Things Fall Apart
Focus on Background, MLA Style, and Poetry
For an individual page on a Web site, list the author or alias if known, followed by the
information covered above for entire Web sites. Remember to use n.p. if no publisher
name is available and n.d. if no publishing date is given.
Refer to this general example:
Editor, author, or compiler name (if available). Name of Site. Version number. Name
of institution/organization affiliated with the site (sponsor or publisher),
date of resource creation (if available). Medium of publication. Date of
access.
You may also refer to this specific example:
Felluga, Dino. Guide to Literary and Critical Theory . Purdue U, 28 Nov. 2003. Web.
10 May 2006.
Part One: Discovery and Summarization
Find a reliable online source for information about "Ellis Island".
1. Using MLA style, cite your source.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
2. Referring to your source, write several complete sentences that summarize the
importance of Ellis Island to past generations of immigrants.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
cboyles 2/26/11
3. Find a reliable online source for information about Achebe's flight from his home nation.
Using MLA style, cite your source.
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
4. Referring to your source, write several complete sentences that summarize Achebe's
reasons for leaving Africa permanently, and the date he left. (Paraphrase the information. Do
not copy it.)
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
Part Two: Comprehension and Inference
Read the following poem two times to yourself. The first time, read to try to get the overall "tone"
or "flavor" of the poem. The second time you read it, circle important ideas that help you
understand the meaning of the poem. If there are unusual words, notate them; get a dictionary and
write a brief definition near that new vocabulary word.
Joseph Bruchac’s “Ellis Island”
From Tapestry – A Multicultural Anthology, Globe Book Company, 1993
Beyond the red brick of Ellis Island
where the two Slovak children
who became my grandparents
waited the long days of quarantine,1
after leaving the sickness,
the old empires of Europe,
a Circle Line ship2 slips easily
on its way to the island
of the tall woman, green
as dreams of forests and meadows
waiting for those who’d worked
a thousand years
yet never owned their own.
Like millions of others,
I too come to this island,
nine decades3 the answerer
of dreams.
Yet only one part of my blood loves that memory.
Another voice speaks
of native lands
cboyles 2/26/11
within this nation.
Lands invaded
when the earth became owned.
Lands of those who followed
the changing Moon,
knowledge of the season
in their veins.
5. Can you infer the importance of numbers in this poem? Write each number used in the
poem, then write down what you infer it means.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
6. Once you understand the poet's use of numbers in this piece, you can better understand the
meaning of the poem. What is the poet telling us in the first stanza?
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
7. Analyze stanza two to determine the poet's feelings about immigrating to America. Two of
Bruchac's thoughts are ironically contrasting. Paraphrase (put into your own words) these two
ideas.
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Part Three: Analysis and Synthesis
8. Would Chinua Achebe have had to register at Ellis Island when he came to America? Why
or why not?
______________________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
9. Use the back of this paper (or a sheet of notebook paper) to write a paragraph of 200
words that compares and contrasts Bruchac's and Achebe's probable feelings about
immigrating to America. Remember to use a clear thesis statement.
cboyles 2/26/11