Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."At last he found Rebecca, smiling, holding Cara-Ann in her arms. She was dancing. They were too far away for Alex to reach them, and the distance felt irrevocable, a chasm that would keep him from ever again touching the delicate silk of Rebecca’s eyelids, or feeling, through his daughter’s ribs, the scramble of her heartbeat. Without the zoom, he couldn’t even see them. In desperation, he T’d Rebecca, pls wAt 4 me, my bUtiful wyf, then kept his zoom trained on her face until he saw her register the vibration, pause in her dancing, and reach for it.Which of these is the best question to address the societal issue raised in this excerpt?
Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."That’s when he began singing the songs he’d been writing for years underground, songs no one had ever heard, or anything like them—“Eyes in My Head,” “X’s and O’s,” “Who’s Watching Hardest”—ballads of paranoia and disconnection ripped from the chest of a man you knew just by looking had never had a page or a profile or a handle or a handset, who was part of no one’s data, a guy who had lived in the cracks all these years, forgotten and full of rage, in a way that now registered as pure. Untouched.How does the author use satire in this excerpt?
Read the excerpt from "How the Internet and Other Technologies Came About."Because most cities would no longer exist, messages would have to be broken up into pieces, scattered throughout the system, moved around cities that no longer existed, and then reassembled at the destination. ARPA combined these ideas with an existing system to create what is now called e-mail.Which reading strategy would most help in comprehending the excerpt?
Read the excerpt from Gary Soto’s short story "Like Mexicans.”My grandmother gave me bad advice and good advice when I was in my early teens. For the bad advice, she said that I should become a barber because they made good money and listened to the radio all day. “Honey, they don’t work como burros,” she would say every time I visited her. She made the sound of donkeys braying. “Like that, honey!” For the good advice, she said that I should marry a Mexican girl. “No Okies, hijo”—she would say— “Look, my son. He marry one and they fight every day about I don’t know what and I don’t know what.” For her, everyone who wasn’t Mexican, black, or Asian were Okies. The French were Okies, the Italians in suits were Okies. . . . she lectured me on the virtues of the Mexican girl.The complex narrative structure used in the excerpt is an example of
Read this excerpt from "Look Homeward, Angel."Like all the older children of Major Pentland she had, since her twentieth year, begun the slow accretion of land: from the savings of her small wage as teacher and book-agent, she had already purchased one or two pieces of earth. From this excerpt, Eliza can best be described as a
Read the excerpt from Judith Ortiz Cofer’s poem “El Olvido.” a bare, cold room with no pictures on the walls, a forgetting place where she fears you will die of loneliness and exposure. Jesús, María, y José, she says, el olvido is a dangerous thing.Which strategy would be most helpful in enhancing the reader’s comprehension of the poem?
Read this excerpt from "A Visit from the Goon Squad."Whatever the reason, a swell of approval palpable as rain lifted from the center of the crowd and rolled out toward its edges, where it crashed against buildings and water wall and rolled back at Scotty with redoubled force, lifting him off his stool, onto his feet (the roadies quickly adjusting the microphones), exploding the quavering husk Scotty had appeared to be just moments before and unleashing something strong, charismatic, and fierce. Anyone who was there that day will tell you the concert really started when Scotty stood up.How does the author portray Scotty in this excerpt?
Read the excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron."“All of a sudden you look so tired,” said Hazel. “Why don’t you stretch out on the sofa, so’s you can rest your handicap bag on the pillows, honeybunch.” She was referring to the forty-seven pounds of birdshot in a canvas bag, which was padlocked around George’s neck. “Go on and rest the bag for a little while,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re not equal to me for a while.”George weighed the bag with his hands. “I don’t mind it,” he said. “I don’t notice it any more. It’s just a part of me.”This dialogue between George and Hazel portrays George as a
Draya is a student who does not understand the following sentence from Dreaming in Cuban.She reads the newspapers page by page for leftist conspiracies, jams her finger against imagined evidence and says, “See. What did I tell you?”Which previous segment should Draya reread to make the excerpt easier to understand?
Read the excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban.My mother says that Abuela Celia’s had plenty of chances to leave Cuba but that she’s stubborn and got her head turned around by El Líder. Mom says “Communist” the way some people says “cancer,” low and fierce.Which element from this excerpt best characterizes Garcia’s story as one of magic realism?
Students who have read a section of a text and do not understand it should
Read the excerpt from "Harrison Bergeron."“I am the Emperor!” cried Harrison. “Do you hear? I am the Emperor! Everybody must do what I say at once!” He stamped his foot and the studio shook.“Even as I stand here—” he bellowed, “crippled, hobbled, sickened—I am a greater ruler than any man who ever lived! Now watch me become what I can become!” Harrison tore the straps of his handicap harness like wet tissue paper, tore straps guaranteed to support five thousand pounds. Harrison’s scrap-iron handicaps crashed to the floor.What do Harrison’s words and actions reveal about his character?
Read the sentence from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”The ugly words settled in Mr. Shiftlet’s head like a group of buzzards in the top of a tree.How does the simile in the sentence develop the Southern gothic character of Mr. Shiftlet?
Why did Gilman most likely choose an unreliable narrator to tell the story of "The Yellow Wallpaper"?
Read the excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”The daughter could not see far in front of her and continued to play with her fingers. Although the old woman lived in this desolate spot with only her daughter and she had never seen Mr. Shiftlet before, she could tell, even from a distance, that he was a tramp and no one to be afraid of. His left coat sleeve was folded up to show there was only half an arm in it and his gaunt figure listed slightly to the side as if the breeze were pushing him. He had on a black town suit and a brown felt hat that was turned up in the front and down in the back and he carried a tin tool box by a handle. He came on, at an amble, up her road, his face turned toward the sun which appeared to be balancing itself on the peak of a small mountain.What technique does O’Connor use in the paragraph to create compelling characters?
Which excerpt from Cristina Garcia’s Dreaming in Cuban best exemplifies magic realism?
Read the excerpt from Flannery O’Connor’s “The Life You Save May Be Your Own.”“A body and a spirit,” he repeated. “The body, lady, is like a house: it don’t go anywhere; but the spirit, lady, is like a automobile: always on the move, always . . .”How does the figurative language used by Mr. Shiftlet develop his character?
Which of the narrator’s statements in "The Yellow Wallpaper" suggests that she does not think women are too frail to be intellectual?
Read the excerpt from "The Lady Maid's Bell."I had been near a week at Brympton before I saw my master. Word came that he was arriving one afternoon, and a change passed over the whole household. It was plain that nobody loved him below stairs. Mrs. Blinder took uncommon care with the dinner that night, but she snapped at the kitchen-maid in a way quite unusual with her; and Mr. Wace, the butler, a serious, slow-spoken man, went about his duties as if he'd been getting ready for a funeral. He was a great Bible-reader, Mr. Wace was, and had a beautiful assortment of texts at his command; but that day he used such dreadful language that I was about to leave the table, when he assured me it was all out of Isaiah; and I noticed that whenever the master came Mr. Wace took to the prophets.Which best describes a gothic element in the excerpt and the social attitude it reveals?
Read the excerpt from "The Lady Maid's Bell."But that wasn’t the only queer thing in the house. The very next day I found out that Mrs. Brympton had no nurse; and then I asked Agnes about the woman I had seen in the passage the afternoon before. Agnes said she had seen no one, and I saw that she thought I was dreaming. To be sure, it was dusk when we went down the passage, and she had excused herself for not bringing a light; but I had seen the woman plain enough to know her again if we should meet. I decided that she must have been a friend of the cook’s, or of one of the other women servants: perhaps she had come down from town for a night’s visit, and the servants wanted it kept secret. Some ladies are very stiff about having their servants’ friends in the house overnight. At any rate, I made up my mind to ask no more questions. Which statement describes a gothic element in this excerpt that reflects a social attitude of Wharton’s time?
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