,” the main
character is Geneva (juh NEE vuh), which is also the name of a city in
Switzerland. Some people are named for places. Many places are named
for people. Two places mentioned in the story were named for kings of
France—Louis IX and Louis XIV. The French don’t say the –s at the end of
Louis, but Americans are more flexible. Read the words and pronunciations
in the chart below.
St. Louis, Missouri
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisiana
LOO ee or LOO us
LOO ih vil or LOO ih vul
loo ee zee AN uh or loo zee AN uh
Countless other U.S. place names come from foreign languages but have
peculiarly American pronunciations. Here are three examples.
Spanish
Los Angeles, California lohs AHN hay lays
mah DREED
Madrid, Iowa
MEH hee koh
New Mexico
“American”
lahs AN juh lus
MAD rid
MEK sih koh
What Is the American Dream?
AP Wide World Photos
1112-1113_U8BYR_845478.indd 1112
3/14/07 12:31:18 PM
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Identifying
Main Idea and Supporting Details
Connect to the Reading
Most of the time, fiction authors don’t directly state
their main ideas. Instead, they provide details to help
you figure them out. When you’re reading fiction, use
these questions to help identify the main idea:
• What points is the author trying to make about the
characters’ personalities and relationships?
• Which details support those points? Think about the
characters’ behavior and reactions to events.
• What is the main message of the story?
• What supporting details—such as events and their consequences—help the reader understand this message?
Literary Element: Dialogue
In literature, dialogue is the conversation between
characters and it offers a great way to learn things
about them. In “The Electric Summer,” the dialogue
gives readers a better understanding of the personalities of the major characters—Geneva, her mother, and
her Aunt Elvera.
In a story with a first-person narrator, you need to
be careful. It’s easy to confuse what the narrator says
with what the characters themselves reveal in the dialogue. Here, Geneva is the narrator, so she gives her
ideas about characters and events, as well as her own
thoughts and feelings. The other characters’ dialogue
reveals their own thoughts and feelings.
Use these tips as you read “The Electric Summer”:
• What do you learn about each character’s personality from what she says in the dialogue?
• What does the dialogue tell you about the events
and situations?
• How does the dialogue help you understand what
the characters experience in the story?
Partner Talk Have a dialogue with your partner.
Choose a topic and discuss it for a couple of minutes.
Then talk about your dialogue. What did you learn
about your partner from what he or she said?
Do you recall the first time you saw a kangaroo or
some other creature from a faraway place? How did
you feel when you first flew in a plane or rode a roller
coaster? In this story, a farm girl visits a big-city fair to
see wonders from around the world.
Build Background
Long before TV and the Internet, world’s fairs were
held every few years in different cities around the
world. Nations presented their food, art, and culture.
Businesses showed off products and technologies.
Visitors had the time of their lives!
At the 1904 world’s fair in St. Louis, Missouri, the new
products on display included everything from automatic egg boilers to pianos that played themselves. An
automobile at one exhibit featured silk curtains, armchairs, a writing desk, an icebox, and a wash basin.
(The car cost $18,000, a huge sum in 1904.)
Set Purposes for Reading
Read “The Electric Summer” to
find out how a girl and her mother discover new ideas
about the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the story to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your own purpose on the “Electric
Summer” page of Foldable 8.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
The Electric Summer
1113
READING WORKSHOP 3
by Richard Peck
I
was sitting out there on the old swing that used to hang
on the back porch. We’d fed Dad and the boys. Now Mama
and I were spelling each other to stir the preserves.1 The
screen door behind me was black with flies, and that smell of
sugared strawberries cooking down filled all out-of-doors. A
Maytime smell, promising summer.
Just turned fourteen, I was long-legged enough to push off
the swing, then listen to the squeak of the chains. The swing
was where I did my daytime dreaming. I sat there looking
down past Mama’s garden and the wind pump to the level
line of long distance.2 1
Like watching had made it happen, dust rose on the road
from town. A black dot got bigger, scaring the sheep away
from the fence line. It was an automobile. Nothing else
churned the dust like that. Then by and by it was the
Schumates’ Oldsmobile, turning off the crown of the road
and bouncing into our barn lot. There were only four
automobiles in the town at that time, and only one of them
driven by a woman—my aunt Elvera Schumate. She cut the
motor off, but the Oldsmobile was still heaving. Climbing
down, she put a gloved hand on a fender to calm it.
As Dad often said, Aunt Elvera would have been a novelty
even without the automobile. In the heat of the day she wore
1. In spelling each other, they were taking turns. Here, the preserves are strawberries being made
into jam or jelly.
2. The level line of long distance refers to the horizon.
Vocabulary
novelty (NAH vul tee) n. anything new, strange, or unusual
1114
UNIT 8
SuperStock, Inc. / SuperStock
What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
1
Reviewing Skills
Visualizing Take a moment to
form mental pictures of Geneva
and the farm. Imagine, too, the
smells and sounds she describes.
READING WORKSHOP 3
a wide-brimmed canvas hat secured with a motoring veil tied
under her chin. Her duster was a voluminous poplin
garment,3 leather-bound at the hem.
My cousin Dorothy climbed down from the Olds, dressed
similarly. They made a business of untangling themselves
from their veils, propping their goggles up on their
foreheads, and dusting themselves down the best they could.
Aunt Elvera made for the house with Dorothy following.
Dorothy always held back. 2
Behind me Mama banged on the screen door to scare the
flies, then stepped outside. She was ready for a breather even
if it meant Aunt Elvera. I stood up from the swing as Aunt
Elvera came through the gate to the yard, Dorothy trailing.
Where their goggles had been were two circles of clean skin
around their eyes. They looked like a pair of raccoons.
Mama’s mouth twitched in something of a smile.
“Well, Mary.” Aunt Elvera heaved herself up the porch
steps and drew off her gauntlet gloves. “I can see you are
having a busy day.” Mama’s hands were fire red from
strawberry juice and the heat of the stove. Mine were
scratched all over from picking every ripe berry in the patch.
“One day’s like another on the farm,” Mama remarked.
“Then I will not mince4 words,” Aunt Elvera said,
overlooking me. “I’d have rung you up if you were connected
to the telephone system.”
“What about, Elvera?” She and Mama weren’t sisters. They
were sisters-in-law.
“Why, the Fair, of course!” Aunt Elvera bristled5 in an
important way. “What else? The Louisiana Purchase
Exposition in St. Louis. The world will be there. It puts St.
Louis at the hub of the universe.” Aunt Elvera’s mouth
worked wordlessly.
“Well, I do know about it,” Mama said. “I take it you’ll
be going?”
Practice the Skills
2
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word goggles comes from the
Middle English gogolen, which
meant “to squint.” Later, goggle
came to mean “to stare at with
wide eyes,” which seems the
opposite of its older meaning.
3. Early cars were open, like horse carriages, and early roads were unpaved. To protect against
dirt and bad weather, drivers and passengers wore dusters, long coats that were large
(voluminous), to fit over their clothes, and made of a strong, woven fabric (poplin). A woman
was likely to wear a hat with a motoring veil, a long, thin scarf that tied around her face. The
next paragraphs mention more of a motorist’s costume: gauntlet gloves, which extended over
the wrists, and goggles, which protected the eyes.
4. Here, to mince is to speak in an unnaturally careful or dainty way.
5. Here, bristled (BRIH suld) means “showed anger or annoyance.”
The Electric Summer
1115
READING WORKSHOP 3
Aunt Elvera waved her away. “My stars, yes.
You know how Schumate can be. Tight as a new
boot. But I put my foot down. Mary, this is the
opportunity of a lifetime. We will not see such
wonders again during our span.6”
“Ah,” Mama said, and my mind wandered—
took a giant leap and landed in St. Louis. We knew
about the Fair. The calendar the peddler gave us at
Christmas featured a different pictorial view of the
Fair for every month. There were white palaces in
gardens with gondolas7 in waterways, everything
electric-lit. Castles from Europe and paper houses
from Japan. For the month of May the calendar
featured the great floral clock on the fairgrounds. 3
“Send us a postal,8” Mama said.
“The thing is . . .” Aunt Elvera’s eyes slid toward
Dorothy. “We thought we’d invite Geneva to go
with us.”
My heart liked to lurch out of my apron. Me?
They wanted to take me to the Fair?
“She’ll be company for Dorothy.”
Then I saw how it was. Dorothy was dim, but she could set
her heels like a mule. She wanted somebody with her at the
Fair so she wouldn’t have to trail after her mother every
minute. We were about the same age. We were in the same
grade, but she was a year older, having repeated fourth grade.
She could read, but her lips moved. And we were cousins, not
friends.
“It will be educational for them both,” Aunt Elvera said.
“All the progress of civilization as we know it will be on
display. They say a visit to the Fair is tantamount9 to a year of
high school.”
“Mercy,” Mama said.
“We will take the Wabash Railroad directly to the gates of
the Exposition,” Aunt Elvera explained, “and we will be
staying on the grounds themselves at the Inside Inn.” She
6. A span is a period of time; here, it’s a synonym for “lifetime.”
7. Gondolas (GAHN duh luz) are long, narrow, high-ended boats such as are used on the canals of
Venice, Italy.
8. This is short for postal card, which we now call a postcard.
9. Tantamount (TAN tuh mownt) means “equal in value, importance, or effect.”
1116
UNIT 8
Bettmann/CORBIS
What Is the American Dream?
Analyzing the Photo
What aspect of the fair does
this photo capture?
Practice the Skills
3
Literary Element
Dialogue Review the last few
paragraphs of conversation
between Mama and Aunt Elvera.
What can you tell about Elvera’s
personality from this dialogue?
READING WORKSHOP 3
leaned nearer Mama, and her voice fell. “I’m sorry to say that
there will be stimulants for sale on the fairgrounds. You
know how St. Louis is in the hands of the breweries.” Aunt
Elvera was sergeant-at-arms of the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union, and to her, strong drink10 was a mocker.
“But we will keep the girls away from that sort of thing.” Her
voice fell to a whisper. “And we naturally won’t set foot on
the Pike.” 4
We knew what the Pike was. It was the midway of the Fair,
like a giant carnival with all sorts of goings-on.
“Well, many thanks, but I don’t think so,” Mama said.
My heart didn’t exactly sink. It never dawned on me that I’d
see the Fair. I was only a little cast down because I might
never get another glimpse of the world.
“Now, you’re not to think of the money,” Aunt Elvera said.
“Dismiss that from your mind. Schumate and I will be glad
to cover all Geneva’s expenses. She can sleep in the bed with
Dorothy, and we are carrying a good deal of our eats. I know
these aren’t flush11 times for farmers, Mary, but do not let
your pride stand in Geneva’s way.”
“Oh, no,” Mama said mildly. “Pride cometh before a fall.
But we may be running down to the Fair ourselves.” 5
Aunt Elvera’s eyes narrowed, and I didn’t believe Mama,
either. It was just her way of fending off12 my aunt. Kept me
from being in the same bed with Dorothy, too.
Aunt Elvera never liked taking no for an answer, but in
time she and Dorothy made a disorderly retreat. We saw
them off from the porch. Aunt Elvera had to crank the Olds
to get it going while Dorothy sat up on the seat, adjusting the
magneto13 or whatever it was. We watched Aunt Elvera’s rear
elevation as she stooped to jerk the crank time after time. If
the crank got away from you, it could break your arm, and
we watched to see if it would. 6
10. Here, stimulants and strong drink refer to alcoholic beverages. In the early 1900s, St. Louis
breweries (beer factories) produced a large portion of the nation’s beer. The Women’s
Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) was founded in 1874 to improve moral life, especially
by encouraging people not to drink alcohol. As sergeant-at-arms, Elvera was an officer who
maintained order at WCTU meetings.
Practice the Skills
4
Reviewing Elements
Cultural Reference The WCTU
still exists, but its period of greatest influence and activity was in
the early 1900s. Watch for other
cultural references as you
continue reading.
5
Literary Element
Dialogue Judging from Mama’s
part of this long dialogue, what
would you say is her opinion
of Elvera?
6
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Main Idea The
author wants to make it clear
that the automobile was an
imperfect invention at this time.
What details support that idea?
11. Here, flush means “prosperous; having extra money.”
12. Fending off is defending against or fighting off.
13. To start the engine, one had to turn a crank and adjust various controls, such as the magneto.
The Electric Summer
1117
READING WORKSHOP 3
But at length the Olds coughed and sputtered to life. Aunt
Elvera climbed aboard and circled the barn lot—she never
had found the reverse gear. Then they were off back to town
in a cloud of dust on the crown of the road.
I didn’t want to mention the Fair, so I said, “Mama, would
you ride in one of them things?”
“Not with Elvera running it,” she said,
and went back in the house.
I could tell you very little about the rest of
that day. My mind was miles off. I know
Mama wrung the neck off a fryer, and we
had baking-powder biscuits to go with the
warm jam. After supper my brothers
Visual Vocabulary
hitched up Fanny to the trap14 and went
A lamp chimney is
the glass tube that
into town. I took a bottle brush to the lamp
surrounds the flame
chimneys and trimmed the wicks. After
on an oil lamp.
that I was back out on the porch swing
while there was some daylight left. The lightning bugs were
coming out, so that reminded me of how the Fair was lit up at
night with electricity, brighter than day.
Then Mama came out and settled in the swing beside me,
which was unusual, since she never sat out until the nights
got hotter than this. We swung together awhile. Then she
said in a quiet voice, “I meant it. I want you to see the Fair.” 7
Everything stopped then. I still didn’t believe it, but my
heart turned over.
“I spoke to your dad about it. He can’t get away, and he
can’t spare the boys. But I want us to go to the Fair.”
Oh, she was brave to say it, she who hadn’t been anywhere
in her life. Brave even to think it. “I’ve got some egg money put
back,” she said. We didn’t keep enough chickens to sell the
eggs, but anything you managed to save was called egg money.
“That’s for a rainy day,” I said, being practical.
“I know it,” she said. “But I’d like to see that floral clock.”
Mama was famous for her garden flowers. When her glads
were up, every color, people drove by to see them. And there
was nobody to touch her for zinnias.
Oh, Mama, I thought, is this just a game we’re playing?
“What’ll we wear?” I asked, to test her.
“They’ll be dressy down at the Fair, won’t they?” she said.
14. A fryer is a young chicken. The trap is a light one-horse carriage.
1118
UNIT 8
What Is the American Dream?
The Art Archive / Ara Collection Paris / Dagli Orti
Practice the Skills
7
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Main Idea What
detail shows that Mama is serious about wanting Geneva to see
the fair?
READING WORKSHOP 3
“You know those artificial cornflowers I’ve got. I thought I’d
trim my hat with them. And you’re getting to be a big girl.
Time you had a corset.15”
So then I knew she meant business.
That’s how Mama and I went to the Louisiana Purchase
Exposition in St. Louis that summer of 1904. We studied up
on it, and Dad read the Fair literature along with us.
Hayseeds we might be, but we meant to be informed
hayseeds. They said the Fair covered twelve hundred acres,
and we tried to see that in our minds, how many farms that
would amount to. And all we learned about the Fair filled my
heart to overflowing and struck me dumb with dread.16 8
Mama weakened some. She found out when the Schumates
were going, and we planned to go at the same time, just so we’d
know somebody there. But we didn’t take the same train. 9
When the great day came, Dad drove us to town, where the
Wabash Cannonball stopped on its way to St. Louis. If he’d
turned the trap around and taken us back home, you
wouldn’t have heard a peep out of me. And I think Mama
was the same. But then we were on the platform with the big
locomotive thundering in, everything too quick now, and too
loud.
We had to scramble for seats in the day coach, lugging one
straw valise between us and a gallon jug of lemonade. And a
vacuum flask of the kind the Spanish-American War17
soldiers carried, with our own well water for brushing our
teeth. We’d heard that St. Louis water came straight out of the
Mississippi River, and there’s enough silt in it to settle at the
bottom of the glass. We’d go to their fair, but we weren’t
going to drink their water.
When the people sitting across from us went to the dining
car, Mama and I spread checkered napkins over our knees
and had our noon meal out of the valise. All the while, hot
wind blew clinkers and soot in the window as we raced
along like a crazed horse. Then a lady flounced up and
Practice the Skills
8
English Language Coach
A Changing Language
Originally, hayseeds were bits
of straw that clung to farmers’
clothes. Later, city people began
to use the word to refer to the
farmers themselves.
9
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Main Idea In the
next few paragraphs, notice the
many details about the train trip.
What idea(s) about train travel
do you think the author wants to
get across?
15. A corset (KOR sut) is a long, tight, girdle-like undergarment for a grown woman.
16. She is temporarily unable to speak (dumb) because of great fear and worry (dread).
17. A valise (vuh LEES) is a suitcase. A vacuum flask (what we now call a “thermos”) is used
to keep liquids either hot or cold. The Spanish-American War was a brief conflict in 1898
between Spain and the United States over Spain’s treatment of Cuba.
The Electric Summer
1119
READING WORKSHOP 3
perched on the seat opposite. She had a full bird on the
wing18 sewed to the crown of her hat, and she was painted
up like a circus pony, so we took her to be from Chicago.
Leaning forward, she spoke, though we didn’t know her from
Adam. “Would you know where the ladies’ rest room is?” she
inquired.
We stared blankly back, but then Mama said politely, “No,
but you’re welcome to rest here till them other people come
back.”
The woman blinked at us, then darted away, hurrying now.
I chewed on19 that a minute, along with my ham sandwich.
Then I said, “Mama, do you suppose they have a privy on the
10 English Language Coach
train?” 10
“A what?” she said.
A Changing Language The
word privy, short for private,
Finally, we had to know. Putting the valise on my seat and
first appeared in the 14th
the hamper on hers, Mama and I went to explore. We walked
century. But a toilet by any
through the swaying cars, from seat to seat, the cornflowers on
other name is still a toilet. And
Mama’s hat aquiver. Sure enough, we came to a door at the end
another one of those names
of a car with a sign reading LADIES. We crowded inside, and
appears in the next paragraph.
there it was. A water closet like you’d find in town20 and a
chain hanging down and a roll of paper. “Well, I’ve seen
everything now,” Mama said. “You wouldn’t catch me
sitting on that thing in a moving train. I’d fall off.”
But I wanted to know how it worked and reached
for the handle on the chain. “Just give it a little jerk,”
Mama said.
We stared down as I did. The bottom of the pan
was on a hinge. It dropped open, and there below
were the ties of the Wabash tracks racing along
beneath us.
We both jumped back and hit the door. And we
made haste back to our seats. I guess we were lucky
not to have found the lady with the bird on her hat in
there, sitting down.
Then before I was ready, we were crossing the
Mississippi River on a high trestle.21 There was
Practice the Skills
18. Clinkers and soot—cinders and fine ashes—were from the coal burned as fuel in the locomotive.
The bird, whether real or artificial, was made to look as though it were flying (on the wing).
19. The expression chewed on means “thought over.”
20. Water closet is another word for toilet. In the early 1900s few farms had indoor toilets.
21. A trestle (TREH sul) is a railroad bridge, especially a high one over a river or valley.
1120 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
CORBIS
Covering nearly 16 acres,
the Palace of Transportation
exhibited 140 automobiles. Can
you imagine Aunt Elvera in one
of these cars?
READING WORKSHOP 3
nothing between us and the brown water. I put my
hand over my eyes, but not before I glimpsed St.
Louis on the far bank, sweeping away in the haze
of heat as far as the eye could see.
We didn’t stay at the Inside Inn. They wanted
two dollars a night for a room, three if they fed
you. We booked into a rooming house not far from
the main gate, where we got a big square room
upstairs with two beds for a dollar. It was run by a
severe lady, Mrs. Wolfe, with a small, moon-faced
son named Thomas clinging to her skirts. The place
suited Mama, once she’d pulled down the bedclothes
to check for bugs. It didn’t matter where we laid our
Analyzing the Photo How does the
heads as long as it was clean.
size of the Ferris wheel reflect the fair’s
We walked to the Fair that afternoon, following the crowds,
grand scale?
trying to act like everybody else. Once again I’d have turned
back if Mama had said to. It wasn’t the awful grandeur of the
pavilions22 rising white in the sun. It was all those people. I
didn’t know there were that many people in the world. They
scared me at first, but then I couldn’t see enough. My eyes
11 Reviewing Elements
began to drink deep. 11
23
We took the Intramural electric railroad that ran around
Figurative Language What
does the last sentence mean?
the Exposition grounds, making stops. The Fair passed before
What kind of figurative language
us, and it didn’t take me long to see what I was looking for. It
is used?
was hard to miss. At the Palace of Transportation stop, I told
Mama this was where we got off.
There it rose before us, 250 feet high. It was the giant wheel,
the invention of George Washington Gale Ferris. A great
wheel24 with thirty-six cars on it, each holding sixty people.
It turned as we watched, and people were getting on and off
like it was nothing to them.
“No power on earth would get me up in that thing,” Mama
murmured.
Practice the Skills
22. The pavilions (puh VIL yunz) are the fair’s exhibit halls and other buildings.
23. The Intramural railroad ran only within the fairgrounds.
24. At the time, this was the only Ferris wheel in existence. Invented and built for the 1893 World’s
Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, it was moved to St. Louis in 1903. After the fair there,
it was sold as scrap metal.
Vocabulary
grandeur (GRAN jur) n. the state of being large and impressive; greatness
The Electric Summer
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, [reproduction number, e.g., LC-USZ62-123456]
1121
READING WORKSHOP 3
But I opened my hand and showed her the extra dollar Dad
had slipped me to ride the wheel. “Dad said it would give us
a good view of the Fair,” I said in a wobbly voice.
“It would give me a stroke,” Mama said. But then she set
her jaw. “Your dad is putting me to the test. He thinks I won’t
do it.”
Gathering her skirts, she moved deliberately toward the
line of people waiting to ride the wheel.
We wouldn’t look up while we waited, but we heard the
creaking of all that naked steel. “That is the sound of doom,”
Mama muttered. Then, too soon, they were ushering us into a
12 English Language Coach
car, and I began to babble out of sheer fear. 12
“A lady named Mrs. Nicholson rode standing on the roof of
A Changing Language The
word babble may come from
one of these cars when the wheel was up at the Chicago fair,
a place name. In the Bible, the
eleven years ago.”
people of Babylon start to build
Mama turned to me. “What in the world for?”
a tower up to heaven—the Tower
“She was a daredevil, I guess.”
of Babel. They fail after God
“She was out of her mind,” Mama said.
makes them “babble,” or speak
different languages, so that they
Now we were inside, and people mobbed the windows as
can’t communicate.
we swooped up. I meant to stand in the middle of our car and
watch the floor, but I looked out. In a moment we were above
the roofs and towers of the Fair, a white city unfolding. There
was the Grand Basin with the gondolas drifting. There was
the mighty Festival Hall. Mama chanced a look.
It was cooler up there. My unforgiving Warner’s Rust-Proof
Corset had held me in a death grip all day, but I could breathe
easier that high. Then we paused, dangling at the top. Now
we were one with the birds, like hawks hovering over the Fair.
“How many wind pumps high are we?” Mama pondered.
As we began to arch down again, we were both at a window,
skinning our eyes to see the Jerusalem exhibit and the
Philippine Village and, way off, the Plateau of States—a world
of wonders.
Giddy when we got out, we staggered on solid ground and
had to sit down on an ornamental bench. Now Mama was
game for anything. “If they didn’t want an arm and a leg for
13 Key Reading Skill
the fare,” she said, “I’d ride that thing again. Keep the ticket
Identifying Main Idea What
stubs to show your dad we did it.” 13
is the main idea or message in
Practice the Skills
Vocabulary
hovering (HUV ur ing) v. remaining in or near one place in the air
this passage about the Ferris
wheel ride? (Hint: What is the
author saying about doing what
you’re afraid to do?)
1122 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
1114-1125_U8SEL_845478.indd 1122
3/14/07 12:32:12 PM
READING WORKSHOP 3
Braver than before, we walked down the Pike, as it was still
broad daylight. It was lined with sidewalk cafes in front of all
manner of attractions: the Streets of Cairo and the Palais du
Costume, Hagenbeck’s Circus and a replica of the
Galveston25 flood. Because we were parched, we found a
table at a place where they served a new drink, tea with ice in
it. “How do we know we’re not drinking silt?” Mama
wondered, but it cooled us off.
As quick as you’d sit down anywhere at the Fair, there’d be
entertainment. In front of the French Village they had a
supple young man named Will Rogers doing rope tricks. And
music? Everywhere you turned, and all along the Pike, the
song the world sang that summer was: “Meet me in St. Louis,
Louis, meet me at the fair.”26
We sat over our tea and watched the passing parade. Some
of those people you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
Over by the water chutes a gang of rough men waited to
glimpse the ankles of women getting out of the boats. But the
only thing we saw on the Pike we shouldn’t have was Uncle
Schumate weaving out of the saloon bar of the Tyrolean27
Alps.
I can’t tell all we saw in our two days at the Fair.
We tried to look at things the boys and Dad would
want to hear about—the Hall of Mines and
Metallurgy, and the livestock. We learned a good
deal of history: the fourteen female statues to stand
for the states of the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and
the log cabin that President U. S. Grant had been
born in. But most of what we saw foretold the
future: automobiles and airships and moving
pictures.28 14
Practice the Skills
14
Geneva says that the things
she saw at the fair “foretold
the future.” What does this tell
you about the American dream
in 1904? Write your answer on
the “Electric Summer” page of
Foldable 8.
Will Rogers (1879–1935) was one of
the most popular entertainers of the
time. In his live performances, he told
jokes and performed rope tricks.
25. In 1900, a terrible hurricane hit Galveston, Texas, killing 5,000 people and
destroying much of the city.
26. In the song, a woman leaves a note telling her husband Louis (LOO ee)
where to meet her in St. Louis (LOO ee).
27. Tyrolean (tuh ROH lee un) refers to a region, mostly in Austria, of the
eastern Alps Mountains.
28. Cars, planes, and movies existed in 1904; they just weren’t yet widely
available or easily affordable.
Vocabulary
replica (REP lih kuh) n. a faithful copy
The Electric Summer
1123
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
1114-1125_U8SEL_845478.indd 1123
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READING WORKSHOP 3
Our last night was the Fourth of July. Fifty bands played,
some of them on horseback. John Philip Sousa, in gold braid
and white, conducted his own marches. Lit in every color, the
fountains played to this music and the thunder of the
fireworks. And the cavalry from the Boer War29 exhibit rode
15 Key Reading Skill
in formation, brandishing torches. 15
Mama turned away from all the army
Identifying Main Idea Again,
numerous details are given about
uniforms, thinking of my brothers, I
the fair. What point is the author
suppose. But when the lights came on,
making?
every tower and minaret picked out with
electric bulbs, we saw what this new
Visual Vocabulary
A minaret is a tall,
century would be: all the grandeur of
slender tower on an
ancient Greece and Rome, lit by lightning.
Islamic temple.
A new century, with the United States of
America showing the way. But you’d have to run hard not to
be left behind. 16
16
What part does electricity play
We saved the floral clock for our last morning. It lay across
in the American dream of the
a hillside next to the Agriculture Palace, and it was beyond
early 1900s? Write your answer
anything we’d ever seen. The dial of it was 112 feet across,
on the “Electric Summer” page of
and each giant hand weighed 2,500 pounds. It was all made
Foldable 8.
of flowers, even the numbers. Each Hour Garden had plants
that opened at that time of day, beginning with morning
glories. We stood in a rapture, waiting for it to strike the hour.
Then who appeared before us with her folding Kodak
camera slung around her neck but Aunt Elvera Schumate. To
demonstrate her worldliness, she merely nodded like we were
all just coming out of church back home. “Well, Mary,” she
said to Mama, “I guess this clock shames your garden.”
Mama dipped her head modestly to show the cornflowers on
her hat. “Yes, Elvera,” she said, “I am a humbler woman for this
experience,” and Aunt Elvera didn’t quite know what to make
of her reply. “Where’s Dorothy?” Mama asked innocently.
“That child!” Aunt Elvera said. “I couldn’t get her out of the
bed at the Inside Inn! She complains of blistered feet. Wait till
she has a woman’s corns! I am a martyr to mine. I cannot get
Practice the Skills
29. Sousa (SOO zuh) was a popular composer and band leader. The cavalry (KAH vul ree) were
soldiers on horseback. In the Boer War (1899–1902), Great Britain fought two of its former
colonies in southern Africa.
Vocabulary
rapture (RAP chur) n. a feeling of great joy
1124 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
L Hobbs/PhotoLink
READING WORKSHOP 3
her interested in the Fair. She got as far as the bust of
President Roosevelt sculpted in butter, but then she
faded.” Aunt Elvera cast me a baleful30 look, as if this
was all my fault. “Dorothy is going through a phase.”
But there Aunt Elvera was wrong. Dorothy never
was much better than that for the rest of her life.
Mama didn’t inquire into Uncle Schumate’s
whereabouts; we thought we knew.
On the train ride home we were seasoned travelers,
Mama and I. When the candy butcher hawked his
wares through our car, we knew to turn our faces
away from his prices. We crossed the Mississippi River
on that terrible trestle, and after Edwardsville31 the
land settled into flat fields. Looking out, Mama said,
“Corn’s knee high by the Fourth of July,” because she
was thinking ahead to home. “I’ll sleep good tonight
without those streetcars clanging outside the window.”
A daily guide helped visitors choose
But they still clanged in my mind, and “The Stars and
from among hundreds of exhibits and
Stripes Forever” blended with “Meet Me in St. Louis, Louis.”
activities.
“But Mama, how can we just go home after all we’ve seen?” 17
Thinking that over, she said, “You won’t have to, you and
the boys. It’s your century. It can take you wherever you want
to go.” Then she reached over and put her hand on mine, a
17
thing she rarely did. “I’ll keep you back if I can. But I’ll let
How has Geneva’s idea of the
you go if I must.”
American dream been affected
That thrilled me, and scared me. The great world seemed to
by her visit to the fair? Write your
answer on the “Electric Summer”
swing wide like the gates of the Fair, and I didn’t even have a
page of Foldable 8. Your
plan. I hadn’t even put up my hair yet. It seemed to me it was
responses will help you complete
time for that, time to jerk that big bow off the braid hanging
the Unit Challenge later.
down my back and put up my hair in a woman’s way.
“Maybe in the fall,” said Mama, who was turning into a
mind reader as we steamed through the July fields, heading
for home. ❍
Practice the Skills
30. A martyr (MAR tur) is someone who willingly dies for a cause. Theodore Roosevelt was
president from 1901 to 1909. Baleful means “menacing; threatening harm or evil.”
31. Butcher is an old term for someone who sells (hawks) products (wares). Edwardsville,
Illinois, is about 25 miles northeast of St. Louis.
Vocabulary
seasoned (SEE zund) adj. made fit by experience; adjusted to (something)
because of experience
The Electric Summer
akg-images
1125
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
After You Read
The Electric Summer
Answering the
1. How does technology fit into the American dream?
2. Recall What is the first thing that Geneva wants to do after she and
Mama arrive on the fairgrounds?
T IP Right There
3. Recall What is the exhibit that gives Geneva and Mama such joy on
their second day at the fair?
T IP Think and Search
Critical Thinking
4. Draw Conclusions Geneva lives on a farm, but the story doesn’t say
directly where the farm is located. Identify the state, and explain how
you came to this conclusion.
T IP Think and Search
5. Evaluate Before visiting the fair, Geneva got her ideas about the world
mostly from what she had read. How does the fair change her?
T IP Author and Me
6. Infer At the end of their visit, Mama tells Geneva that the century “can
take you wherever you want to go.” What do you think Mama wants for
Geneva?
T IP Author and Me
Write About Your Reading
Objectives (pp. 1126–1127)
Reading Identify main idea and supporting
details • Make connections from text to self
Literature Identify literary elements:
dialogue, cultural reference
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Respond to writing: postcard
Grammar Capitalize sentences
Postcards Imagine that Geneva sent herself two postcards from the fair.
(If she’d sent them to her dad and brothers, she probably would have been
home before the mail arrived.) Describe the postcards you think she might
have chosen, and write a brief message for each one. For each of the two
postcards:
• Choose an image of something Geneva saw or did at the fair that she
found especially enjoyable or impressive.
• Describe the image.
• Write the message. (Keep it to about 30 words.) Remember that you’re
pretending to be Geneva writing to herself. What would you say to
remind yourself why you liked the thing pictured on the card?
1126 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
SuperStock, Inc. / SuperStock
READING WORKSHOP 3 • Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Identifying
Main Idea and Supporting Details
7. What is the main idea or message of this story?
8. It seems obvious that Geneva and Mama are
not used to traveling by train. Note at least three
details from the story that support this idea.
Literary Element: Dialogue
9. Choose two or more pieces of dialogue from the
story that helped you understand Geneva’s personality. Explain your choices.
10. How does the dialogue between Mama and Aunt
Elvera show the differences in their personalities?
Reviewing Elements: Cultural Reference
11. Identify five cultural references in the story, with
the page numbers where they’re mentioned. List,
for example, specific brand names or products,
famous people, world events, or social movements that relate to the time of the story.
Vocabulary Check
Rewrite each sentence with the correct word.
novelty grandeur hovering
replica rapture seasoned
helicopter circled the air above the roof
12. The
but didn’t land.
13. The man couldn’t resist buying a
of the
Statue of Liberty in the gift shop.
14. Kria is a
soccer player. She’s played in more
than a hundred games this year.
15. Jesse was filled with
as he stood on the
Olympic stand, a gold medal around his neck.
16. I enjoyed seeing Mount Rushmore, but I was
more impressed by the
of South Dakota’s
Badlands.
17. That’s a
! I’ve never seen anything like it.
18. English Language Coach What does
Mississippi mean in its original language?
Grammar Link:
Capitalization of Sentences
You enter a house through a door. A capital letter is
the door through which you enter a sentence. Always
capitalize the first word of every sentence and the first
word of every direct quotation.
• There were only four automobiles in the town.
• Looking out, Mama said, “Corn’s knee high by the
Fourth of July.”
When a quoted sentence is interrupted by explanatory
words, such as he said, do NOT begin the second part
of the quotation with a capital letter.
• “I’d ride that thing again,” she said, “if I could.”
People often don’t speak in complete sentences. Even
if a quotation is just a single word or phrase, capitalize
the first word.
• “That child!” Aunt Elvera said.
Grammar Practice
Rewrite the following paragraph, correcting the three
capitalization errors.
“it will be a fun trip,” Rena thought. her
class was going to see an exhibit and eat at
a French restaurant. “thanks,” Rena told
her teacher, “for planning this!”
Writing Application Review the postcards you
wrote. Make sure you capitalized the first letter in
each sentence and in any quotation.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
The Electric Summer
1127
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 2
Letter
Revising, Editing, and Presenting
ASSIGNMENT Write
a letter
Purpose: To evaluate
and respond to the media
Audience: A TV producer or head of a media
company
Revising Rubric
Your revised letter should
have
• a clear beginning, middle,
and end
• a clearly-stated opinion
supported by relevant
details
• well-organized paragraphs
• correct forms of irregular
verbs
• correct business letter
presentation
See page 1130 for a model
of a letter.
Objectives (pp. 1128–1131)
Writing Revise your letter for main
idea and supporting details, clarity,
fluency, style, and word choice
• Present your writing
Grammar Edit for grammar,
mechanics, usage
In Writing Workshop Part 1, you generated ideas for your letter and developed a first draft. In Part 2 you’ll revise and edit your draft to make your
letter even better. After you’ve finished your letter, you’ll choose a method
of publishing it. Remember to keep a copy in your writing portfolio so that
you and your teacher can evaluate your writing progress over time.
Revising
Make It Better
Revising is all about improving your draft. But first you have to decide what
improvements it needs. You must become your own editor, evaluating your
writing and deciding what to fix.
Take a Fresh Look
As you read over the draft of your letter, ask yourself the questions below.
You can either make changes now or write notes to yourself so you can go
back and make the changes later.
• Does the opening paragraph state your purpose for writing and your overall opinion?
• Does each paragraph in the body of your letter have a topic sentence that
clearly states that paragraph’s main idea?
• Does each paragraph in the body follow up the topic sentence with supporting details and specific examples from the show?
• Does your concluding paragraph provide closure by praising and/or criticizing the program and how it shows America and Americans? Do you
offer suggestions to improve the show?
• Have you made your points clearly? You might want to swap letters with a
partner to get a fresh perspective. Ask your partner if anything you wrote
is confusing. Work together to phrase your comments in a way that’s more
understandable.
• Does your letter read smoothly? Read it out loud. If there are parts that
you stumble over, find better ways to express them.
1128 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 2
Editing
Finish It Up
Revising Tip
Read the model on the next page. Look at the notes on the side to see how
the writer revised and edited his letter about The Simpsons.
Then read your letter one sentence at a time and use the Editing Checklist
below to help you spot errors. Use the proofreading symbols in the chart on
page R19 to mark needed corrections.
If you’re using a word processing program, you can use the grammar and
spell-checking features to catch some kinds of mistakes. However, remember
that a computer’s spell-checker can’t tell the difference between a misspelled
word and its homophone. For example, if you meant to type “their” but
accidentally typed “there,” the computer won’t alert you.
Editing Checklist
Using Technology If you’re
writing on a computer, save
your draft and make your
revisions in a new file copy.
By saving the original, you’re
free to experiment and make
mistakes. If necessary, you can
open up your original draft
and try again.
Writing Models For models and
other writing activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
✓ Your letter is free of sentence fragments and run-on sentences.
❑
✓ Verbs and subjects agree and all tenses are correct. You’ve used
❑
irregular verbs correctly.
✓ You’ve correctly spelled words that are easily confused, including
❑
homophones.
✓
❑ You’ve used the proper letter format. You’ve correctly capitalized
and punctuated direct quotations and the names of TV programs.
Publishing
Show It Off
After you’ve made your final revisions and corrections, make a final copy of
your letter. If your letter is written by hand, it must be neat and legible. Ask
someone else to make sure your handwriting can be read.
Then figure out who should receive your letter and get it ready to send! To
do that, be sure you have everything in the right format for a business letter.
(Follow the guidelines on page 1131 and see page R25 of the Writing
Handbook for extra help.)
Revising Tip
Choosing Your Audience
You could send your letter to
the show’s creator, director,
producer, or writer. You could
also write to the head of the
network that runs the show or
to the show’s sponsors.
The best place to send the letter is in care of (“c/o”) the company that
distributes the program or the TV network or local station that broadcasts it.
Most TV and radio stations have Web sites that give their mailing addresses.
Writing Workshop Part 2 Letter 1129
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 2
Active Writing Model
The introduction states
the writer’s purpose and
his opinion.
The writer’s first reason for his
opinion is stated in the topic sentence.
He follows up with specific details
from the show to support the topic
sentence. Notice how paragraphs 2–5
all follow this pattern.
The writer expresses disagreement
with the way the program shows the
American dream.
The writer closes by summarizing his message in the
final paragraph. He thanks the
show’s creator but advises him
on how to fix the show’s flaw.
Writer’s Model
Dear Mr. Groening:
I am in eighth grade. My English class is evaluating how
TV shows portray America. In my opinion, The Simpsons
shows both the good and the bad.
First, the mix of characters is fairly true to life. The
show revolves around a white family, but there are also
African Americans (Carl and Dr. Hibbert) and immigrants
(Apu and his family). Every community contains people like
Police Chief Wiggum, Mayor Joe Quimby, Moe, Marge’s
sisters, Principal Skinner, and even greedy power-plant
owner Mr. Burns.
Second, like many American communities today,
Springfield faces a range of problems, including natural
disasters (Mt. Springfield erupts), corruption (the mayor
takes bribes), and schoolyard bullies.
Finally, The Simpsons shows good things about
Americans too. Homer and Marge are a loving couple
with a lasting marriage. Lisa is the voice of reason. Even
Bart is a creative problem solver. The community takes on
tough problems. The Simpsons’ America is going through a
lot of change, but people do their best to cope with it.
However, I have one complaint. My classmates and I
agree that you don’t always show both sides of an issue.
Sometimes you leave out the way we feel.
My classmate Ken Aya, age 14, said, “I didn’t like the
episode that made Milhouse’s dad and all the other
divorced dads in his building look so pathetic. Many
divorced men cope just fine. My dad lives in an apartment
building, but he’s not a loser.”
Thanks, Mr. Groening, for making us laugh at ourselves
while encouraging us to solve our problems. But please,
don’t always poke fun at the characters who share my
outlook on life.
1130 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
WRITING WORKSHOP PART 2
Applying Good Writing Traits
• Greeting or salutation: begins with “Dear,”
then the name of the person to whom you are
writing, followed by a colon
Presentation
What Is Presentation?
Dear Mr. Groening:
A piece of writing is presented well if it’s pleasing
to the eye and easy to read. Its form should be
right for the assignment.
Why Is Presentation Important?
No matter how hard you’ve worked on what you
have to say, your letter will have little effect if it
doesn’t look good.
How Do I Use Presentation in
My Writing?
Make sure your letter has the right format (the
parts it contains and how they’re laid out on the
page). Business letters contain these elements:
• Heading and date: your address and the date
• Body of the letter: all of the text (In the student model, the body is six paragraphs.)
• Complimentary close: “Sincerely,” “Yours
truly,” or a similar closing, followed by a comma
Yours truly,
• Signature: your signed name, followed by your
name either typed or block-printed
Present Your Letter Add a copy of your letter
to a binder for a class book. Give the book a title,
such as As Seen on TV: The American Dream. Set
up a book party to discuss the shows you and
your classmates wrote about. To spark the conversation, read some of the letters.
Raphael Thompson
136 Matthews Street
Binghamton, New York 13905
March 30, 2007
• Inside address: the name and address of the
person to whom you’re writing (Note that this
example is addressed “in care of” the local
Fox TV station.)
Mr. Matt Groening
Creator of The Simpsons
c/o FOX 40 WICZ-TV
BINGHAMTON
4600 Vestal Parkway East
Vestal, NY 13850
Analyzing Cartoons
Jeremy’s presentation of his
skills probably won’t lead to a
job. What kind of business card
would you design for yourself?
ion of King Features Syndicate, Inc.
© Zits Partnership. Reprinted with Permiss
Writing Workshop Part 2 Letter 1131
© Zits Partnership. Reprinted with Permission of King Features Syndicate, Inc.
READING WORKSHOP 4
Skills Focus
You will practice using these skills when you
read the following selections:
• “I, Too” p. 1136
• from Dandelion Wine, p. 1142
Skill Lesson
Identifying
Author’s Purpose
Reading
• Identifying author’s purpose
Learn It!
Literature
• Identifying and understanding
metaphor
• Recognizing hyperbole
Vocabulary
• Learning about English as a
changing language
Writing/Grammar
• Understanding and using
verbals
• Spelling and using
homophones correctly
What Is It? Whether it’s a novel or a poem, a
newspaper article or a play, a cartoon or an ad,
everything you read was written for a reason. Every
author has some purpose in mind when he or she
sits down to write. The most common purposes are
• to entertain
• to describe
• to inform or explain
• to persuade
• a combination of the above
.
TE. All rights reserved
AL PRESS SYNDICA
permissionof UNIVERS
Amend. Reprinted with
FOXTROT © 2002 Bill
Analyzing Cartoons
Objectives (pp. 1132–1133)
Reading Identify author’s purpose.
1132 UNIT 8
FOXTROT © 2002 Bill Amend. Reprinted with permission of UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE. All rights reserved.
Paige needs a bright idea. A larger
bulb might help, but it might be more
helpful for her to think about her
purpose. What do you think is her
purpose for writing the essay?
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Why Is It Important? You read many different types of text each day. In
the morning you read about prehistoric animals in your science book. Later
you study a story for English. In the afternoon you do research on the Web.
At home you check the directions before you microwave a snack. Before
bed there’s the newspaper sports section. Knowing why the authors wrote
these texts can help you understand and evaluate what they say.
Study Central Visit www.glencoe
.com and click on Study Central to
review evaluating.
How Do I Do It? Use these tips to help you identify an author’s purpose.
• Consider the audience for whom a work is intended. Persuasive writing
has a different target audience than poetry. Many nonfiction works are
intended for experts, not casual readers.
• Examine the author’s word choices. All writers select words for their suggested meanings as well as for their definitions. But a poet might want to
suggest ideas indirectly while an editorial writer tries to be specific.
• Look at the text structure. Fiction is likely to be organized in time order,
and cooking and assembly instructions had better be chronological.
Other nonfiction is often organized as problem-solution or cause-effect.
Here’s how one student identified the author’s purpose while reading the
short story “The Electric Summer”:
I think Mr. Peck was writing to entertain and inform.
I think he wants people to see that it was exciting to live
in the early 1900s. There were new things like electricity
and cars and indoor plumbing. That’s kind of a funny list,
but only because we’re so used to those things today.
Mr. Peck had a third purpose too, I think, and that was to
say to keep your mind open to new ideas and experiences.
Practice It!
Look over the titles of the selections you read in Units 6 and 7. Choose five
selections and, in your Learner’s Notebook, briefly note what you think was
the author’s main purpose in each selection.
Use It!
As you read, look in the text for clues about the author’s purpose. Then
decide whether the author did a good job and achieved that purpose.
Reading Workshop 4 Identifying Author’s Purpose
John Evans
1133
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Before You Read
I, Too
Vocabulary Preview
English Language Coach
Lan
gs to n H u g he s
Meet the Author
Langston Hughes was one of
the first African American
writers to make a living as a
writer and public speaker.
He once said he wrote about
people who are “up today
and down tomorrow, working
this week and fired the next,
beaten and baffled, but determined not to be wholly
beaten.” See page R3 of the
Author Files for more on
Hughes.
English as a Changing Language So what is all this stuff about “Old
English” and “Middle French” and “Old High German”? It has to do with
etymology (et uh MOL uh jee), the study of the origins and histories of
languages. Each language has its own history, of course. Most grew out
of another, older language. Some borrow from one another.
Old English was a Germanic language, meaning it grew out of an early
form of German. Then, in 1066, the Normans came over from the north
of France and conquered England. The Normans spoke Old French, which
was a Latin language (coming out of ancient Italy). With the Normans
governing, the English adopted many French words relating to law and
government. In most matters relating to daily life, however, people stuck to
the language they knew. So, modern English is really the offspring of Old
German crossed with Old French.
The neat thing about etymology is that it shows that bits and pieces of old
languages survive in modern-day English. To see them, you need to be a
detective, looking for and understanding root words and their origins and
meanings.
Look at the example below. You’ll see this word in the selection “I, Too.”
Brackets contain
information about a
word’s etymology.
Author Search For more about
Langston Hughes, go to www
.glencoe.com.
Scholars sometimes have to
make educated guesses about
the origins of a word.
kitchen n. a room or an area equipped for preparing and cooking
food [Middle English kichene, from Old English cycene, probably
from Vulgar Latin cocina, from Late Latin coquinus, “of cooking,”
from coquus, “cook,” from coquere, “to cook”]
Objectives (pp. 1134–1137)
Reading Identify author’s purpose
• Make connections from text to self
Literature Identify literary devices:
metaphor
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Etymology usually begins with the most
recent historical influence, and traces the
word back in time to its earliest roots.
1134 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture
Scholars have given these
names to different periods in
time. Vulgar Latin refers to
Latin the way it was spoken by
ordinary people (as opposed
to the “high” language of
priests and kings).
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Identifying Author’s
Purpose
Connect to the Reading
You’re about to read a poem by Langston Hughes.
Poetry is a very focused kind of writing. A poem is
intended to make you feel a certain feeling or think
about a certain idea. “I, Too” is very brief and seemingly simple, but Hughes packs a lot into it.
As you read, think about who the speaker—the “I”
of the poem’s title—might be. Also, look closely at
Hughes’s word choices. Because most poems are
short, poets are very careful to use words that mean
and suggest exactly the right things. Finally, to help
you understand what Hughes was writing about, recall
what you know about him and the times he lived in.
Write to Learn Find out what you can about the
“Harlem Renaissance.” In your Learner’s Notebook,
make notes to answer the five basic questions—who,
what, when, where, and why.
Key Literary Element: Metaphor
A metaphor is a figure of speech that compares seemingly unlike things without using words such as like
and as. Here’s an example that makes two comparisons: “When I first arrived in the city, I was a mouse in
a maze.” The writer or speaker is compared to a
mouse and the city to a maze.
An extended metaphor is continued over a passage.
In a poem, it might run throughout the entire piece. In
a story or essay, it might run a few paragraphs or, in a
short work, throughout the whole piece.
Hughes uses an extended metaphor in “I, Too” that’s
implied. In the earlier example, the comparison
is directly stated: “I was a mouse.” In “I, Too,” the
speaker mentions the “kitchen” and a “table” but
leaves it to the reader to decide what they represent.
Class Discussion Hughes’s poem “Mother to Son“
(page 472) also uses an extended metaphor. Reread
the poem and talk about the crystal staircase.
Imagine that, because of your hair color, you aren’t
allowed to eat in a certain restaurant. Or imagine that
you’re required to sit in the back corner of the theater
because you’re left-handed. Imagine that you’re told
to leave the room whenever visitors come.
Write to Learn Write a paragraph describing your
feelings when you’ve been treated unfairly for reasons
that you couldn’t control or that made no sense.
Build Background
• In 1855 American poet Walt Whitman published a
poem called “I Hear America Singing.”
• In the 1920s Hughes wrote “I, Too.” It includes lines
that echo Whitman’s. The United States was still a
segregated nation in which African Americans and
other minorities were treated unjustly.
• Poets express their own ideas and feelings in a
poem, but readers should not assume that a poem’s
speaker is the poet. Think of the speaker as a
poem’s narrator or as a character.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read “I, Too” to see how someone who feels left out views the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the selection to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your purpose on the “I, Too” page of
Foldable 8.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
I, Too
1135
READING WORKSHOP 4
by Langston Hughes
1136 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY
READING WORKSHOP 4
Practice the Skills
I, too, sing America.
5
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed—
I, too, am America. 3 ❍
Key Literary Element
Metaphor The extended metaphor begins almost immediately.
Who is the speaker?
I am the darker brother. 1
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
10 When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then. 2
15
1
2
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Author’s Purpose
What do you think Hughes wants
his readers to understand?
3
What is the American dream to
the speaker? Write your answer
on the “I, Too” page of Foldable
8. Your response will help you
complete the Unit Challenge
later.
Self Portrait, 1934. Malvin Gray Johnson. Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.
I, Too 1137
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
After You Read
I, Too
Answering the
1. After reading “I, Too,” what are your thoughts about the American
dream? What are some of the restrictions people face in trying to
achieve it?
2. Recall How is the speaker of the poem treated?
T IP Right There
3. Recall How does the speaker respond to this treatment?
T IP Right There
4. Summarize In one sentence, summarize what the speaker plans to do
the next time there are guests.
T IP Right There
Critical Thinking
5. Interpret How do you interpret “darker brother” (line 2) and “They”
(line 3)? Who are they? What is their relationship? Explain.
T IP Author and Me
6. Analyze What satisfaction does the speaker look forward to having
“tomorrow”?
T IP Think and Search
7. Interpret What does the speaker mean when he says, “I, too, sing
America”? What does he mean by saying, “I, too, am America”? Why
might he feel the need to say these things?
T IP Author and Me
Talk About Your Reading
Objectives (pp. 1138–1139)
Reading Identify author’s purpose
Literature Identify literary devices:
metaphor
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Grammar Identify sentence elements:
verbals
Discussion “You are what you eat,” according to an old saying. It means
that what you eat says things about you as a person. Change that saying to
“You are where you eat,“ and discuss these questions:
• Each room in a home has one main purpose, even though it is likely used
for many purposes. What is the difference between eating in a kitchen
and eating in a dining room? How would you describe the sort of occasion when a meal is traditionally eaten in the dining room? What might it
suggest when a meal is eaten in front of the living room TV? How does
the event (not the food) of a restaurant meal differ from eating at home?
Now discuss this variation of the saying: “You are who you eat with.“
1138 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC / Art Resource, NY
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Skills Review
Grammar Link: Verbals
Key Reading Skill: Identifying Author’s
Purpose
A verbal is a verb form that functions in a sentence as
a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. There are three
kinds of verbals: participles, gerunds, and infinitives.
8. Why do you think Hughes chose beautiful for line
17? How would the meaning of this stanza (or the
poem) be different if he had used another word,
such as powerful, angry, or happy?
9. Walt Whitman’s poem “I Hear America Singing”
celebrates the courage, “stick-to-it” attitude, and
unity of Americans. “I, Too” is a response to
Whitman’s work. What is that response? Does
Hughes disagree about the qualities Americans
possess? Is he adding something that Whitman
might have overlooked? If so, what?
10. Do you think that, in this poem, Hughes is hopeful about the future? Explain.
Key Literary Element: Metaphor
11. Look at the word brother in line 2.
If it is used to mean “a male born of the same
parents as another child,” how does this word fit
the metaphor? Who would be the speaker’s other
family members?
If it is used to mean “one who shares the same
racial origin,” would your interpretation of the
metaphor change?
Which meaning of brother do you think makes
the most sense, and why?
12. The table of line 9 is apparently in the dining
room. Interpreting the metaphor, what might
each of the two rooms—kitchen and dining
room—represent?
13. Explain how the poem’s extended metaphor
shows the speaker’s feelings about being an outsider in the house where he lives.
A participle is a verb form that functions as an adjective. You form a present participle by adding -ing to a
verb. You usually form a past participle by adding -ed.
• The soaring biplane flew 120 feet.
• The awed spectators watched in amazement.
A gerund is a verb form ending in -ing that is used
as a noun. It can be used as the subject or the direct
object of a sentence.
• Moving involves a lot of work. (subject)
• People enjoy traveling. (direct object)
An infinitive is made up of the word to and the base
form of a verb. It may function as a noun and can be
used as the subject or the direct object of a sentence.
• To skate is my ideal winter pastime. (subject)
• Many children like to skate. (direct object)
Grammar Practice
Copy each of the following sentences and underline the
verbals. (There is only one verbal in each sentence.)
15. The girls gathered all the used containers and put
them in the trash.
16. “Going home ten minutes ago will not be soon
enough,” the woman joked.
17. The cheering crowd rooted for the home team.
18. Drying the dishes became a sort of game.
19. To finish that novel will be an achievement.
Vocabulary Check
14. English Language Coach The word company
came from the Latin com- (“with; together”) and
panis (“bread; food”). Explain how these meanings make sense with the modern definition:
“guests; visitors.”
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities, go to
www.glencoe.com.
I, Too
1139
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Before You Read
from Dandelion Wine
Vocabulary Preview
R ay B b ur y
ra d
Meet the Author
Ray Bradbury was born in
1920 in Waukegan, Illinois,
where he discovered the
pleasure of reading comic
strips and science fiction. As
an adult, he often wrote from
the point of view of a kid
growing up in small-town
America. He has said, “It is
nice to be in the twenty-first
century. It is like a new challenge. It is really a good and
threatening new century to
create for!” See page R1 of
the Author Files for more on
Bradbury.
Author Search For more
about Ray Bradbury, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Objectives (pp. 1140-1149)
Reading Identify author’s purpose
• Make connections from text to self
Literature Identify literary devices:
hyperbole
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
capsize (KAP syz) v. to overturn or upset (especially a boat) (p. 1142)
He felt as if the whole place would capsize and sink beneath the ground.
proprietor (pruh PRY uh tur) n. a person or firm that owns a property or
a business (p. 1145) The proprietor took pride in his shoe displays.
rave (rayv) v. to speak about very favorably or with great enthusiasm
(p. 1146) How can you rave about a shoe you’ve never worn?
alien (AY lee un) adj. strange; odd; peculiar (p. 1147) The tennis shoes
looked alien beneath the man’s business suit.
yielding (YEEL ding) adj. giving way to force or pressure (p. 1148)
The carpet was soft and yielding, like freshly turned soil.
Write to Learn High-tops! Sandals! Loafers! Flip-flops! Why do some
people have such strong feelings about footwear? What is it about shoes?
Explain why certain people seem to have shoes “on their brains.” Express
your ideas in a few sentences using at least four vocabulary words.
English Language Coach
English as a Changing Language Etymology can be useful because, in
learning about one word, you’re actually learning about a family of words.
When you come upon an unfamiliar word, you may be able to recognize the
word family it belongs to. This chart shows a word from Dandelion Wine.
Word
Meaning
Etymology
emporium
a retail store offering a variety of merchandise
Latin, from Greek emporion, from emporos traveler,
trader, from em- in + poros journey
Related Words
pore, porous
Remember, though, that a word part may be spelled the same in different
words but have different meanings. For example, portfolio and transport
come from the Greek poros. However, corporate and portray have different roots, even though they include the word part por.
Write to Learn Look up pore and porous. How are their modern meanings related to the original meaning of the root poros?
1140 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Satelight/Gamma Liaison/Getty Images
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Skills Preview
Get Ready to Read
Key Reading Skill: Identifying
Author’s Purpose
Connect to the Reading
Short-story writers might have several purposes for
writing. They usually want to entertain you, of course;
and they usually want to make a point about life or
about people. They may also want you to imagine
events, people, and experiences you might not come
across in your own life. To help you identify an
author’s purpose in a short story, think about
• word choices
How do the author’s word choices affect how you
feel about the characters and events?
• intended audience
Who is the author writing for? Which readers are
most likely to make connections between the story
and their own lives?
• main idea or theme
What is the author’s message?
Partner Work With a partner, identify the author’s
purpose in one of the short stories in this book.
Literary Element: Hyperbole
Hyperbole (hy PUR buh lee) is a figure of speech that
uses exaggeration to express strong emotion, emphasize a point, or create humor. Most of us use hyperbole in ordinary conversation. (Have you ever said
something “drove you crazy”?) Writers often use it too.
For example, Langston Hughes says in a story that a
woman carried “a large purse that had everything in it
but hammer and nails.”
Use these tips to help you learn about hyperbole.
• Look for any statement that may be hyperbole.
Does the statement present a fact or an opinion?
Is the exaggeration a really big one?
• Consider why the hyperbole is used.
Does exaggeration add humor? Does it emphasize
a point that’s important to the speaker or writer?
Does it express a strong emotion?
In this story, the main character spots a pair of tennis
shoes in a store window—and he has to have them. He
can’t explain why he needs them, but he can feel why.
Write to Learn In your Learner’s Notebook, write a
paragraph or two about wanting something so badly
that if you didn’t get it, you’d just die. (This is the kind
of situation where we all often use hyperbole.)
Build Background
This selection is an excerpt from Dandelion Wine,
a novel first published in 1957.
• Bradbury’s vision for this story is rooted in the past—
his own and America’s. The values he expresses are
values he remembers from his childhood.
• Life in the 1950s was simple, in many ways. There
were no cell phones, video games, or Internet. On
TV, you probably got three channels. The only computers that existed were room-sized and belonged
to the government.
Set Purposes for Reading
Read Dandelion Wine to
consider the American dream from the point of view
of a boy growing up in a small Midwestern town.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to
learn from the selection to help you answer the Big
Question? Write your purpose on the “Dandelion
Wine” page of Foldable 8.
Interactive Literary Elements Handbook
To review or learn more about the literary
elements, go to www.glencoe.com.
Keep Moving
Use these skills as you read the following
selection.
from Dandelion Wine
1141
READING WORKSHOP 4
by Ray Bradbury
L
ate that night, going home from the show with his mother
and father and his brother Tom, Douglas saw the tennis shoes
in the bright store window. He glanced quickly away, but his
ankles were seized, his feet suspended, then rushed. The
earth spun; the shop awnings slammed
their canvas wings overhead with the thrust
of his body running. His mother and father
and brother walked quietly on both sides of
him. Douglas walked backward, watching
Visual Vocabulary
the tennis shoes in the midnight window
An awning is a
covering over the
left behind. 1
outside of a window
“It was a nice movie,” said Mother.
or door for protection
from the rain and sun.
Douglas murmured, “It was . . .”
It was June and long past time for buying
the special shoes that were quiet as a summer rain falling on
the walks. June and the earth full of raw power and
everything everywhere in motion. The grass was still pouring
in from the country, surrounding the sidewalks, stranding
the houses. Any moment the town would capsize, go down
and leave not a stir in the clover and weeds. And here
Douglas stood, trapped on the dead cement and the red-brick
streets, hardly able to move.
Vocabulary
capsize (KAP syz) v. to overturn or upset (especially a boat)
1142 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Owen Franken/Corbis
Practice the Skills
1
Literary Element
Hyperbole As soon as Douglas
sees the tennis shoes, what happens to him? Do you think this
is actually happening, or is the
author using hyperbole? Explain.
Remember the reasons for using
hyperbole.
READING WORKSHOP 4
“Dad!” He blurted it out. “Back there in that window, those
Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Shoes . . .”
His father didn’t even turn. “Suppose you tell me why you
need a new pair of sneakers. Can you do that?”
“Well . . .”
It was because they felt the way it feels every summer when
you take off your shoes for the first time and run in the grass.
They felt like it feels sticking your feet out of the hot covers in
wintertime to let the cold wind from the open window blow on
them suddenly and you let them stay out a long time until you
pull them back in under the covers again to feel them, like
packed snow. The tennis shoes felt like it always feels the first
time every year wading in the slow waters of the creek and
seeing your feet below, half an inch further downstream, with
refraction,1 than the real part of you above water. 2
“Dad,” said Douglas, “it’s hard to explain.”
Somehow the people who made tennis shoes knew what
boys needed and wanted. They put marshmallows and coiled
springs in the soles and they wove the rest out of grasses
bleached and fired in the wilderness. Somewhere deep in the
soft loam of the shoes the thin hard sinews2 of the buck deer
were hidden. The people that made the shoes must have
watched a lot of winds blow the trees and a lot of rivers going
down to the lakes. Whatever it was, it was in the shoes, and it
was summer.
Douglas tried to get all this in words.
“Yes,” said Father, “but what’s wrong with last year’s
sneakers? Why can’t you dig them out of the closet?”
Well, he felt sorry for boys who lived in California where
they wore tennis shoes all year and never knew what it was to
get winter off your feet, peel off the iron leather shoes all full
of snow and rain and run barefoot for a day and then lace on
the first new tennis shoes of the season, which was better than
barefoot. The magic was always in the new pair of shoes. The
magic might die by the first of September, but now in late June
there was still plenty of magic, and shoes like these could jump
you over trees and rivers and houses. And if you wanted, they
could jump you over fences and sidewalks and dogs. 3
Practice the Skills
2
Key Reading Skill
Identifying Author’s
Purpose In this paragraph,
what is the author’s purpose?
Bradbury chooses words that
create strong images to help you
get a feel for how Douglas feels
about the tennis shoes.
3
Literary Element
Hyperbole Which parts of this
paragraph would you say are
hyperbole? Note those words
and phrases in your Learner’s
Notebook.
1. Refraction is the bending of light rays as they travel through different substances. Light passing
from air to water, for example, produces the effect the narrator describes here.
2. Loam is a rich, black soil. Sinews are tendons, the tissues that attach muscles to bones.
from Dandelion Wine
1143
READING WORKSHOP 4
Children Playing, Grez-sur-Loing. Alexander Harrison. Oil on canvas, 50 x 61 cm.
“Don’t you see?” said Douglas. “I just can’t use last year’s
pair.”
For last year’s pair were dead inside. They had been fine
when he started them out, last year. But by the end of
summer, every year, you always found out, you always knew,
you couldn’t really jump over rivers and trees and houses in
them, and they were dead. But this was a new year, and he
felt that this time, with this new pair of shoes, he could do
anything, anything at all. 4
They walked up on the steps to their house. “Save your
money,” said Dad. “In five or six weeks—”
“Summer’ll be over!”
Lights out, with Tom asleep. Douglas lay watching his feet,
far away down there at the end of the bed in the moonlight,
free of the heavy iron shoes, the big chunks of winter fallen
away from them.
“Reasons. I’ve got to think of reasons for the shoes.”
Well, as anyone knew, the hills around town were wild
with friends putting cows to riot, playing barometer to the
1144 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY
Practice the Skills
4
Reviewing Skills
Analyzing How does the
narration help you understand
why Douglas wants the shoes
so badly?
READING WORKSHOP 4
atmospheric changes, taking sun, peeling like calendars each
day to take more sun. To catch those friends, you must run
much faster than foxes or squirrels. As for the town, it
steamed with enemies grown irritable with heat, so
remembering every winter argument and insult. Find friends,
ditch enemies! That was the Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot
motto. Does the world run too fast? Want to catch up? Want to be
alert, stay alert? Litefoot, then! Litefoot!
He held his coin bank up and heard the faint small
tinkling, the airy weight of money there.
Whatever you want, he thought, you got to make your own
way. During the night now, let’s find that path through the
forest. . . .
Downtown, the store lights went out, one by one. A wind
blew in the window. It was like a river going downstream
and his feet wanting to go with it.
In his dreams he heard a rabbit running running running
in the deep warm grass.
Old Mr. Sanderson moved through his shoe store as the
proprietor of a pet shop must move through his shop where
are kenneled animals from everywhere in the world, touching
each one briefly along the way. Mr. Sanderson brushed his
hands over the shoes in the window, and some of them were
like cats to him and some were like dogs; he touched each pair
with concern, adjusting laces, fixing tongues. Then he stood in
the exact center of the carpet and looked around, nodding.
There was a sound of growing thunder.
One moment, the door to Sanderson’s Shoe Emporium3 was
empty. The next, Douglas Spaulding stood clumsily there,
staring down at his leather shoes as if these heavy things could
not be pulled up out of the cement. 5 The thunder had stopped
when his shoes stopped. Now, with painful slowness, daring to
look only at the money in his cupped hand, Douglas moved
out of the bright sunlight of Saturday noon. He made careful
stacks of nickels, dimes, and quarters on the counter, like
Practice the Skills
5
Literary Element
Hyperbole Hyperbole emphasizes how heavy Douglas’s shoes
feel to him—as if they were stuck
in cement.
3. An emporium is a store.
Vocabulary
proprietor (pruh PRY uh tur) n. a person or firm that owns a property or a
business
from Dandelion Wine
1145
READING WORKSHOP 4
someone playing chess and worried if the next move carried
him out into sun or deep into shadow.
“Don’t say a word!” said Mr. Sanderson.
Douglas froze.
“First, I know just what you want to buy,” said Mr.
Sanderson. “Second, I see you every afternoon at my window;
you think I don’t see? You’re wrong. Third, to give it its full
name, you want the Royal Crown Cream-Sponge Para
Litefoot Tennis Shoes: ‘LIKE MENTHOL4 ON YOUR FEET!’
Fourth, you want credit.” 6
“No!” cried Douglas, breathing hard, as if he’d run all
night in his dreams. “I got something better than credit to
offer!” he gasped. “Before I tell, Mr. Sanderson, you got to
do me one small favor. Can you remember when was the
last time you yourself wore a pair of Litefoot sneakers, sir?”
Mr. Sanderson’s face darkened. “Oh, ten, twenty, say,
thirty years ago. Why . . . ?”
“Mr. Sanderson, don’t you think you owe it to your
customers, sir, to at least try the tennis shoes you sell, for
just one minute, so you know how they feel? People forget
if they don’t keep testing things. United Cigar Store man
smokes cigars, don’t he? Candy-store man samples his own
stuff, I should think. So . . .”
“You may have noticed,” said the old man, “I’m wearing
shoes.”
“But not sneakers, sir! How you going to sell sneakers
unless you can rave about them and how you going to rave
about them unless you know them?”
Mr. Sanderson backed off a little distance from the boy’s
fever, one hand to his chin. “Well . . .”
“Mr. Sanderson,” said Douglas, “you sell me something
and I’ll sell you something just as valuable.” 7
“Is it absolutely necessary to the sale that I put on a pair
of the sneakers, boy?” said the old man.
“I sure wish you could, sir!”
4. Menthol is a chemical that has the odor and cooling effect of peppermint.
Vocabulary
rave (rayv) v. to speak about very favorably or with great enthusiasm
1146 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
6
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word menthol comes from
German, which took it from the
Latin word for mint.
7
Reviewing Skills
Analyzing What is Douglas
doing in this conversation? What
does he want to “sell” to Mr.
Sanderson?
READING WORKSHOP 4
The old man sighed. A minute later, seated panting
quietly, he laced the tennis shoes to his long narrow feet.
They looked detached and alien down there next to the dark
cuffs of his business suit. Mr. Sanderson stood up. 8
“How do they feel?” asked the boy.
“How do they feel, he asks; they feel fine.” He started to sit
down.
“Please!” Douglas held out his hand. “Mr. Sanderson, now
could you kind of rock back and forth a little, sponge around,
bounce kind of, while I tell you the rest? It’s this: I give you
my money, you give me the shoes, I owe you a dollar. But, Mr.
Sanderson, but—soon as I get those shoes on, you know what
happens?”
“What?”
“Bang! I deliver your packages, pick up packages, bring you
coffee, burn your trash, run to the post office, telegraph office,
library! You’ll see twelve of me in
and out, in and out, every minute.
Feel those shoes, Mr. Sanderson, feel
how fast they’d take me? All those
springs inside? Feel all the
running inside? Feel how they
kind of grab hold and can’t let you
alone and don’t like you just
standing there? Feel how quick I’d
be doing the things you’d rather
not bother with? You stay in the
nice and cool store while I’m
jumping all around town! But it’s
not me really, it’s the shoes.
They’re going like mad down
alleys, cutting corners, and back!
There they go!”
Mr. Sanderson stood amazed
with the rush of words. When
the words got going the flow
carried him; he began to sink
deep in the shoes, to flex his
Practice the Skills
8
English Language Coach
A Changing Language
The word alien hasn’t changed
much from the original Latin
alienus. The word can also refer
to a person of another family,
race, nation, or planet.
Vocabulary
alien (AY lee un) adj. strange; odd; peculiar
from Dandelion Wine
Marc Volk/Getty Images
1147
READING WORKSHOP 4
toes, limber his arches, test5 his ankles. He rocked softly,
secretly, back and forth in a small breeze from the open
door. The tennis shoes silently hushed themselves deep in the
carpet, sank as in a jungle grass, in loam and resilient6 clay. He
gave one solemn bounce of his heels in the yeasty dough, in
the yielding and welcoming earth. Emotions hurried over his
face as if many colored lights had been switched on and off.
His mouth hung slightly open. Slowly he gentled and rocked
himself to a halt, and the boy’s voice faded and they stood
there looking at each other in a tremendous and natural
silence. 9
A few people drifted by on the sidewalk outside, in the hot sun.
Still the man and boy stood there, the boy glowing, the
man with revelation7 in his face.
“Boy,” said the old man at last, “in five years, how would
you like a job selling shoes in this emporium?”
“Gosh, thanks, Mr. Sanderson, but I don’t know what I’m
going to be yet.”
“Anything you want to be, son,” said the old man, “you’ll
be. No one will ever stop you.”
The old man walked lightly across the store to the wall of
ten thousand boxes, came back with some shoes for the boy,
and wrote up a list on some paper while the boy was lacing
the shoes on his feet and then standing there, waiting.
The old man held out his list. “A dozen things you got to
do for me this afternoon. Finish them, we’re even Stephen,
and you’re fired.”
“Thanks, Mr. Sanderson!” Douglas bounded away.
“Stop!” cried the old man.
Douglas pulled up and turned.
Mr. Sanderson leaned forward. “How do they feel?”
The boy looked down at his feet deep in the rivers, in the
fields of wheat, in the wind that already was rushing him out
5. Here, flex, limber, and test all mean “to bend or loosen up.”
6. Anything that’s resilient (rih ZIL yunt) is capable of returning to its original size, shape, or
position.
7. Generally, a revelation (rev uh LAY shun) is the act of revealing something, such as a truth.
Vocabulary
yielding (YEEL ding) adj. giving way to force or pressure
1148 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
9
Literary Elementl
Hyperbole This paragraph
includes figurative language,
but is there any hyperbole? If
so, what part(s)? If not, what
kinds of figurative language are
included?
READING WORKSHOP 4
The antelope is a swift,
graceful animal with long
curved horns, and the
gazelle is a type of small
antelope. Although they
look like deer, antelopes
and gazelles are in the goat
family. They live in Africa
and Southwest Asia.
of the town. He looked up at the old man, his eyes burning,
his mouth moving, but no sound came out. 10
“Antelopes?” said the old man, looking from the boy’s face
to his shoes. “Gazelles?”
The boy thought about it, hesitated, and nodded a quick
nod. Almost immediately he vanished. He just spun about
with a whisper and went off. The door stood empty. The
sound of the tennis shoes faded in the jungle heat.
Mr. Sanderson stood in the sun-blazed door, listening.
From a long time ago, when he dreamed as a boy, he
remembered the sound. Beautiful creatures leaping under the
sky, gone through brush, under trees, away, and only the soft
echo their running left behind.
“Antelopes,” said Mr. Sanderson. “Gazelles.”
He bent to pick up the boy’s abandoned winter shoes,
heavy with forgotten rains and long-melted snows. Moving
out of the blazing sun, walking softly, lightly, slowly, he
headed back toward civilization. . . . 11 ❍
Practice the Skills
10
Literary Element
Hyperbole This paragraph
has a series of metaphors.
Individually, the metaphors just
compare the shoes’ “feel” to different parts of nature. Together,
they become hyperbole.
11
What would you say is Douglas’s
idea of the American dream?
Write your purpose on the
“Dandelion Wine” page of
Foldable 8. Your response will
help you complete the Unit
Challenge later.
from Dandelion Wine
Christophe Courteau/TMC / SuperStock
1149
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
After You Read
from Dandelion Wine
Answering the
1. Do you think life in America has changed much since Bradbury wrote
his novel in 1957? Do you think the American dream has changed?
Explain.
2. Recall To what does the author compare Old Mr. Sanderson, the shoe
store proprietor?
T IP Right There
3. Summarize In your own words, tell why Douglas feels he needs a new
pair of tennis shoes.
T IP Think and Search
Critical Thinking
4. Interpret On page 1144, find the paragraph that begins “Well, as anyone knew . . .” Tell what you think the first two sentences mean.
T IP Author and Me
5. Clarify What does Douglas mean when he says to Mr. Sanderson,
“you sell me something and I’ll sell you something just as valuable”?
T IP Author and Me
6. Evaluate The narrator says, “Somehow the people who made tennis
shoes knew what boys needed and wanted.” Do you think this is true?
Explain.
T IP Author and Me
7. Explain Why does Mr. Sanderson ask Douglas if he would like a job
selling shoes in five years?
T IP Think and Search
Objectives (pp. 1150-1151)
Reading Identify author’s purpose
• Make connections from text to self
Literature Identify literary devices:
hyperbole
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Respond to literature:
journal entry
Grammar Distinguish between
homophones
Write About Your Reading
Journal Entry Put yourself in Douglas’s shoes. Write the journal entry
that he might have written after he got home with his new Royal Crown
Cream-Sponge Para Litefoot Tennis Shoes. First, think what he might have
to say about getting the shoes and about his plans for the rest of the summer. Then start writing. (Don’t be afraid to use some hyperbole; it’s what
Douglas would do.)
1150 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Marc Volk/Getty Images
READING WORKSHOP 4 • Identifying Author’s Purpose
Skills Review
Key Reading Skill: Identifying Author’s
Purpose
8. Who would you say is Bradbury’s intended audience for Dandelion Wine? Why do you think this?
9. Tell what purpose(s) you think Bradbury had in
mind and whether he was successful. Use details
from the selection to support your answers.
Literary Element: Hyperbole
10. Explain the hyperbole in saying that “shoes like
these could jump you over trees and rivers and
houses.”
11. Douglas says that, once he’s wearing the new
tennis shoes, Mr. Sanderson will “see twelve of
me, in and out, in and out, every minute.” Is
Douglas exaggerating to express strong emotion,
to emphasize a point, to create humor, or for a
combination of these reasons? Explain.
Vocabulary Check
Write the vocabulary word and the word or phrase in
parentheses that is its synonym.
12. capsize (straighten, tip over)
13. proprietor (salesman, owner)
14. rave (praise, scold)
15. alien (ordinary, unusual)
16. yielding (flexible, resisting)
Copy each sentence, filling in the blank with one of
the vocabulary words.
17. My neighbors are so weird that even Martians
would think they’re ___!
18. I don’t mean to ___, but you’ve made me the
happiest person in the history of the universe!
19. If this thing were to ___, we’d sink faster than
you can say “Glub!”
20. English Language Coach What do proper,
property, and proprietor have in common,
besides their similar spellings?
Grammar Link:
Homophones
Homophones are words that sound alike but have
different spellings and different meanings.
• My brother is a musician; he plays the bass.
• My sister is a ballplayer; she plays first base.
Not recognizing a homophone could result in an
embarrassing spelling error. Even a computer spellchecker can’t fix your mistake if you wrote lone when
you want a loan. Always check a dictionary if you’re
unsure about which homophone to use.
Some Common Homophones
breaks, brakes
meat, meet
by, buy
prints, prince
for, four
there, their, they’re
here, hear
to, too, two
lessen, lesson
weight, wait
Grammar Practice
Copy the following sentences and circle the homophone that correctly completes each sentence. If you
need help, use a dictionary.
21. Angela couldn’t (wait, weight) to see the sunrise.
22. I need to (by, buy) a necktie and a pair of shoes.
23. The boys will wait in (here, hear).
24. I got my (prints, prince) from the photo shop.
25. The truck’s (breaks, brakes) screeched to a stop.
26. Let’s (meet, meat) at the Aerosmith concert.
Web Activities For eFlashcards, Selection
Quick Checks, and other Web activities,
www.glencoe.com.
from Dandelion Wine
1151
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
&
AMERICA
Coming to
by Joe McGowan, Marisa Wong,
Vickie Bane, and Laurie Morice
by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
Skill Focus
You will use these skills as you read and
compare the following selections:
• “Coming to America,” p. 1155
• “Coming to America,” p. 1162
Reading
• Reading and understanding
informational texts
• Analyzing a writer’s claims
and conclusions
Writing
• Writing to compare and
contrast
Objectives (pp. 1152–1153)
Reading Compare and contrast:
authors’ ideas across texts
1152 UNIT 8
Writers help you form opinions all the time. How have the
writers in this unit helped you form an opinion about the
American dream?
As you read the selections in this workshop, think about
how the writers view the American dream. How do their
views influence yours?
How to Read Across Texts
When you read two similar texts, it’s important to compare
and contrast the way different writers address the same
subject. To do this, ask questions about the writers’ purposes for writing, their credibility (how trustworthy they
are), and the evidence they use to support their opinions.
Also, pay attention to point of view. Thinking about how
and why writers present information helps you decide
whether to believe what you read.
The selections in this workshop deal with immigration. As
you read, ask yourself the following questions:
• Why is the author writing about this subject? Is the
purpose to inform, to entertain, to persuade, or
something else?
• Is the author credible? What makes him or her qualified
to write this story about this subject?
• Does the writer support his or her ideas by providing
evidence, such as facts, examples, or interviews?
• What does the evidence in these selections say about the
immigrant experience in America?
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Get Ready to Compare
In your Learner’s Notebook, draw a graphic organizer like the one below. Use it
to keep track of the details in the selections you are about to read. Your notes
will help you better understand the subject and compare the selections. (By the
way, et al. is the abbreviation of a Latin phrase that means “and others.” It’s
used when it would be clumsy to repeat all the names in a list of people.)
“Coming To America”
by Joe McGowan, et al.
Details shared by
both selections
“Coming To America”
by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
Purpose:
Purpose:
Credibility:
Credibility:
Evidence:
Evidence:
Point of view:
Point of view:
Use Your Comparison
Think of a time when a friend told you about something
that happened to him or her. Now think of a time when
a friend told you a story about something that happened to someone else. What details did you get from
the first story that you didn’t get from the second one?
Do you trust a story told from a third-person point of
view, or would you rather hear a first-person account?
As you read, use your graphic organizer to help you
answer these questions about point of view:
• What do I learn about the immigrant experience
from a story told in first-person point of view?
• What do I learn from a story told in third-person?
• Is one point of view more helpful than the other, or
are both equally valuable?
The selections in this workshop deal with the same
issue in different ways. Both articles are about
immigration, but one relies heavily on first-person
accounts. The other tells a story, but uses fewer
direct quotations.
Reading Across Texts Workshop
1153
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Before You Read
Did You Know?
Did you know that emigrating from China was once a
very serious crime? In 1712
the Chinese emperor decreed
that all Chinese emigrants
should return to be beheaded.
Of course, that policy eventually changed. In the mid1800s, the Qing (chin)
dynasty was forced to open
China to the West. Almost
150 years after the emperor’s
threatening anti-emigration
decree, the first major wave
of Chinese immigrants
arrived on American soil.
Coming to America
by Joe McGowan, Marisa Wong,
Vickie Bane, and Laurie Morice
Vocabulary Preview
toiled (toyld) v. worked hard (p. 1155) Many immigrants toiled in
factories, hoping to build a good life in America.
discriminates (dis KRIM uh nayts) v. treats unfairly (p. 1160) In many
places in the world, the law still discriminates against women.
English Language Coach
A Changing Language Immigrants have brought many words to English,
but the word immigrant came from Latin. The root migrare (“to move”),
along with a few prefixes and suffixes, gave us ten useful words.
migrate
emigrate
immigrate
to move from one country or local place to another
—migration, migrant, migratory
to leave one place to live elsewhere
—emigration, emigrant
to come into a place to live permanently
—immigration, immigrant
Migrate is used to describe the movements of people and animals
(“migratory birds,” for example). Emigrate and immigrate almost always
describe movements of people only. To keep these two words straight,
use their initials. Think e as in exit and i as in into. The next selection talks
about a family that emigrated from (or exited) China and immigrated to
(or into) the United States.
Get Ready to Read
Connect to the Reading
Imagine that you had to move to a new place, adjust to a new way of life,
R and possibly learn a new language. That is the immigrant experience.
Set Purpose for Reading
Objectives (pp. 1154–1160)
Reading Compare and contrast: authors’
ideas across texts
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Read to find out about three school-age immigrants
and their search for the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What would you like to learn from this selection
to help you answer the Big Question? Write your own purpose on the
“Coming to America” page of Foldable 8.
1154 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
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READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
AMERICA
AP Wide World
Coming to
PLEDGING ALLEGIANCE Proud, brand-new American citizens
The nation’s newest immigrants share a timehonored dream with groups from the past.
By JOE MCGOWAN, MARISA WONG, VICKIE BANE, and LAURIE MORICE
T
he United States is a nation built by immigrants.
From 1840 to 1870, the first wave of immigrants
came from Ireland, England, Germany, and China to
dig waterways and lay railroad tracks. From 1890 to
1924, a second wave crashed over Ellis Island,1 the historic
immigration station in New York Harbor, from countries
such as Italy and Russia. These newcomers toiled in factories
and built cities.
Now, a new wave of immigrants is coming to America.
Over 31 million immigrants live in the U.S. They make up
about 11.5% of the population. Like those who came before,
these immigrants are arriving in hopes of building their own
version of the American Dream. 1
A New Era with New Challenges
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, America has
been rethinking its immigration policy. Some people want to
1
Reading Across Texts
Point of View What point of
view do the writers use here?
How do you know? Make notes
in your organizer.
1. During these years, more than 20 million immigrants entered the United States through
Ellis Island, a small island off the southern tip of Manhattan.
Vocabulary
toiled (toyld) v. worked hard
Coming to America
AP Wide World Photos
1155
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
limit the number of new immigrants to 300,000 a year. All
foreign visitors face new delays, including high-tech screening
and longer waiting periods. Still, more than 3.3 million new
immigrants arrived between 2000 and 2004. On January 7,
2004, President George W. Bush proposed a plan to make it
easier to track the 8 million illegal immigrants in the
country. 2
Once here, immigrants need help. “Family is always the
first resource,” says Lily Woo, the principal of Public School
130, in New York City, where many Chinese newcomers
attend school. Extended immigrant families help one another
find housing and work. Other support groups, like churches
and community centers, are not as strong as they once were.
As a result, about 25% of immigrant households receive
government assistance, typically for health care and school
for their children. Some 30% of immigrants have not
graduated high school, and many have low-paying jobs.
Early immigrants quickly took on all aspects of American
culture. But, today, many immigrants have one foot in the
U.S. and one foot in their native land. With cell phones and
the Internet, it’s now easier for newcomers to keep in touch
with the country they left behind.
“I’m the luckiest kid in the world,” says Prudence Simon,
10, who now lives in New York. “I have two homes, Trinidad
and the U.S.A.”
Only the future will reveal how the new immigrants will
build their American Dream.
But one thing is certain, they
have a rich history on which
to lay a foundation. 3
2
Reading Across Texts
Evidence What do you learn
about immigration from the facts
presented here? Make notes in
your organizer. How does the
use of evidence build the writers’
credibility?
3
Reading Across Texts
Purpose The writers say that
new immigrants have a “rich history.” What might their purpose
be for writing about that history?
4
Reading Across Texts
Evidence Writers often use
examples and direct quotations
as evidence, or support, for
their main idea. How does the
use of examples help you find
and understand the main idea
in what you read? How does it
build the writers’ credibility?
They may come from different
places, but immigrants share
similar experiences. Starting
over in a new country often
takes time and can be hard.
Here’s a look at how three
young immigrants dealt with
their new American lives. 4
Corbis Bettmann
Immigrants Past
and Present
OPEN DOORS Immigrants arrive at Ellis Island, in New York Harbor, in 1920. Nearly
14 million foreign-born people were living in the U.S. that year.
1156 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Bettmann/CORBIS
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Jin Hua Zhang
In my hometown of Ting Jiang, in southeastern
China, people always said that America was
very good, like some kind of wonderland.
They said you could have a good life here. So
when my mother, my brother, and I flew into
New York City’s LaGuardia Airport, I was so
happy. It was night, and I thought, “This city
is so good, so beautiful.” I knew at that
moment my life would be changing. I thought
it would be great.
But then I came to my apartment. I was
Jin Hua shares this bedroom with her parents and older brother.
shocked. In China, my parents were bosses at
a company that made bricks. We had a big
house; it was very comfortable. Here, there were four of us
squeezing into two small rooms [in Chinatown]. Everything
is shared—I can’t do anything in private. The next day, when
I went down to the street, it was so noisy. And, oh, my gosh,
so stinky! Starting school was hard too. In China, I’d been a
good student—I completed every exam perfectly. Here, I
didn’t understand what the teacher was saying. It was the
5 Reading Across Texts
[toughest] time I’ve ever had. 5
But the biggest difference between China and here was that
Point of View The point of
view has changed. What do you
I was lonely. Some Americans look at you differently [if
learn about Jin Hua and her
you’re an immigrant]; they look down on you. I had to make
move to New York from this firstall new friends. In China, teenagers come together as a group
person account? How does this
and go out to play. Here, my parents didn’t want me to hang
paragraph show her personality?
out outside; they thought I could get lost or [might] hang out
with bad people.
I know that my family decided to come here so my brother
and I could get a better education. In China, they made
money more easily, but they never felt like it was enough;
they always wanted more. Now, they work all the time, every
morning until midnight, [because they] want me to go to
college [instead of] working in a factory like most Chinese
Coming to America
Erin Patrice O’Brien
1157
Erin Patrice O’Brien
When she was 11 years old, Jin Hua’s father
brought his family to New York City.
Although Jin Hua has made friends and is
doing well in school, she still misses her
home in China.
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
immigrants [we know]. But I feel like I have less. I don’t
know if I consider myself an American. I feel like I’m really
more Chinese. 6
6
Point of View How does the
point of view help you understand Jin Hua’s experience?
Are you surprised to learn that
she feels more Chinese than
American? Why or why not?
Sonia Diaz
In 1994, Sonia’s family moved to Asheboro, North Carolina,
from the tiny town of San Francisco de Asis, Mexico.
Caught between two worlds, she struggled to stay loyal to
her Hispanic heritage while making the most of her new
life in America. 7
Jason Dewey
I wasn’t ready for the racism I found when I started school
here. In seventh grade, kids used to laugh at my accent when
the teacher asked me to read in front of the class. By the time
I was in ninth grade, my Mexican friends didn’t like to talk to
American people. They were scared of having people laugh.
So they didn’t want to get involved in anything, no clubs, no
sports. I wanted to, but I never could because no other
Hispanics were.
Sonia (with her little brother, Jose Luis) strikes a pose in front of her house
in Asheboro, North Carolina.
1158 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Jason Dewey
Reading Across Texts
7
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
word heritage comes from
Middle English, Old French, and
Medieval Latin. Use a dictionary
to find out more about its origins
and meaning.
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Then in 11th grade, I got put in mostly honors classes,
because I had good grades. Back then, it was all Americans in
those classes. So I needed to talk to them, and we made
friends. My Hispanic friends would get mad—they’d say that
I didn’t know who I was. But after a while I was like, I’m
going to talk to whomever I want to. And I did. I made
American friends, and I had Mexican friends. I even have an
American boyfriend.
Things are different at my school now. There are lots more
Mexican kids, and they’re more involved, more open. The
soccer team used to be mostly white; now it’s mostly
Hispanic. Looking back, I wish I could do high school over
again. I’d take every honors class, join every club. I missed so
many things because I didn’t want people to make fun of me.
I’m glad it’s not like that anymore. 8
Peter Deng
8
Reading Across Texts
Evidence In your organizer,
make notes about Sonia’s experience. How is it similar to and
different from Jin Hua’s?
When I first came to Denver,
[Colorado,] I had never slept in a
bed. I had never seen television or
snow. Even women in shorts—that’s
not so common in Africa.
I was born in the village of Jale,
in the southern part of Sudan. Our
homes were huts made out of long
grasses. So the first week [that the
Lost Boys were in Denver], we
stayed inside, not coming out.
Gerard Gaskin
Peter was one of Sudan’s “Lost
Boys,” thousands of boys who
were separated from their families
by the ongoing civil war in their
country, and then walked by
themselves for months before
finally finding safety at a refugee
camp in Kenya. In March 2001, he
was allowed to emigrate2 to the
United States, where he’s building
a brand-new life.
Peter stands tall at his school, the University of Colorado.
2. If you emigrate, you leave a country or region to live somewhere else.
Coming to America
Gerard Gaskin
1159
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
There were eight of us sharing a house, two to a room.
Ecumenical Refugee Services [who helped sponsor the Lost
Boys] gave us a television. They also bought us clothes and
groceries for the first two months and showed us how
to cook. 9
There were so many things—the stove, the refrigerator—
that we didn’t know how to use. I was one of the first Lost
Boys to get a job, as a warehouse clerk, processing customer
orders. When I got my first paycheck, I didn’t know what to
do with it. I kept it under the bed for two weeks—until
[somebody] told me I had to put it in the bank.
Now I write checks. I’ve even bought a car. I love the
United States. I like to watch basketball. I’ve started college,
and I have friends—some African, some American. 10
Sometimes we get together for parties. People are so
friendly and polite, and nobody discriminates or takes
advantage of you. My mother died in 1998, but my younger
brother is still in the camp in Kenya. I want to bring him
here, to get the same opportunities as me. This is a very free
life. It’s very, very exciting. 11
—Updated 2005, from TIME FOR KIDS, January 30, 2004,
and Teen People, March 2003
9
Reading Across Texts
Point of View How is Peter’s
story different from Jin Hua’s and
Sonia’s? What do the first-person accounts reveal about their
likes, dislikes, and hopes for the
future?
10
Are Jin Hua, Sonia, and Peter
living the American dream?
Why or why not?
11 Reading Across Texts
Purpose How would you
describe the writers’ purpose
now? Make notes in your
organizer.
Vocabulary
discriminates (dis KRIM uh nayts) v. treats unfairly
1160 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
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READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Before You Read
Coming to America
Vocabulary Preview
M
a ri
ann
e Sz eg e d y - M a
sz a
k
trivial (TRIV ee ul) adj. of very little value or importance (p. 1163) His
skates appeared trivial next to larger concerns.
incongruous (in KONG groo us) adj. not in agreement (p. 1164) The
woman’s dress seemed incongruous with her environment.
immersed (ih MURSD) v. completely occupied mentally; form of the verb
immerse (p. 1165) He immersed himself in his studies.
Meet the Author
English Language Coach
Prize-winning journalist
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
has worked for several major
news sources, including
Newsweek, ABC Radio,
and National Public Radio.
Currently, she is a senior
editor at U.S. News and
World Report. SzegedyMaszak taught journalism at
American University in
Washington, D.C., and has
lived in both the United
States and Europe.
A Changing Language English is the official language of the United
States because the country used to be British colonies. Britain was once a
part of the Roman Empire. The Latin-speaking Romans were greatly influenced by the culture and language of Greece. So let’s go straight back to
Greek and Latin in the next selection. Watch for these words:
Word
architect
television
Roots
Greek archi + Greek tekton
Greek tele + Latin visio
Meaning
master + builder
far + seeing
Get Ready to Read
Connect to the Reading
What challenges do you face in your daily life? What sacrifices would you
be willing to make for your dreams to become a reality?
Author Search For more about
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak, go to
www.glencoe.com.
Objectives (pp. 1161–1165)
Reading Compare and contrast:
authors’ ideas across texts
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Build Background
The families in this selection came to the United States as refugees.
Refugees are people who flee their homelands to escape war, oppression,
persecution, or natural disaster. What does the American dream mean to
refugees? It often means freedom, opportunity, and sacrifices.
Set Purpose for Reading
Read to find out about two refugee families and their
search for the American dream.
Set Your Own Purpose What else would you like to learn from this
selection to help you answer the Big Question? Write your own purpose on
the “Coming to America” page of Foldable 8.
Coming to America
1161
Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
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READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
MAGAZINE
Good Housekeeping
by Marianne Szegedy-Maszak
“W
hat day is today?” the teacher asks slowly, tossing a
basketball to 11-year-old Dardan Osmani.
“Today is Monday,” the boy answers with a slight accent.
Then, passing the ball to a child in a Winnie-the-Pooh T-shirt,
Dardan asks, “What day is tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow is Wednesday,” the little boy starts to say, but
the other children quickly interrupt with the correct answer. 1
There are 21 children learning English in this class at
Marymount College in New York City—young survivors of
the genocide in Kosovo.1 Their parents are in another
classroom down the hall. They are doctors, engineers,
architects—highly educated professionals now trying to learn
enough English to get jobs as dishwashers, maids, janitors.
Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population—26.3 million—
was born in other countries. Mostly they’ve come here for the
reason immigrants usually leave their homes: hoping to find
a better life for themselves and their children. But a small
fraction, including Dardan Osmani’s family, had no choice:
They were fleeing civil wars or brutal governments. Last year
our TV screens showed them leaving Kosovo. Before that, we
saw them running from Bosnia, Rwanda, Laos, Cambodia.
And then something remarkable happened. We began to
see these same people not on our televisions but in the
supermarket or at school. 2
1. Kosovo was one of the six provinces of Yugoslavia. In the 1990s the country fought a civil war
and split apart. The leader of Serbia, another former province, ordered thousands of murders in
Kosovo. He was later convicted of genocide (JEN uh syd), the organized destruction of a racial,
political, or cultural group.
1162 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Practice the Skills
1
English Language Coach
A Changing Language The
Romans had named the days
of the week for their gods.
Much later, the English chose
new names to honor their own
gods, one of whom was Woden.
Woden’s day eventually became
Wednesday.
2
Reading Across Texts
Purpose Do you think the
writer’s purpose is to entertain,
inform, or persuade? Explain
your answer in your organizer.
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Which is, perhaps, the greatest gift America can offer: the
gift of an ordinary life. 3
At the time that we’re talking, the Osmanis have been in
New York City just a month. But the father, Elez, 44, and his
four oldest children—Dardan, his brother, Begatim, 15, and
two sisters, Besarta, 14, and Dhurata, 6—move through the
crowded streets like natives as they make their way from
English class to an apartment in the Bronx. Nurije, a trim
woman of forty, hugs her family as they enter, while baby
Rrita, 13 months, wobbles happily among her sisters and
brothers. 4
Speaking through an interpreter. Elez tells the family’s story.
On April 1, 1999, Serbian soldiers forced them to leave their
apartment. They went to Macedonia.2 “Waiting for the train
was tough,” Elez recalls. “It was raining. The children and old
people were already scared. Meanwhile, the Serbian police,
trying to create a panic, kept saying they would kill us all.”
Conditions at the refugee camp were even rougher. Says
Elez grimly, “There was mud everywhere, little food, no
showers. And a lot of sickness—twenty-three people died that
first week.” 5
But the Osmanis were lucky. A week after they arrived, a
friend invited the family to his home. Elez’s uncle then
contacted a cousin in America, who was willing to sponsor
the family.
Since they left Kosovo, they’ve heard that their apartment
has been looted. Nurije loses some of her calm self-control as
she talks about the lost baby pictures. Dardan mentions his
skates, then seems embarrassed that he’s thinking about
something so trivial. But Elez’s encouragement keeps them
all going. “I want to see my children working, learning,” he
says emphatically. “I want them to become citizens and not
be threatened like their parents were once.”
Now, that’s beginning to happen. Last fall, the children
started school. Elez, who was a magazine editor in Kosovo,
found work as a maintenance worker. Nurije, a biology
Practice the Skills
3
Why do you think “an ordinary
life” is a part of the American
dream?
4
Reading Across Texts
Point of View What point of
view does the writer use here?
Why might the writer use this
point of view to tell about each
member of the Osmani family?
5
Reading Across Texts
Evidence What information do
you get from direct quotations?
How do these direct quotations
help you better understand the
Osmanis’ experience?
2. Macedonia was another province of Yugoslavia.
Vocabulary
trivial (TRIV ee ul) adj. of very little value or importance
Coming to America
1163
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
teacher, is at home.) He knew he’d have to take a job doing
unskilled work, but it doesn’t matter. All that counts, the
parents agree is that this life “is better for the children.” 6
The apartment in Silver Spring, Maryland, was small, and
Eva Wilson shared it with a roommate. But on the day in 1996
when Eva welcomed her four children at Newark
International Airport and brought them to live with her in
that too-small space, only one thing mattered: They were
together. “We didn’t mind being crowded, all five of us in one
room,” says Eva, “because where we had been was worse.” 7
“I want them to go to college, to learn all they can,” says
Eva Wilson of her daughters, Manny, Faith, and Peaches.
Where they’d been was Liberia, a country on Africa’s west
coast. A civil war had broken out there early in 1990, Eva’s
husband, Francis, had been killed, and she had been
separated from her children—Franklin, then 12; Peaches, 8;
Faith, 5; and her tiny daughter, Kimmy, only a month old.
Unbelievably, it took three and a half years for them to be
reunited. Even more unbelievably, Eva then had to leave her
children again. Her visa3 to the United States had finally come
through. “I knew I had to go to the U.S. if I was going to
provide any kind of stable life for my family,” she says. “But it
was tough, I will tell you. I had to tighten my heart and be
strong.” She was granted asylum4 by the United States in 1995,
and her children were permitted to join her a year later. 8
Today, Eva, 43, is telling her story in her
Gaithersburg, Maryland, home. It feels
incongruous, this woman in a brightly
printed African dress describing her ordeal
amid town houses in a Washington, D.C.
Visual Vocabulary
suburb. The adjustment has been tough,
Town houses are
but, like so many generations of immigrants
houses that share
walls with the houses
before, the Wilsons know that education is
around them.
the key. Franklin, who had lost some time
Practice the Skills
6
Reading Across Texts
Evidence What did you learn
about the Osmanis? Think about
how their story is similar to and
different from the stories of Jin
Hua, Sonia, and Peter from the
first selection.
7
Reading Across Texts
Point of View and Evidence
The writer uses third-person
point of view. She supports her
statements with direct quotations. What statement about
the Wilsons does this quotation
support?
8
Reading Across Texts
Point of View Do you get a
better overview of events from a
third-person account? Why might
a writer choose this point of view
to tell about several people, and
the things that happen to them
over time?
3. A visa is a document that permits entry to or travel within a country.
4. Refugees who can’t return to their home country can be granted asylum, (uh SY lum), or
permission to live, work, and eventually apply for citizenship in the United States.
Vocabulary
incongruous (in KONG groo us) adj. not in agreement
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C. Borland/PhotoLink /Getty Images
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READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Analyzing the Photo In this April 1999 photo, ethnic Albanian refugees wait at a checkpoint on the Kosovo-Macedonia
border. How does this photo capture the frustration and uncertainty of the refugee experience?
in school, immersed himself in the eleventh grade and
graduated on time, winning a scholarship to a college in
Florida. The older girls, too, excel at their studies, and little
Kimmy, who’d never had a normal life before coming here, is
now studying hard. 9
For Eva, the challenge was work. She had a job at a school,
but most days she had to be there from four in the afternoon
until eight the next morning. Now, having just earned her
certificate in early-childhood education, she is working at a
day-care center. 10
But the struggle has been worth it, says Eva. “Coming here
was our only hope. Otherwise, we would have always been
refugees.” ❍
Practice the Skills
9
Reading Across Texts
Purpose How would you
describe the writer’s purpose
now? Make notes in your
organizer.
10
Do you think the American
dream means the same thing
to the Wilsons as it does to the
Osmanis? Why or why not?
Vocabulary
immersed (ih MURSD) v. completely occupied mentally
Coming to America
AP Photo/Eric Draper
1165
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
After You Read
&
AMERICA
Coming to
Vocabulary Check
Each vocabulary word below is followed by a synonym. Copy each set,
adding at least one synonym. (It can be a word or a phrase.) If you get
stuck, use a thesaurus. Be sure to choose synonyms that are close to the
meanings given on pages 1154 and 1161.
1. discriminates: shows prejudice
2. incongruous: mismatched
3. immersed: caught up in
4. trivial: insignificant
5. toiled: labored
Write each vocabulary word and an example of the thing described.
6. a job that requires people to toil
7. a hobby or activity that you find trivial
8. a color that you think is incongruous with purple
9. a recent project or activity you’ve had to immerse yourself in
10. a way that people in wheelchairs are sometimes discriminated against
English Language Coach
Objectives (pp. 1166–1167)
Reading Compare and contrast: author’s
ideas across texts
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Writing Compare and contrast across
texts: authors’ ideas
Each word below came into English from a modern foreign language with
little or no change in spelling or pronunciation. Identify the original language (Spanish, for example, not the word’s roots in Latin or Anglo-Saxon).
If you’re not sure, make a guess before you look up the word.
11. arcade
15. matinee
12. chili
16. pretzel
13. confetti
17. tundra
14. karaoke
18. wok
1166 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
(t)AP Wide World Photos, (b)AP Photo/Eric Draper
READING ACROSS TEXTS WORKSHOP
Reading/Critical Thinking
19.
What do Jin Hua, Sonia, and
Peter want to achieve in America? How are their
dreams alike and different?
T IP Author and Me
20. Recall What does Sonia wish that she could do
over again?
T IP Right There
21. Infer Why do you think Jin Hua feels more
Chinese than American?
T IP Author and Me
22. Interpret Eva uses a figure of speech when she
says that she had to “tighten her heart.” What
does she mean?
T IP Author and Me
23. Interpret Why do you think that so many people choose to immigrate to the United States?
What opportunities exist here that don’t exist
elsewhere?
T IP On My Own
24. Analyze Do the Osmanis and the Wilsons think
their struggles have been worthwhile? Are they
living their dreams?
T IP Author and Me
Writing: Reading
Across Texts
Use Your Notes
What have you learned about the immigrant experience from these selections? As you review your chart
and other notes, ask yourself these questions:
• What facts and examples did I find in each selection?
• How did the selection’s direct quotations and first-
person accounts help me better understand the
immigrant experience?
25. Use the notes in your organizer to compare and
contrast what you learned from the selections in
this workshop.
Step 1: Look at your notes about purpose and
credibility. Did you find similarities between the
selections? Write them in the appropriate circle
in your organizer. How did the writers’ purposes
differ? Underline the differences you noted.
Step 2: Write a paragraph comparing or contrasting the writers’ purposes.
Step 3: Look at your notes about evidence
and point of view. Record the similarities you
found in the appropriate circle in your organizer.
Underline the differences you noted.
Step 4: Write a paragraph comparing or contrasting the types of evidence used in these
selections. Which selection contained the most
information? From which selection did you learn
the most?
Step 5: Write a paragraph comparing or contrasting point of view in both selections. Which
point of view was most appealing? Did you learn
more about the immigrant experience from a
first- or third-person account?
Get It On Paper
To compare what you’ve learned from these selections, answer the questions below.
.
26. In the first selection, the writer’s purpose was
27. In the second selection, the writers’ purpose
was
.
28. I learned
from the first selection that I didn’t
learn from the second selection.
29. I learned
from the second selection that I
didn’t learn from the first selection.
30. I found the (first, second) selection more interesting because I learned
from it.
31. You’ve read what the American dream means to
people from other parts of the world. What does
the American dream mean to you?
Comparing Literature Workshop
1167
UNIT 8
WRAP-UP
Answering
What Is the
American Dream?
You’ve just about read about the American dreams of real people and fictional characters.
Now use what you’ve learned to do the Unit Challenge.
The Unit Challenge
Choose Activity A or Activity B and follow the directions for that activity.
A. Group Activity: American Dream Newsletter
Form a small group and create a newsletter
that contains articles about people who obtain
their American dreams.
can also choose to write about your version of
the American dream in an opinion piece or in
a persuasive essay.
1. Talk about American Dreams Choose
one group member to be the note-keeper for
the discussion. This person should make a
chart with two columns labeled Character/
Person and American Dream/Values. As a
group, brainstorm a list of characters and
real people from these Unit 8 selections
whom you’d like to write about. Use your
Foldable notes for ideas.
• What versions of the American dream do the
characters and people on your list have?
What do they value in life?
• What do they do or plan to do to accomplish
their goals and achieve their dreams?
First, decide on the type of article you’d like to
write. Here are some ideas:
• a news article about a specific event in the
person’s life that helps him or her get
closer to achieving the American dream
• a feature article presenting a brief biography,
including what the person has done to
obtain the American dream
• a feature article about the person’s values
and how they relate to the American dream
• an article about the people and events that
have influenced the person’s ideas of the
American dream
• an opinion piece in which you present your
idea of the American dream and why it’s
important to you
• an essay that tries to persuade readers of the
best ways to achieve the American dream
2. Choose an Article Group members can
choose to write a newsletter article about a
character or person from a selection or about a
real person who isn’t in the reading—a famous
person, a friend, or a relative, for example. You
1168 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
UNIT 8 WRAP-UP
3. Write Your Article Sit down and write.
• Decide what facts to include.
• Decide on a main idea and back it up with
supporting details.
• Choose a text structure to help you present
your ideas clearly.
• Open with an attention-getter—something
that will make your readers want to keep
reading.
• Create a title for your article.
4. Create the Newsletter Get together with
your group again, and put the newsletter
together.
• Decide on a name, and have someone
design it for the top of the newsletter.
• Draw a rough draft of the layout, including
ideas for photos and other text features.
• Exchange articles with another group
member for proofreading. If you have
questions, ask the writer to clarify.
• Type up or print out all the articles and cut
and paste them into your newsletter. Add
photos or other illustrations. Then make
copies for your classmates.
B. Solo Activity: American Dream Spokesperson
You’ve read how people in different times and
places have interpreted the American dream.
Now choose someone to be an “American
Dream Spokesperson.”
1. Make the Call Review your Foldable notes,
and then list the people and characters from
the selections.
• Add to the list people you know personally
who have in some way lived, or worked
toward, the American dream.
• Choose a person or character from your
list to be a spokesperson for the American
dream.
2. Speaking for Your Spokesperson Decide
how you want to honor your spokesperson.
Here are some ideas:
• Write a biography. You may need to
research the details of a real person’s life.
If you chose a fictional character, you can
write his or her biography based on details
you know from the selection as well as
from your imagination.
• Write a speech. Have your spokesperson
describe and explain his or her American
dream. Be as specific as possible.
• Create a poster. Include images and words
that help show your spokesperson’s idea
of the American Dream.
3. Go Public! Take your American Dream
Spokesperson public. Publish your biography,
speech, or poster. Display it in the classroom,
read it aloud, present it to the class, or put it
on your class’s Web site (if you have one).
Link
to Web resources to further
explore the Big Question at
www.glencoe.com.
Wrap-Up
1169
UNIT 8
Your Turn: Read and Apply Skills
To s h i o M o r i
Meet the Author
Toshio Mori was born in
Oakland, California, in 1910.
He knew at an early age
that he would become a
writer. But just before his first
book was published, Japan
attacked the U.S. Navy base
at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The
United States entered World
War II and sent 110,000
Japanese-American citizens
to specially built camps.
Mori’s family wound up in
Utah. After the war, his book
was published, and Mori was
recognized as an important
new writer.
Author Search For more about
Toshio Mori, go to www.glencoe
.com.
1170
UNIT 8
by Toshio Mori
W
hen he came to our house one day and knocked on the
door and immediately sold me a copy of The Saturday Evening
Post, it was the beginning of our friendship and also the
beginning of our business relationship.
His name is John. I call him Johnny and he is eleven. It is
the age when he should be crazy about baseball or football or
fishing. But he isn’t. Instead he came again to our door and
made a business proposition.
“I think you have many old magazines here,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “I have magazines of all kinds in the basement.”
“Will you let me see them?” he said.
“Sure,” I said.
I took him down to the basement where the stacks of
magazines stood in the corner. Immediately this little boy
went over to the piles and lifted a number of magazines and
examined the dates of each number and the names.
“Do you want to keep these?” he said.
“No. You can have them,” I said.
“No. I don’t want them for nothing,” he said. “How much
do you want for them?”
“You can have them for nothing,” I said.
“No, I want to buy them,” he said. “How much do you
What Is the American Dream?
(l)Image courtesy of Caxton Press, (r)Royalty-Free / Masterfile
YOUR TURN: READ AND APPLY SKILLS
want for them?”
This was a boy of eleven, all seriousness
and purpose.
“What are you going to do with the old
magazines?”
“I am going to sell them to people,” he
said.
We arranged the financial matters
satisfactorily. We agreed he was to pay three
cents for each copy he took home. On the
first day he took home an Esquire, a couple of
Saturday Evening Posts, a Scribner’s, an Atlantic
Monthly, and a Collier’s. He said he would be
back soon to buy more magazines.1
When he came back several days later, I
learned his name was John so I began calling
him Johnny.
“How did you make out, Johnny?” I said.
“I sold them all,” he said. “I made seventy
cents altogether.”
“Good for you,” I said. “How do you
manage to get seventy cents for old
magazines?”
Johnny said as he made the rounds selling
The Saturday Evening Post, he also asked the
folks if there were any back numbers2 they
particularly wanted. Sometimes, he said,
people will pay unbelievable prices for copies
they had missed and wanted very much to
see some particular articles or pictures, or
their favorite writers’ stories.
“You are a smart boy,” I said.
“Papa says, if I want to be a salesman, be a
good salesman,” Johnny said. “I’m going to
be a good salesman.”
“That’s the way to talk,” I said. “And
1. All the magazines named in this story are or were known for
printing new works by top American writers. As of 2006, only
three of the magazines were still being published: Atlantic Monthly
(which began in 1857), The New Yorker, and Esquire.
what does your father do?”
“Dad doesn’t do anything. He stays at
home,” Johnny said.
“Is he sick or something?” I said.
“No, he isn’t sick,” he said. “He’s all right.
There’s nothing wrong with him.”
“How long have you been selling The
Saturday Evening Post?” I asked.
“Five years,” he said. “I began at six.”
“Your father is lucky to have a smart boy
like you for a son,” I said.
That day he took home a dozen or so of the
old magazines. He said he had five standing
orders, an Esquire issue of June 1937, Atlantic
Monthly February 1938 number, a copy of
December 11, 1937 issue of The New Yorker,
Story Magazine of February 1934, and a
Collier’s of April 2, 1938. The others, he said,
he was taking a chance at.
“I can sell them,” Johnny said.
Several days later I saw Johnny again at
the door.
“Hello, Johnny,” I said. “Did you sell
them already?”
“Not all,” he said. “I have two left. But I
want some more.”
“All right,” I said. “You must have good
business.”
“Yes,” he said, “I am doing pretty good
these days. I broke my own record selling
The Saturday Evening Post this week.”
“How much is that?” I said.
“I sold 167 copies this week,” he said.
“Most boys feel lucky if they sell seventyfive or one hundred copies. But not for me.”
“How many are there in your family,
Johnny?” I said.
“Six counting myself,” he said. “There is
my father, three smaller brothers, and two
small sisters.”
2. Back numbers refers to old issues.
Your Turn: Read and Apply Skills
1171
YOUR TURN: READ AND APPLY SKILLS
“Where’s your mother?” I said.
“Mother died a year ago,” Johnny said.
He stayed in the basement a good one
hour sorting out the magazines he wished.
I stood by and talked to him as he lifted
each copy and inspected it thoroughly.
When I asked him if he had made a good
sale with the old magazines recently, he
said yes. He sold the Scribner’s Fiftieth
Anniversary Issue for sixty cents. Then he
said he made several good sales with
Esquire and a Vanity Fair this week.
“You have a smart head, Johnny,” I said.
“You have found a new way to make
money.”
Johnny smiled and said nothing. Then he
gathered up the fourteen copies he picked
out and said he must be going now.
“Johnny,” I said, “hereafter you pay two
cents a copy. That will be enough.”
Johnny looked at me.
“No,” he said. “Three cents is all right.
You must make a profit, too.”
An eleven-year-old boy—I watched him
go out with his short business-like stride.
Next day he was back early in the
morning. “Back so soon?” I said.
“Yesterday’s were all orders,” he said. “I
want some more today.”
“You certainly have a good trade,” I said.
“The people know me pretty good. And I
know them pretty good,” he said. And about
ten minutes later he picked out seven copies
and said that was all he was taking today.
“I am taking Dad shopping,” he said. “I
am going to buy a new hat and shoes for
him today.”
“He must be tickled,” I said.
“You bet he is,” Johnny said. “He told me
to be sure and come home early.”
So he said he was taking these seven
copies to the customers who ordered them
and then run home to get Dad.
Two days later Johnny wanted some more
magazines. He said a Mr. Whitman who
lived up a block wanted all the magazines
with Theodore Dreiser’s stories inside. Then
he went on talking about other customers
of his. Miss White, the schoolteacher, read
Hemingway, and he said she would buy
back copies with Hemingway stories
anytime he brought them in. Some liked
Sinclair Lewis, others Saroyan, Faulkner,
Steinbeck, Mann, Faith Baldwin, Fannie
Hurst, Thomas Wolfe.3 So it went. It was
amazing how an eleven-year-old boy could
3. The writers named here are among the best American short story
writers. Some of them also wrote novels and nonfiction.
1172
CORBIS
UNIT 8
What Is the American Dream?
YOUR TURN: READ AND APPLY SKILLS
remember the customers’ preferences and
not get mixed up.
One day I asked him what he wanted to
do when he grew up. He said he wanted a
book shop all his own. He said he would
handle old books and magazines as well as
the new ones and own the biggest
bookstore around the Bay Region.4
“That is a good ambition,” I said. “You
can do it. Just keep up the good work and
hold your customers.”
On the same day, in the afternoon, he
came around to the house holding several
packages.
“This is for you,” he said, handing over a
package. “What is this?” I said.
Johnny laughed. “Open up and see for
yourself,” he said.
I opened it. It was a book rest, a simple
affair but handy.
“I am giving these to all my customers,”
Johnny said.
“This is too expensive to give away,
Johnny,” I said. “You will lose all your
profits.”
“I picked them up cheap,” he said. “I’m
giving these away so the customers will
remember me.”
“That is right, too,” I said. “You have
good sense.”
After that he came in about half a dozen
times, each time taking with him ten or
twelve copies of various magazines. He said
he was doing swell. Also, he said he was
now selling Liberty along with the Saturday
Evening Posts.
Then for two straight weeks I did not see
him once. I could not understand this.
He had never missed coming to the house
in two or three days. Something must
be wrong, I thought. He must be sick, I
thought.
One day I saw Johnny at the door. “Hello,
Johnny,” I said. “Where were you? Were
you sick?”
“No. I wasn’t sick,” Johnny said.
“What’s the matter? What happened?” I
said.
“I’m moving away,” Johnny said. “My
father is moving to Los Angeles.”
“Sit down, Johnny,” I said. “Tell me all
about it.”
He sat down. He told me what had
happened in two weeks. He said his dad
went and got married to a woman he,
Johnny, did not know. And now, his dad
and this woman say they are moving to
Los Angeles. And about all there was for
him to do was to go along with them.
“I don’t know what to say, Johnny,” I said.
Johnny said nothing. We sat quietly and
watched the time move.
“Too bad you will lose your good trade,”
I finally said.
“Yes, I know,” he said. “But I can sell
magazines in Los Angeles.”
“Yes, that is true,” I said.
Then he said he must be going. I wished
him good luck. We shook hands. “I will
come and see you again,” he said.
“And when I visit Los Angeles some
day,” I said, “I will see you in the largest
bookstore in the city.”
Johnny smiled. As he walked away, up the
street and out of sight, I saw the last of him
walking like a good businessman, walking
briskly, energetically, purposefully. ❍
4. The Bay Region is the area around San Francisco, California.
Your Turn: Read and Apply Skills
1173
UNIT 8
Reading on Your Own
To read more about the Big Question, choose one of these books from your
school or local library. Work on your reading skills by choosing books that
are challenging to you.
Fiction
Fair Weather
The House on
Mango Street
by Richard Peck
by Sandra Cisneros
In 1893 Rosie Beckett’s farm life has few thrills. And
then her aunt invites Rosie’s family to stay at her
house for a week so that they can visit the Columbian
Exposition, or World Fair. Now Rosie’s dreams of how
her life might unfold are much more exciting.
House Made of Dawn
by N. Scott Momaday
This book tells the story of Abel, a young Native
American, who journeys from a reservation
and experiences the difficult environment of an
American city.
1174
UNIT 8
(tl tr bl br)Eclipse Studio
What Is the American Dream?
Esperanza Cordero is a young girl coming of age in a
Hispanic neighborhood in Chicago. She uses poems
and stories to express her feelings about growing up
in an environment that she thinks is oppressive.
Esperanza dreams of the house that she will own
someday—a house that will not be on Mango Street.
Ellis Island:
Land of Hope
by Joan Lowery Nixon
Rebekah Levinsky and her family are the main characters in this story of the American immigrant experience of the early 1900s. The book tells of the Levinsky
family’s voyage from Russia to America and their
struggle to survive on New York’s Lower East Side.
UNIT 8 READING ON YOUR OWN
Nonfiction
Having Our Say:
The Delany
Sisters’ First
100 Years
Manners and
Customs
by Sarah and A. Elizabeth Delany
This book is from the series Life in America 100
Years Ago, which tells of the effects that immigration,
technological advances, and the factory system had
on daily life. It also paints a picture of the confusing
American lifestyle that was the dream of many
immigrants.
Two feisty African American women who each lived
to be more than a century old tell their life stories.
They describe the social history of the twentieth century as they saw it, from the days of Jim Crow laws to
the Harlem Renaissance, the Civil Rights movement,
and beyond.
By Jim Barmeier
Words That Make
America Great
Stride Toward
Freedom:
The Montgomery
Story
Edited by Jerome Agel
by Martin Luther King Jr.
This book presents 200 documents that have helped
define America’s character and ideals from its earliest
days to the present. Included are many documents of
the years 1750–1850, from the Declaration of
Independence to the earliest rules of baseball. This is
the basis of the American dream.
Dr. King tells the story of the Montgomery bus boycott. He explains how it was conceived and organized.
He describes the many violent threats on his life, and
the obstacles that American society placed before
those striving for their versions of the American
dream.
Reading on Your Own
(tl tr bl br)Eclipse Studio
1175
UNIT 8 SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
Test Practice
Part 1: Literary Elements
Read the passage. Then write the numbers 1–7 on a separate sheet of paper.
Write the letter of the right answer next to the number for that question.
from Letters from a Slave Girl
by Mary E. Lyons
This fictional letter is part of a novel based on
the true story of Harriet Ann Jacobs, a girl born
into slavery. In 1842, Jacobs escaped from
Edenton, North Carolina, in a boat.
Evening
Dear Aunt Betty,
Worry sticking to me like cockleburs.
The captain, he has our ticket money now.
Nothing to stop him from turning us in for
the reward. But Sarah says dont fret. In her
three days on the ship everybody been
kind.
When the captain brung me down to our
little box of a cabin, Sarah just sat there
with her mouth open. Harriet, is it you, she
says, or your ghost? We hold each other
tight, and my fears flow out in great sobs.
Then the captain comes back to shush us.
For my safety and yours, he says, it would
be prudent1 not to attract any attention. As
far as the sailors know, he told us, you are
Women going to meet your husbands in
Philadelphia.
The boat is passing the Snaky Swamp
now, and there is still enough light to make
out the buildings that rim the bay. From
here, Edenton is a toy town, like the ones
John used to make out of sticks and sand.
The wind is against us, so the boat moves
slow as a giant snail. Me and Sarah, we are
anxious to put the miles behind us. Dont
want to be playing peep squirrel with the
constables who search the ships.
I am weary in my bones, but I wont sleep.
Harriet
1 Prudent means “wise.”
Objectives
Literature Identify literary elements: style,
cultural reference, sequence • Identify literary
devices: metaphor
1176
UNIT 8
What Is the American Dream?
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
1. According to the letter, which of these events happens first?
A.
B.
C.
D.
The boat passes Snaky Swamp.
Sarah and Harriet hold each other tight.
The captain brings Harriet down to her cabin.
The captain tells Sarah and Harriet to stay
quiet.
2. According to the letter, which of these events
happens after the captain tells Harriet and Sarah to
be quiet?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Sarah thinks Harriet is a ghost.
Sarah and Harriet are reunited.
The boat passes Snaky Swamp.
Harriet gives the captain her ticket money.
3. Which of the following best describes the writing
style of the letter?
A.
B.
C.
D.
stuffy
formal
academic
conversational
UNIT 8
5. What problem does Harriet think could result from
giving the captain her ticket money?
A.
B.
C.
D.
The captain might turn her in.
The sailors might steal the money.
The sailors might discover she is a slave.
She might not have enough money for food.
6. Which of the following helps to create the writing
style of the letter?
A.
B.
C.
D.
the use of difficult words
the use of long sentences
the use of proper grammar
the use of everyday language
7. In the letter, which of the following is a cultural
reference?
A.
B.
C.
D.
a ghost
a giant snail
playing peep squirrel
passing Snaky Swamp
4. Which of the following phrases from the letter is an
example of metaphor?
A.
B.
C.
D.
“my fears flow out in great sobs”
“From here, Edenton is a toy town”
“Worry sticking to me like cockleburs”
“the boat moves slow as a giant snail”
Unit Assessment To prepare for the Unit
Test, go to www.glencoe.com.
Skills and Strategies Assessment 1177
UNIT 8
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
Part 2: Reading Skills
Read the passage. Then write the numbers 1–6 on a separate sheet of paper. For the
first five questions, write the letter of the right answer next to the number for that
question. Next to number 6, write your answer to the final question.
from Apprentices: Craftspeople in Training
by Bernardine S. Stevens
1
Starting a new life in early seventeenth century America was not easy. Lack
of proper food, poor medical care, and severe weather are a few of the things
that killed many settlers. Despite these brutal conditions, people wanted to
move to the young colonies. Not all of them were humble people who desired
religious freedom. Many new arrivals dreamed of owning businesses, land,
and homes. Those who didn’t have the money for their passage to the colonies
often signed contracts called indentures. As indentured servants, which
included children, they agreed to work for the individuals who paid their
passage. Children indentured to artisans were called apprentices.
2
An apprentice vowed to keep any trade or other secrets his master showed
him. He promised to be loyal to his master. He said he wouldn’t lie about
his master or allow others to speak badly about him. He swore he would not
leave his master’s service without permission, even for one day. He promised
he wouldn’t buy or sell anything that belonged to him or his master without
permission. He pledged he wouldn’t gamble or go to taverns, alehouses, or
playhouses (theaters). Finally, the apprentice swore he wouldn’t get married or
be guilty of any immoral behavior for as long as he served his master.
3
The master promised to teach his apprentice the art and mystery of his craft.
He was to ensure that the youth learned to write and do arithmetic, if capable.
At the end of the servitude, the master usually gave
the apprentice a set of tools and any other
freedom dues, or terminal gifts, that had
been set forth in the indenture. As long
as the young person stayed in his
service, the master was to provide
Objectives
him with food, clothing, and a
Reading Read historical text • Analyze text
place to sleep.
• Identify text structure: cause and effect
• Identify main idea and supporting details
• Identify author’s purpose
1178
UNIT 8
What Is the American Dream?
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
1. In the first three sentences, the writer shows that
A. life in early America was easy.
B. hardships prevented people from coming to
America.
C. settlers did not know how difficult life in
America would be.
D. settlers were willing to face great risks for better
opportunities.
2. According to the passage, people became
indentured servants because they
A. wanted to learn a craft.
B. wanted religious freedom.
C. couldn’t pay for their passage.
D. feared dying in the harsh conditions.
3. Which of the following best states the main idea of
paragraph 2?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Apprentices lived in total solitude.
Apprentices had to follow strict rules.
Masters were cruel to their apprentices.
Masters worried that apprentices would run
away.
UNIT 8
4. Which of the following details best supports the
main idea of paragraph 2?
A. Apprentices usually began their service as
children.
B. Apprentices had the opportunity to learn much
about their craft.
C. Apprentices vowed not to leave their masters
without permission.
D. Apprentices could get married after they
finished their service.
5. Which of the following best describes the main
idea of paragraph 3?
A. Masters usually gave apprentices gifts.
B. Masters had to teach and take care of their
apprentices.
C. Apprentices had to learn school subjects.
D. Apprentices needed their masters’ permission to
buy things.
6. Briefly explain the author’s purpose for writing this
piece.
Skills and Strategies Assessment 1179
UNIT 8
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
Part 3: Vocabulary Skills
On a separate sheet of paper, write the numbers 1–9. Next to each number, write the
letter of the right answer for that question.
Write the letter of the word or phrase that means
about the same as the underlined word.
1. too much refuse
A. fun
B. garbage
C. property
D. nonsense
2. it accumulated
A. piled up
B. adjusted
C. dried up
D. opened up
3. a wealthy proprietor
A. bank
B. uncle
C. owner
D. explorer
4. her avid friend
A. shy
B. eager
A. eraser
B. e-mail
C. notebook
D. blackboard
7. Read the quotation below. Which is most likely an
older meaning of dear?
“I can’t afford that necklace,”
sighed Judy. “It’s just too dear.”
A.
B.
C.
D.
pretty
expensive
sweet
worthless
8. Which place was most likely named after a person?
C. new
D. selfish
5. to capsize
A. call out
B. dress up
6. Which of the following words is most likely the
newest addition to the English language?
C. spy
D. overturn
A.
B.
C.
D.
9. Which part of the dictionary definition of dog is the
word’s etymology?
A.
B.
C.
D.
Objectives
Vocabulary Identify English language
changes
Grammar Capitalize correctly • Use irregular
verbs correctly
1180 UNIT 8 What Is the American Dream?
Hamilton Street
Big City Theater
Prairie Valley
Value Market
\dog\
noun
Middle English, from Old English docga
a domestic mammal that is closely related to
the gray wolf
SKILLS AND STRATEGIES ASSESSMENT
UNIT 8
Part 4: Grammar and Writing Skills
Write the numbers 1–8 on a separate sheet of paper. Then write the letter of the right
answer next to the number for that question.
1. In which of these sentences is the underlined word
misused?
A. Bring your science book home today.
B. The video store is between my house and my
school.
C. Concern for the hurricane victims spread
among the public.
D. Remember to take me a souvenir from your
trip to Mexico City.
2. Which of these sentences is written correctly?
A. My jacket is missing one of its buttons.
B. First you toast the bread and than you butter it.
C. Everyone accept Jermaine went on the field
trip.
D. If we loose this game, we’ll be out of the
competition.
3. Which of these verbs correctly completes the
following sentence?
By the time I got to class, the bell
.
A.
B.
C.
D.
ring
rang
had rang
had rung
4. What change or changes should be made to the
following sentence? Atlanta, georgia, was the birthplace of dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
A.
B.
C.
D.
lowercase King
capitalize georgia
capitalize georgia and dr.
capitalize georgia and birthplace
5. What changes should be made to this sentence?
My Uncle Emil lives on the west coast.
A.
B.
C.
D.
capitalize the and west
lowercase Uncle and Emil
capitalize west and coast
lowercase Uncle and capitalize west and coast
6. Which of these sentences is correctly capitalized?
A. the phoenix is a mythological creature.
B. The tales of Coyote are native American myths.
C. Someday I would like to learn to speak
Japanese.
D. “Some Japanese myths,” Susan said, “Are like
Greek myths.”
7. Which of these words or phrases correctly completes the sentence?
is a fun way to get in shape.
A. Danced
B. Dancing
C. Is dancing
D. Had danced
8. Which pair of words correctly completes the
following sentence?
I plan to
my new
of jeans tomorrow.
A.
B.
C.
D.
wear, pair
where, pair
wear, pear
where, pear
Skills and Strategies Assessment 1181