Read the passages from “A Smart Cookie” by Sandra Cisneros and “An Hour with Abuelo” by Judith Ortiz Cofer.Today while cooking oatmeal she is Madame Butterfly until she sighs and points the wooden spoon at me. I could’ve been somebody, you know? Esperanza, you go to school. Study hard.For four years I boarded with a couple she knew. I paid my rent in labor, and I ate vegetables I grew myself. I wore my clothes until they were thin as parchment. But I graduated at the top of my class!
Both passages connect effort and opportunity with education. In “A Smart Cookie,” Esperanza’s mother urges her to go to school and study hard. In “An Hour with Abuelo,” the narrator describes working and sacrificing while pursuing school, then graduating at the top of the class. Together, the passages emphasize education.
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