UNIT

Ordinary Lives,
Extraordinary Tales
The American Short Story

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Discuss It Which of the thoughts expressed in this video

are most similar to your own thoughts about stories?
Write your response before sharing your ideas.

Why Do Stories Matter? That’s Like

Asking Why You Should Eat
750
 UNIT 6
UNIT INTRODUCTION
LAUNCH TEXT
essential What do stories reveal about NARRATIVE MODEL
question: Old Man at the
the human condition? Bridge
Ernest Hemingway

WHOLE-CLASS SMALL-GROUP INDEPENDENT

LEARNING LEARNING LEARNING
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES LITERARY HISTORY SHORT STORY
Focus Period: 1950–Present A Brief History of The Tell-Tale Heart
A Fast-Changing the Short Story Edgar Allan Poe
Society D. F. McCourt

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY SHORT STORY SHORT STORY

Everyday Use An Occurrence at The Man to Send
Alice Walker Owl Creek Bridge Rain Clouds
Ambrose Bierce Leslie Marmon Silko
MEDIA CONNECTION:
Alice Walker’s
“Everyday Use”
COMPARE

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY SHORT STORY SHORT STORY

Everything Stuck The Jilting of Ambush
to Him Granny Weatherall Tim O’Brien
Raymond Carver Katherine Anne Porter

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY SHORT STORY

The Leap Housepainting
Louise Erdrich Lan Samantha Chang
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PERFORMANCE TASK PERFORMANCE TASK PERFORMANCE-Based Assessment PRep

Writing Focus: Speaking and Listening focus: Review Notes for a Narrative
Write a Narrative Present a Narrative

PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT
Narrative: Short Story and Storytelling Session
PROMPT:

How does a fictional character or characters respond to life-changing news?

751
UNIT
6 INTRODUCTION

Unit Goals
Throughout this unit, you will deepen your perspective on how stories explore
the human condition by reading, writing, speaking, listening, and presenting.
These goals will help you succeed on the Unit Performance-Based Assessment.

Rate how well you meet these goals right now. You will revisit your ratings
later when you reflect on your growth during this unit.

SCALE 1 2 3 4 5

NOT AT ALL NOT VERY SOMEWHAT VERY EXTREMELY

WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL

READING GOALS 1 2 3 4 5

• Analyze narratives to understand how

authors order the action, introduce and
develop characters, and introduce and
develop multiple themes.

• Expand your knowledge and use of

academic and concept vocabulary.

WRITING AND RESEARCH GOALS 1 2 3 4 5

• Write a narrative text that uses effective

narrative techniques to develop fictional
experiences, events, and characters.

• Conduct research projects of various

lengths to explore topics and clarify
meaning.

LANGUAGE GOALS 1 2 3 4 5

• Make effective style choices regarding

figurative language and dialect. Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

• Demonstrate an understanding of
frequently confused words, passive
voice, and sentence fragments.

 STANDARDS SPEAKING AND LISTENING GOALS 1 2 3 4 5

Language
Acquire and use accurately general • Collaborate with your team to build on
academic and domain-specific words the ideas of others, develop consensus,
and phrases, sufficient for reading,
and communicate.
writing, speaking, and listening at
the college and career readiness
level; demonstrate independence • Integrate audio, visuals, and text to
in gathering vocabulary knowledge present information.
when considering a word or phrase
important to comprehension or
expression.

752 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Academic Vocabulary: Narrative Text

Understanding and using academic terms can help you read, write, and
FOLLOW THROUGH
speak with precision and clarity. Here are five academic words that will be
Study the words in this chart,
useful to you in this unit as you analyze and write fictional narratives. and mark them or their forms
wherever they appear in
Complete the chart.
the unit.
1. Review each word, its root, and the mentor sentences.
2. Use the information and your own knowledge to predict the meaning
of each word.
3. For each word, list at least two related words.
4. Refer to a dictionary or other resources if needed.

WORD MENTOR SENTENCES PREDICT MEANING RELATED WORDS

colloquial 1. When I was studying Spanish, colloquially; colloquialism

I learned formal terms
ROOT: more easily than colloquial
-loqu- expressions.
“speak”; “say” 2. I love how the poet combines
cultured diction with colloquial
language.

protagonist 1. Is the protagonist of the story

really a talking dog?
ROOT: 2. In this movie, the protagonist
-agon- must defeat a politician who
“contest” has a sinister goal.

tension 1. News of an important

announcement increased the
ROOT: level of tension at school.
-tens- 2. What tension I felt as my turn
“stretch” to speak drew close!
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resolution 1. In the play’s resolution, the

thief is caught and taken
ROOT: to jail.
-solv- 2. The two sides in the dispute
“loosen” reached a surprising and
imaginative resolution.

epiphany 1. That epiphany changed my

life because it made my career
ROOT: choice clear.
-phan-/-phen- 2. At the end of the story, Julia
“show” has an epiphany, but we aren’t
sure if she will act on that
insight.

Unit Introduction 753

UNIT
6 INTRODUCTION

LAUNCH TEXT | NARRATIVE MODEL

This selection is an example of

a narrative text. It is a fictional
narrative because it is narrated by
a character and describes events
that did not actually happen. This
is the type of writing you will
develop in the Performance-Based
Assessment at the end of the unit.
As you read, look closely at
the author’s use of details and
dialogue. Mark words and phrases
that suggest the personalities of
the narrator and the old man, as
well as the tension of the situation
in which they meet.

Old Man at the Bridge

Ernest Hemingway

A n old man with steel rimmed spectacles

and very dusty clothes sat by the side of
the road. There was a pontoon bridge across
8 “Yes,” he said, “I stayed, you see, taking
care of animals. I was the last one to leave the
town of San Carlos.”
the river and carts, trucks, and men, women 9 He did not look like a shepherd nor a
and children were crossing it. The mule- herdsman and I looked at his black dusty
drawn carts staggered up the steep bank clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel
from the bridge with soldiers helping push rimmed spectacles and said, “What animals
against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks were they?”
ground up and away heading out of it all 10 “Various animals,” he said, and shook his
and the peasants plodded along in the ankle head. “I had to leave them.”
deep dust. But the old man sat there without 11 I was watching the bridge and the African Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

moving. He was too tired to go any farther. looking country of the Ebro Delta and
2 It was my business to cross the bridge, wondering how long now it would be before
explore the bridgehead beyond and find out we would see the enemy, and listening all the
to what point the enemy had advanced. I did while for the first noises that would signal
this and returned over the bridge. There were that ever mysterious event called contact, and
not so many carts now and very few people the old man still sat there.
on foot, but the old man was still there. 12 “What animals were they?” I asked.
3 “Where do you come from?” I asked him. 13 “There were three animals altogether,” he
4 “From San Carlos,” he said, and smiled. explained. “There were two goats and a cat
5 That was his native town and so it gave and then there were four pairs of pigeons.”
him pleasure to mention it and he smiled. 14 “And you had to leave them?” I asked.
6 “I was taking care of animals,” he explained. 15 “Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain
7 “Oh,” I said, not quite understanding. told me to go because of the artillery.”

754 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

16 “And you have no family?” I asked, 26 “You think so?”

watching the far end of the bridge where a 27 “Why not,” I said, watching the far bank
few last carts were hurrying down the slope where now there were no carts.
of the bank. 28 “But what will they do under the artillery
17 “No,” he said, “only the animals I stated. when I was told to leave because of the
The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can artillery?”
look out for itself, but I cannot think what 29 “Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?”
will become of the others.” I asked.
18 “What politics have you?” I asked. 30 “Yes.”
19 “I am without politics,” he said. “I am 31 “Then they’ll fly.”
seventy-six years old. I have come twelve 32 “Yes, certainly they’ll fly. But the others.
kilometers now and I think now I can go no It’s better not to think about the others,”
further.” he said.
20 “This is not a good place to stop,” I said. 33 “If you are rested I would go,” I urged.
“If you can make it, there are trucks up the “Get up and try to walk now.”
road where it forks for Tortosa.” 34 “Thank you,” he said and got to his feet,
21 “I will wait a while,” he said, “and then swayed from side to side and then sat down
I will go. Where do the trucks go?” backwards in the dust.
22 “Towards Barcelona,” I told him. 35 “I was taking care of animals,” he said
23 “I know no one in that direction,” he said, dully, but no longer to me. “I was only taking
“but thank you very much. Thank you again care of animals.”
very much.” 36 There was nothing to do about him. It
24 He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were
then said, having to share his worry with advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray
some one, “The cat will be all right, I am sure. overcast day with a low ceiling so their
There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. planes were not up. That and the fact that
But the others. Now what do you think about cats know how to look after themselves
the others?” was all the good luck that old man would
25 “Why they’ll probably come through it ever have. ❧
all right.”

 WORD NETWORK FOR ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

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Vocabulary A Word Network

is a collection of words related
to a topic. As you read the unit
selections, identify words related
to the human condition and add family | relatives
them to your Word Network.
For example, you might begin by
adding words from the Launch Text, THE HUMAN
such as family. For each word you CONDITION
add, add a related word, such as a
synonym or an antonym. Continue
to add words as you complete this
unit.

Tool Kit
Word Network Model

Old Man at the Bridge 755

UNIT
6 INTRODUCTION

Summary
Write a summary of “Old Man at the Bridge.” Remember that a summary is
a concise, complete, and accurate overview of a text. It should not include a
statement of your opinion or an analysis.

Launch Activity
Create an Alternate Ending Consider this statement by the narrator
near the end of “Old Man at the Bridge”: There was nothing to be
done for him. Discuss how you might rewrite the story’s ending so that
something could be done for the old man. Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

• With a small group, brainstorm for ways in which the narrator might do
something for the old man, after all. Record the two options that your
group likes best.
Option 1:
Option 2:

• Choose the option that you think would better communicate a message
about the human condition—about human nature or situations that are
part of human experience.
• Frame your group’s idea for an alternate ending: We think that an
ending in which would show that
is part of the human condition.

756 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

QuickWrite
Consider class discussions, the video, and the Launch Text as you think about
the prompt. Record your first thoughts here.
PROMPT: How does a fictional character or characters respond to
life-changing news?

 EVIDENCE LOG FOR THE HUMAN CONDITION

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Review your QuickWrite.

Summarize your initial idea in Title of Text: Date:
one sentence to record in your
CONNECTION TO PROMPT TEXT EVIDENCE/DETAILS ADDITIONAL NOTES/IDEAS
Evidence Log. Then, record details
from “Old Man at the Bridge”
that connect to your idea.
Prepare for the Performance-
Based Assessment at the end
of the unit by completing the
Evidence Log after each selection. How does this text change or add to my thinking? Date:

Tool Kit
Evidence Log Model

Unit Introduction 757

 OVERVIEW: WHOLE-CLASS LEARNING

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

What do stories reveal about

the human condition?
As you read these selections, work with your whole class to explore how short
stories provide insights into what it means to be human.
From Text to Topic For one family, conflict over an heirloom highlights individual
strengths and weaknesses, and suggests different ways of valuing the past. For one
father and daughter, a present moment opens a window to a poignant memory. For
one woman, a series of anecdotes reveals her mother’s extraordinary character. As you
read these stories, consider the understanding of human nature that informs each
one—how it reveals qualities that we equate with the human condition, regardless of
time or place.

Whole-Class Learning Strategies

Throughout your life, in school, in your community, and in your career, you will
continue to learn and work in large-group environments.

Review these strategies and the actions you can take to practice them as you work
with your whole class. Add ideas of your own for each step. Get ready to use these
strategies during Whole-Class Learning.

STRATEGY ACTION PLAN

Listen actively • Eliminate distractions. For example, put your cellphone away.
• Record brief notes on main ideas and points of confusion.

Clarify by asking • If you’re confused, other people probably are, too. Ask a question to help your
questions whole class.

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• Ask follow-up questions as needed.

Monitor • Notice what information you already know, and be ready to build on it.
understanding • Ask for help if you are struggling.

Interact and share • Share your ideas and offer answers, even if you are unsure.
ideas • Build on the ideas of others by adding details or making a connection.

758 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 CONTENTS
HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES
Focus Period: 1950–Present
A Fast-Changing Society
The years that span the middle of the twentieth century
through the beginning of the twenty-first century were
marked by unprecedented changes in society and
technology. Americans related to each other in new ways
and enjoyed the benefits of scientific progress.

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY

Everyday Use
Alice Walker

How can family keepsakes stir up tensions for

members of different generations?

 m edia connection: Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY

Everything Stuck to Him
Raymond Carver

A father’s visit with his adult daughter evokes

memories of early parenthood.

ANCHOR TEXT: SHORT STORY

The Leap
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Louise Erdrich

What unexpected benefits might result from

having a mother who was a trapeze artist?

PERFORMANCE TASK
WRITING FOCUS
Write a Narrative
The Whole-Class readings introduce you to characters with various motivations.
After reading, you will write a story of your own, using an element of a story in this
section as a model.

Overview: Whole-Class Learning 759

 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES • FOCUS PERIOD: 1950 –PRESENT

A Fast-Changing Society
Voices of the Period History of the Period
“  changing,
There is more recognition now that things are
but not because there is a political
Chasing the American Dream By the 1950s,
postwar America was “on top of the world” with
move to do it. It is simply a result of the pride and confidence in its position as a world
information being there. Our survival won’t power. The nation had a booming economy and
a booming population. As a result of a strong
depend on political or economic systems. It’s
job market and the availability of federal loans
going to depend on the courage of the individual
to returning soldiers and other service personnel,
to speak the truth, and to speak it lovingly and
Americans purchased houses in record numbers.
not destructively.
”
—Buckminster Fuller, architect and inventor
More than eighty percent of new homes were in
suburbs, which became the new lifestyle norm—a
change made possible by the rise of “car culture.”
“ [E]xperience has taught me that you cannot
value dreams according to the odds of their
The Age of Aquarius Elected president in 1960,
John F. Kennedy spearheaded new domestic and
coming true. Their real value is in stirring within
foreign programs, known collectively as the New
us the will to aspire.
”
—Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court Justice
Frontier. Among these initiatives was the goal
of landing an American on the moon and the
establishment of the Peace Corps, an overseas
“ Beyond work and love, I would add two other
ingredients that give meaning to life. First,
volunteer program. A national spirit of optimism
turned to grief, however, when Kennedy was
to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. assassinated in 1963.
However blessed we are by fate with different The escalating and increasingly unpopular war in
abilities and strengths, we should try to develop Vietnam elicited waves of protest, with idealistic
them to the fullest. . . . Second, we should try but strident demands for an end to the conflict,
to leave the world a better place than when we as well as changes in society. As the 1960s wore
entered it.
” —Michio Kaku, futurist, theoretical
on, more and more Americans made strong
assertions of their individuality. This new spirit of
physicist, and author independence energized passions for justice and
equality. Some Americans expressed idealistic
values that called for an “Age of Aquarius”—an
era of universal peace and love. At the same

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time, some Americans created a counterculture,
seeking lifestyles that challenged the prevailing

TIMELINE
1957: President Eisenhower sends
troops to Little Rock, Arkansas, to 1965: Congress passes
1952: The U.S. detonates enforce high school integration. the Voting Rights Act.
the first hydrogen bomb.

1950

1957: Jack Kerouac’s

1963: President John F. Kennedy
On the Road is published.
is assassinated.

760 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: Whatquestion:
essential do stories reveal
What about
does itthe human
take condition?
to survive?

norms in music, art, literature, occupations, to the White House in 1980 and again in 1984.
speech, and dress. George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s vice president, was
elected president in 1988 and sought reelection in
Protest and Progress Although there were
1992, but was defeated by to Democrats Bill Clinton
times of crisis and confrontation, the 1960s also
and his running mate, Al Gore—the youngest ticket
was an era of genuine progress, especially in
in American history—who were reelected in 1996.
the continuing struggle for civil rights and racial
In 2000, Vice President Al Gore lost his presidential
equality. Civil rights leaders and other Americans,
bid to George Bush’s son, George W. Bush. Bush
both black and white, protested segregation and
was reelected in 2004. The contests of 2008 and
racism. Violence and unrest spread as protestors
2012 resulted in historic victories, with the election
faced resistance in places such as Birmingham and
and reelection of Barack Obama, the nation’s first
Selma, Alabama. The nation made momentous
African American president.
progress when, under the leadership of President
Lyndon B. Johnson, Congress passed key 9/11: A World Transformed The terrorist
legislation in 1964 and 1965 to counter racism. attacks of September 11, 2001, had an enormous
A century after constitutional amendments impact on the American consciousness. In addition
guaranteed rights to African Americans, the to the tragic loss of thousands of lives, the threat
struggle to claim them continued. of terrorism brought profound changes to the
sense of security and openness that Americans had
Changing Roles Throughout the 1960s, American
long enjoyed. The 9/11 attacks also precipitated
women struggled for greater economic and social
controversial military action in Afghanistan and later
power, changing the workforce and the political
in Iraq. Today, the continued rise of global terrorism
landscape in the process. In 1970, thousands of
continues to challenge the world’s safety.
women marched to honor the fiftieth anniversary
of women’s suffrage. The women’s movement Planet Earth In 1962, Rachel Carson’s book
continued to gain strength in the 1970s, with various Silent Spring exposed the sometimes catastrophic
groups forming to protest gender discrimination. effect of human actions on the natural world. In
1972, American astronauts took a photograph of
Following the lead of the civil rights and women’s
Earth that became famously known as “the big
movements, other groups from a variety of
blue marble.” Over the years, Americans have
backgrounds, ranging from Native Americans to
become increasingly aware of the importance
migrant workers to gays and lesbians, organized
of caring for the planet’s health. In recent years,
to demand their rights. Over time, most Americans
human-induced climate change—long a concern
have come to appreciate the variety of perspectives
of scientists—has emerged as a significant issue in
that diversity can bring. Today, virtually every societal
the public’s consciousness and actions to slow its
group has entered into the mainstream of American
impact are widely discussed and argued about in
political, business, and artistic life.
the media and in government.
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Leadership and Conflict Voters sent Ronald

Reagan, the Republican governor of California,

1972: Congress passes the 1974: President

1968: Civil rights leader Equal Rights Amendment, but Richard Nixon
Martin Luther King, Jr., it fails to achieve ratification. resigns after the
is assassinated. Watergate crisis.

1980
1969: Astronaut
Neil Armstrong
becomes the first 1973: The last U.S. combat
person to set foot troops leave Vietnam, where
on the moon. war has been waged since 1955.

Historical Perspectives 761

 HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES • FOCUS PERIOD: 1950 –PRESENT

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

Notebook According to this survey, what total percentage of teenagers go
online at least once a day? What do the graph and table suggest about entertainment
among today’s teens?

Teenagers Online, 2015  Teenagers and Video Games, 2015

2%
6% Own or have access
to a game console
12%
GIRLS 70%

24% 56% BOYS 91%

Play video games online

or on their phone

56% Online several times/day GIRLS 59%

24% Online almost constantly BOYS 84%
12% Online once/day
6% Online weekly
2% Online less than once/week

Source: Pew Research Center’s Teens Relationship Survey 2014, 2015

A Technological Revolution With the The New Millennium Despite technological

introduction of the microprocessor in the 1970s, advances, traditional issues still dominate human
life shifted dramatically. In a breathtakingly short affairs. How do—and how should—human
time, computers—which began as military and beings relate to the natural world? How can
business tools—transformed industry and became people of different cultures live together
personal companions for many Americans. Ever peacefully? How can people build a better future?
smaller, faster, and easier to use, technology—via One thing is certain: Although the world will
the Internet—can now electronically connect continue to change as the new millennium moves
anyone with everyone, raising complex questions forward, Americans will continue to explore new
about privacy and personal relations. aspects and applications of the principles of life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

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TIMELINE

1982: Alice Walker’s The 1991: South Africa Apartheid,

the system of racial segregation,
Color Purple is published.
is repealed.

1980
1981: IBM releases its 1991: USSR The Soviet
first personal computer. Union is dissolved, resulting
1989: Germany The Berlin Wall,
in the formation of fifteen
constructed in 1961, comes down.
independent nations.

762 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What question:
essential do stories reveal
Whatabout the
does it human
take condition?
to survive?

Literature Selections ADDITIONAL FOCUS PERIOD

LITERATURE
Literature of the Focus Period Some of the selections in this unit
were written during the Focus Period and pertain to an exploration of
the human condition: Student Edition

“Everyday Use,” Alice Walker UNIT 1

“Speech to the Young
“Everything Stuck to Him,” Raymond Carver
Speech to the Progress-Toward,”
“The Leap,” Louise Erdrich Gwendolyn Brooks
“A Brief History of the Short Story,” D. F. McCourt “The Pedestrian,” Ray Bradbury
“The Man to Send Rain Clouds,” Leslie Marmon Silko UNIT 2
“Sweet Land of . . . Conformity?”
“Ambush,” Tim O’Brien
Claude Fischer
“Housepainting,” Lan Samantha Chang
“Hamadi,” Naomi Shihab Nye
UNIT 3
Connections Across Time Literary works that consider aspects of from The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel
the human condition are not confined to the Focus Period, of course. Wilkerson
They have been a topic of interest in every era of literature in every
“Books as Bombs,” Louis Menand
culture since ancient times. These American short stories are from a
period that precedes the Focus Period by several decades: UNIT 4
“In the Longhouse, Oneida Museum,”
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Ambrose Bierce Roberta Hill
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” Katherine Anne Porter “Cloudy Day,” Jimmy Santiago Baca
“The Tell-Tale Heart,” Edgar Allan Poe “The Rockpile,” James Baldwin
UNIT 5
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
from Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne
Wakatsuki Houston and James D.
Houston
“What You Don’t Know Can Kill You,”
Jason Daley
“Runagate Runagate,” Robert Hayden
“For Black Women Who Are Afraid,”
Toi Derricote
“What Are You So Afraid Of?” Akiko
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Busch

2008: Barack Obama is elected

1996: Scotland “Dolly” the first African American
the sheep becomes the president of the United States.
first mammal to be cloned
from an adult cell.

Present

1993: Toni Morrison 2001: Terrorists use 2010: The population

wins the Nobel Prize commercial planes to attack of the United States
for Literature. the United States on 9/11, reaches 308.7 million.
killing some 3,000 people.

Historical Perspectives 763

 MAKING MEANING

About the Author

Everyday Use
Concept Vocabulary
You will encounter the following words as you read “Everyday Use.” Before
reading, note how familiar you are with each word. Then, rank the words in
order from most familiar (1) to least familiar (6).

When Alice Walker WORD YOUR RANKING

(b. 1944) was eight, she
sidle
suffered an injury that
blinded her in one eye shuffle
and left her scarred. For
comfort, she turned to furtive
reading and writing poetry.
Later, she became a highly cowering
successful writer with many
bestsellers—among them awkward
the novel The Color Purple,
a 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner. hangdog
Her writing is renowned for
its keen observations about After completing the first read, come back to the concept vocabulary and
relationships and for its review your rankings. Mark changes to your original rankings as needed.
strong personal voice. Walker
has also published numerous
short-story collections and
many volumes of poetry. First Read FICTION
Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete the close-read notes after your first read.

Tool Kit
First-Read Guide and
Model Annotation NOTICE whom the story ANNOTATE by marking
is about, what happens, vocabulary and key passages
where and when it happens, you want to revisit.
and why those involved react
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as they do.

CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing

the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
have already read. the selection.

 STANDARDS
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the
grades 11–CCR text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.

764 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ANCHOR TEXT | SHORT STORY

Everyday Use
Alice Walker

BACKGROUND
Quilts play an important part in this story. Quilting, in which layers of
fabric and padding are sewn together, dates back to the Middle Ages
and perhaps even to ancient Egypt. Today, quilts serve both practical and
aesthetic purposes: keeping people warm, recycling old clothing, providing
focal points for social gatherings, preserving precious bits of family history,
and adding color and beauty to a home. Pay attention to how these
purposes relate to the tension that arises among the characters you meet in
this story.
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I
1 will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and
NOTES
wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable
than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended CLOSE READ
living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine ANNOTATE: In paragraph 2,
sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can mark the adjectives that
come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes describe Maggie.
that never come inside the house. QUESTION: Why does
2 Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand the author choose these
hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down adjectives?
her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.
CONCLUDE: What portrait
She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that of Maggie do these
“no” is a word the world never learned to say to her. adjectives help paint?

Everyday Use 765

 3 You’ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has
NOTES “made it” is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father,
tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course:
What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to
curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace
and smile into each other’s faces. Sometimes the mother and father
weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to
tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen
these programs.
4 Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly
brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and
soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with
many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny
Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have.
Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her
eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told
me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.
5 In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough,
man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed
and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly
as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside
all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver
cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the
hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between
the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill
before nightfall. But of course all of this does not show on television.
I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds
lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in
the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with
my quick and witty tongue.
6 But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever
knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me
looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked

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to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in
whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always
look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.

7 “How do I look, Mama?” Maggie says, showing just enough of

her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know
she’s there, almost hidden by the door.
sidle (SY duhl) v. move 8 “Come out into the yard,” I say.
sideways, as in an 9 Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by
unobtrusive, stealthy, or some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone
shy manner
who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my
shuffle (SHUHF uhl) n.
Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground,
dragging movement of
the feet over the ground or feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to
floor without lifting them the ground.

766 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 10 Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She’s
a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that NOTES

the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear
the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking
and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes
seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them.
And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to
dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched
the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick
chimney. Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d want to
ask her. She had hated the house that much.
11 I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised
the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She
used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits,
whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her
voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot
of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her
with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment,
like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.
12 Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her
graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d
made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to
stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker
for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her.
At sixteen she had a style of her own, and knew what style was.

13 I never had an education myself. After second grade the school

was closed down. Don’t ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer
questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She
stumbles along good-naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is
not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. She
will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face)
and then I’ll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to
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myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a

tune. I was always better at a man’s job. I used to love to milk till I CLOSE READ
was hooved in the side in ’49. Cows are soothing and slow and don’t ANNOTATE: In paragraph
bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way. 14, mark Maggie’s
14 I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, response to Dee’s
just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don’t make declaration about never
shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes bringing friends to
Mama’s house.
cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not
square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This QUESTION: What is
house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees surprising about this
it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter response?
where we “choose” to live, she will manage to come see us. But she CONCLUDE: What might
will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and this response signal
Maggie asked me, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?” to readers?

Everyday Use 767

 15 She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on
NOTES washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed
with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the
furtive (FUHR tihv) adj.
done or acting in a stealthy scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye.1 She read to them.
manner to avoid being 16 When she was courting Jimmy T she didn’t have much time to pay
noticed; secret to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry
a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly
had time to recompose herself.

17 When she comes I will meet—but there they are!

18 Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling
way, but I stay her with my hand. “Come back here,” I say. And she
stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.
19 It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even
the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were
always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a
certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky
man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin
like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. “Uhnnnh,” is
what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake
just in front of your foot on the road. “Uhnnnh.”
CLOSE READ 20 Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress
ANNOTATE: In paragraph so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to
20, mark sentence throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from
fragments—groups of the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down
words punctuated as to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she
sentences that do not
moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits.
contain both a subject and
The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear
a verb.
Maggie go “Uhnnnh” again. It is her sister’s hair. It stands straight
QUESTION: Why does the up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges
author use fragments in are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing
this description?
behind her ears.
CONCLUDE: How does the 21 “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!”2 she says, coming on in that gliding way the

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use of fragments add to dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his
the drama or tension of navel is all grinning and he follows up with “Asalamalakim,3 my
the moment?
mother and sister!” He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right
up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I
look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin.
22 “Don’t get up,” says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a
push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make
it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes
back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down
quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front

1. lye (ly) n. strong alkaline solution used in cleaning and making soap.
2. Wa-su-zo-Tean-o (wah soo zoh TEEN oh) “Good morning” in Lugandan, a language
spoken in the African country of Uganda.
3. Asalamalakim Salaam aleikhim (suh LAHM ah LY keem) Arabic greeting meaning “Peace
be with you” that is commonly used by Muslims.

768 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a
shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes NOTES

nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie
cowering (KOW uhr ihng) adj.
and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, crouching or drawing back
and comes up and kisses me on the forehead. in fear or shame
23 Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s
hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold,
despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like
Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or
maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon
gives up on Maggie.
24 “Well,” I say. “Dee.”
25 “No, Mama,“ she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
26 “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.
27 “She’s dead.” Wangero said. ‘‘I couldn’t bear it any longer, being
named after the people who oppress me.”
28 “You know as well as me you was named after your
aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We
called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born. “I couldn’t bear it any
29 “But who was she named after?” asked Wangero. longer, being named
30 “I guess after Grandma Dee,” I said.
31 “And who was she named after?” asked Wangero.
after the people who
32 ”Her mother,” I said, and saw Wangero was getting oppress me.”
tired. “That’s about as far back as I can trace it,” I said.
Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back
beyond the Civil War through the branches.
33 “Well,” said Asalamalakim, “there you are.”
34 “Uhnnnh,” I heard Maggie say.
35 “There I was not,” I said, “before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family,
so why should I try to trace it that far back?”
36 He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody
inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent
eye signals over my head.
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37 “How do you pronounce this name?” I asked.

38 “You don’t have to call me by it if you don’t want to,” said
Wangero.
39 “Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “If that’s what you want us to call
you, we’ll call you.”
40 “I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero. awkward (AWK wuhrd) adj.
41 “I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again.“ not graceful or skillful in
movement or shape; clumsy
42 Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had
a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over
it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber.
I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn’t really think he was,
so I didn’t ask.
43 “You must belong to those beef-cattle people down the road,” I said.
They said “Asalamalakim“ when they met you, too, but they didn’t
shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences,

Everyday Use 769

 putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks
NOTES poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in
their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.
44 Hakim-a-barber said, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming
and raising cattle is not my style.” (They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t
ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)
45 We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn’t eat collards4
and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the
chitlins5 and corn bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a
blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even
the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table
when we couldn’t afford to buy chairs.
46 “Oh, Mama!” she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. “I never
knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,”
she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench.
Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee’s butter
dish. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to
ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over
in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now.
She looked at the churn and looked at it.
47 “This churn top is what I need,” she said. “Didn’t Uncle Buddy
whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?”
48 “Yes,” I said.
49 “Uh huh,” she said happily. “And I want the dasher, too.”
50 “Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?” asked the barber.
51 Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.
52 “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash,” said Maggie so low
you almost couldn’t hear her. “His name was Henry, but they called
him Stash.”
53 “Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,” Wangero said, laughing. “I
can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table,” she said,
sliding a plate over the churn, “and I’ll think of something artistic to
do with the dasher.”

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54 When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I
took it for a moment in my hands. You didn’t even have to look close
to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter
had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small
sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the
wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the
yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.
55 After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed
and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the
dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by
Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt
frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star
pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them

4. collards n. leaves of the collard plant, often referred to as “collard greens.”

5. chitlins n. chitterlings, a pork dish popular among southern African Americans.

770 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years
ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny NOTES

faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from
CLOSE READ
Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War. ANNOTATE: In paragraph
56 “Mama,“ Wangero said sweet as a bird. “Can I have these old 55, mark details that
quilts?“ describe the fabrics used
57 I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen in the quilts.
door slammed. QUESTION: Why does
58 “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?” I asked. “These the author include this
old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your information?
grandma pieced before she died.”
CONCLUDE: How does this
59 “No,” said Wangero. “I don’t want those. They are stitched around
information affect readers’
the borders by machine.” sympathies?
60 “That’ll make them last better,” I said.
61 “That’s not the point,” said Wangero. “These are all pieces of
dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand.
Imagine!” She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them.
62 “Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old
clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, moving up to touch
the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that l couldn’t
reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.
63 “Imagine!” she breathed again, clutching them closely to her
bosom.
64 “The truth is,” l said, “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie,
for when she marries John Thomas.”
65 She gasped like a bee had stung her.
66 “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably
be backward enough to put them to everyday use.”
67 “I reckon she would,” I said. “God knows I been saving ’em for
long enough with nobody using ’em. I hope she will!” l didn’t want
to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when
she went away to college. Then she had told me they were
old-fashioned, out of style.
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68 “But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for

she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in
five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!”
69 “She can always make some more,” I said. “Maggie knows
how to quilt.”
70 Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. “You just will not
understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!”
71 “Well,” I said, stumped. “What would you do with them?”
72 “Hang them,” she said. As if that was the only thing you
could do with quilts.
73 Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost
hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other.
74 “She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used
to never winning anything, or having anything reserved
for her.

Everyday Use 771

 75 “I can ’member Grandma Dee without the quilts.”
NOTES 76 I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with
hangdog (HANG DAWG) adj. checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog
sad; ashamed; guilty look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt
herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds
CLOSE READ of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she
ANNOTATE: In paragraph wasn’t mad at her. This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way she
76, mark the sentences knew God to work.
in which Mama expresses 77 When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my
Maggie’s feelings and head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in
thoughts.
church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout.
QUESTION: Why does the I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me,
author choose to have then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss
Mama express Maggie’s Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just
feelings? sat there on my bed with her mouth open.
CONCLUDE: How does 78 “Take one or two of the others,” I said to Dee.
this choice emphasize 79 But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber.
differences in Mama’s 80 “You just don’t understand,’“ she said, as Maggie and I came out
relationships with her two to the car.
daughters?
81 “What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know.
82 “Your heritage,” she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed
her, and said, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too,
Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama
still live you’d never know it.”
83 She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of
her nose and her chin.
84 Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not
scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring
me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until
it was time to go in the house and go to bed. ❧
“Everyday Use” from In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker. Copyright © 1973, and renewed 2001 by
Alice Walker. Reprinted by permission of The Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.

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MEDIA CONNECTION

Discuss It How does listening to someone tell this

story help you understand Mama and the tensions among
the characters?
Write your response before sharing your ideas.

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”

772 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. Early in the story, how does Mama describe herself?

2. According to Mama, how did Dee treat her and Maggie when she came home
from college?

3. Who arrives with Dee/Wangero on this visit?

4. Why has Dee changed her name to Wangero?

5. What household objects does Dee/Wangero want? Which ones does Mama give her?
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6. Notebook To confirm your understanding, write a summary of “Everyday Use.”

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly research
that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of
the story?

Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting. For
example, you may want to learn about the Black Power movement of the 1970s that led to
the cultural nationalism Dee/Wangero and Asalamalakim find appealing.

Everyday Use 773

 making meaning

Close Read the Text

1. This model, from paragraph 10 of the text, shows two sample
annotations, along with questions and conclusions. Close read
the passage, and find another detail to annotate. Then, write a
question and your conclusion.
EVERYDAY USE

ANNOTATE: These details contrast the two

daughters’ reactions to the fire.
QUESTION: Why does the author include
these details?
ANNOTATE:
CONCLUDE: The details emphasize Maggie’s
This question
involvement and Dee’s distance.
is sarcastic and
funny.
Sometimes I can still . . . feel Maggie’s QUESTION: What
arms sticking to me, her hair smoking does this detail
reveal about
and her dress falling off her in little black
Mama?
papery flakes. . . . And Dee. I see her
CONCLUDE:
standing off under the sweet gum tree. . . .
Mama is not naive;
Why don’t you do a dance around the she has good
ashes? I’d want to ask her. insight about her
daughters.

Tool Kit 2. For more practice, go back into the text and complete the close-read notes.
Close-Read Guide and 3. Revisit a section of the text you found important during your first read.
Model Annotation Read this section closely, and annotate what you notice. Ask yourself
questions such as “Why did the author make this choice?” What can you
conclude?

Cite textual evidence

Analyze the Text to support your answers.

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Notebook Respond to these questions.
1. Make Inferences What does Mama’s dream of being on Johnny Carson’s
show illustrate about her relationship to Dee/Wangero?
2. (a) Interpret What do the quilts symbolize, or represent?
(b) Compare and Contrast In what ways do the quilts hold different
meanings for Dee/Wangero and for Maggie?
 Standards 3. (a) What does Dee/Wangero plan to do with the items that she requests?
Reading Literature (b) Evaluate What is ironic about her request for these objects and her
• Cite strong and thorough textual
evidence to support analysis of professed interest in her heritage?
what the text says explicitly as well 4. Historical Perspectives How do Dee/Wangero’s and her companion’s
as inferences drawn from the text,
including determining where the text clothing and overall appearances reflect a change in African American
leaves matters uncertain. culture in the 1960s?
• Analyze the impact of the author’s
choices regarding how to develop 5. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
and relate elements of a story or condition? What has reading this story taught you about family
drama. relationships?

774 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Literary Elements: Character Writers reveal key messages or themes in
stories through characterization—what characters say, what they do, and
how they interact with other characters.

Short stories often feature a main character as a first-person narrator. It is

through this character’s eyes that readers learn about events and perceive
the other characters. This first-person narrator serves as a guide through the
world of the story, presenting his or her thoughts, feelings, observations,
and perceptions. Inevitably, every narrator comes with biases, or leanings, so
readers have to decide how much they trust the narrator’s interpretation of
events. The perspective the first-person narrator brings to the story is a key
element that leads readers to the story’s themes, or insights about life.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

1. (a) Who is the narrator of “Everyday Use”? (b) Identify three thoughts and feelings
that the narrator shares with readers. (c) Do you trust this narrator’s account of
people and events? Explain.
2. In the chart, record details about Mama and Dee/Wangero related to their
appearances, life experiences, relationships, and values. Then, identify a possible
theme that Walker develops by setting up contrasts between these two characters.

MAMA DEE (WANGERO)

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THEME:

3. Think about the words and actions of Hakim-a-barber. How does the inclusion of
this character help develop other characters in the story?

Everyday Use 775

 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Concept Vocabulary
sidle furtive awkward

shuffle cowering    hangdog

EVERYDAY USE

Why These Words? These concept vocabulary words help reveal the
tentative way Maggie acts in the story. Mama describes Maggie as cowering
behind her and as moving her feet in a shuffle. These words describe a
person who wants to be invisible.

1. How do the concept vocabulary words help you understand why Mama
and Dee/Wangero have different attitudes toward Maggie?

2. What other words in the selection connect to this concept?

Practice
Notebook The concept vocabulary words appear in “Everyday Use.”
1. Write three sentences, using two of the concept words in each sentence,
to demonstrate your understanding of the words’ meanings.
2. Choose an antonym—a word with an opposite meaning—for each
concept vocabulary word. How would the story be different if these words
were used to describe Maggie?

Word Study
 WORD NETWORK Exocentric Compounds Most compound words contain at least one word
part that connects directly to what is being named or described. For example,
Add words related to the
the compound word sunflower names a type of flower. Some compound
human condition from the
text to your Word Network. words, however, connect two words of which neither names the thing or

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person described. These exocentric compound words are often used to
name or describe people—for example, tattletale, birdbrain, and pickpocket.
In “Everyday Use,” the narrator describes Maggie as having “a dopey,
hangdog look.” Hangdog means “guilty” or “ashamed.”

1. Use a dictionary to find five examples of exocentric compounds. Record

 STANDARDS
them here.
Language
• Apply the understanding that
usage is a matter of convention, can
change over time, and is sometimes
contested.
• Resolve issues of complex
or contested usage, consulting
references as needed. 2. Use each of your choices in a sentence. Be sure to include context clues
• Vary syntax for effect, consulting that hint at each word’s meaning.
references for guidance as needed;
apply an understanding of syntax
to the study of complex texts when
reading.

776 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Conventions and Style

Dialect Writers may use dialect and regionalisms to add depth to characters
and settings.

• Dialect is a way of using English that is specific to a certain area or

group of people.
• A regionalism is an expression common to a specific place.

These nonstandard forms of language can make characters more realistic by

reflecting culture, customs, and educational levels.

Read It
1. Study the examples of dialogue in this chart. Then, use formal English to
rewrite each sentence. One example has been done for you.

From “Everyday Use” Formal English

“You know as well as me you was named after your “You know as well as I do that you were named after
aunt Dicie.” (paragraph 28) your aunt Dicie.”

“I’ll get used to it. . . . Ream it out again.”

(paragraph 41)

“The truth is . . . I promised to give them quilts

to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.”
(paragraph 64)

“I reckon she would. . . . God knows I been saving

’em for long enough with nobody using ’em.”
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(paragraph 67)

2. Connect to Style Find one other example of dialect or regionalism in

“Everyday Use.” Explain how the example develops a character or the
setting.

Write It
Notebook Use examples from “Everyday Use” to describe what would
be lost if Alice Walker had chosen to write dialogue using the same style that
she uses for description.

Everyday Use 777

 EFFECTIVE EXPRESSION

Writing to Sources
Narrative writing would be dull if it only reported basic events. However, vivid
descriptive details about setting and characters can bring a narrative to life
and engage readers. For example, recall how the narrator in “Everyday Use”
describes Maggie: “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run
EVERYDAY USE
over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone
who is ignorant enough to be kind to him?” This description helps readers
picture precisely how Maggie moves and acts around other people.

Assignment
Write a short narrative of 500 words or less in which you retell an event
from “Everyday Use” from the perspective of a character other than
Mama. You may choose to describe Dee’s visit or an event from the past.
Make sure your narrative is consistent with the characters and setting
created by Walker. Include descriptive details that illustrate the character’s
thoughts and engage the reader.
Include these elements in your narrative:
• a narrator other than Mama from “Everyday Use”
• a clear description of the event, including how the narrator feels
about it
• dialect or regionalisms in dialogue or narration, as appropriate

Vocabulary Connection Consider including a few of the concept

vocabulary words in your narrative.

sidle furtive awkward

shuffle cowering hangdog

 STANDARDS
Writing
Reflect on Your Writing
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Write narratives to develop real or
imagined experiences or events using After you have written your short narrative, answer these questions.
effective technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured event 1. How did writing your narrative strengthen your understanding of
sequences.
Walker’s story?
Speaking and Listening
• Initiate and participate effectively
in a range of collaborative
discussions with diverse partners
on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and 2. What part of writing this narrative was most challenging, and how did
issues, building on others’ ideas and you handle it?
expressing their own clearly and
persuasively.
• Come to discussions prepared,
having read and researched material
3. Why These Words? The words you choose make a difference in your
under study; explicitly draw on that
preparation by referring to evidence writing. Which words did you choose to create vivid descriptive details?
from texts and other research on
the topic or issue to stimulate a
thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange
of ideas.

778 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Speaking and Listening

Assignment
Have a partner discussion about what factors lead a person to embrace,
reject, or feel neutral about his or her heritage. Before working with your
partner, think about the two daughters’ perspectives on heritage, and
take notes about how the text inspires your own thoughts on the subject.
As you discuss, build on one another’s ideas, asking respectful questions,
listening politely, and adding your own insights. At the end of your
discussion, create an extended definition of heritage. Follow these steps to
complete the assignment.

1. Focus on the Text Choose examples from the story.

• Consider ways the author indirectly describes characters.
• Compare and contrast the three women’s attitudes toward objects in
the house.
• Discuss what the story’s resolution says about heritage.
2. Share Personal Experiences Share your own experiences with heritage
and traditions in your family. Consider questions such as the following:
• What are some objects in your home or family that are part of a
heritage or tradition?
• How and when are these objects used? Every day? Only on holidays?
• Does everyone recognize the objects as special?

3. Craft an Extended Definition To create an extended definition of

heritage, come to a consensus about the most important ideas to include.
• Summarize your notes in three main points.
• Summarize your personal experiences with heritage.
• Draft and refine an extended definition that includes all of your most
important thoughts.

4. Evaluate the Activity When you have finished, use the evaluation
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guide to analyze the way that you and your partner worked together to
discuss a topic and create an extended definition.

Evaluation Guide  evidence log

Rate each statement on a scale of 1 (not demonstrated) to 5 (demonstrated). Before moving on to a

new selection, go to your
Both partners contributed equally to the discussion. Evidence Log and record
what you learned from
Partners commented upon the text and also shared personal experiences. “Everyday Use.”

Partners were attentive to and respectful of the thoughts presented.

Partners worked collaboratively to create an extended definition of

heritage.

Everyday Use 779

 MAKING MEANING

About the Author

Everything Stuck to Him
Concept Vocabulary
You will encounter the following words as you read “Everything Stuck to
Him.” Before reading, note how familiar you are with each word. Then, rank
the words in order from most familiar (1) to least familiar (4).

Born in a small Oregon WORD YOUR RANKING

logging town to a mill waterfowl
worker and a waitress,
Raymond Carver letterhead
(1938–1988) drew heavily
from his life in his stories overcast
about the hardships of
the working poor. By age shotgun
twenty, Carver had two
children and was struggling
to support his family, taking After completing the first read, come back to the concept vocabulary and
on a series of jobs as a review your rankings. Mark changes to your original rankings as needed.
janitor, a sawmill worker,
and a gas-station attendant.
In 1958, he took a creative First Read FICTION
writing class, and soon he
Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
began to work nights and
opportunity to complete the close-read notes after your first read.
study writing during the
day. His earliest acclaim
was for his 1967 story
“Will You Please Be Quiet,
Please?” In 1971, he began NOTICE whom the story ANNOTATE by marking
a decade-long partnership is about, what happens, vocabulary and key passages
with the editor Gordon where and when it happens, you want to revisit.
Lish, who encouraged and why those involved react
a “less-is-more” writing as they do.
approach. Carver’s writing
became lean and sparse,
earning him a reputation as
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CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing
an expert minimalist and one the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
of the greatest storytellers of already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
his time. have already read. the selection.

 STANDARDS
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the
grades 11–CCR text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.

780 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ANCHOR TEXT | SHORT STORY

Everything
Stuck to Him
Raymond Carver

BACKGROUND
This is a frame story, or a story within a story. There are many frame
narratives in world literature, including the Arabian Nights and The
Canterbury Tales. “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,” by
Mark Twain (in Unit 4), is an American example. In frame narratives, the
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introductory story is typically of secondary importance to the internal one.

Consider whether this is true of Carver’s tale.

2
S he’s in Milan for Christmas and wants to know what it was like
when she was a kid.
Tell me, she says. Tell me what it was like when I was a kid. She
NOTES

sips Strega,1 waits, eyes him closely.

3 She is a cool, slim, attractive girl, a survivor from top to bottom.
4 That was a long time ago. That was twenty years ago, he says.
5 You can remember, she says. Go on.
6 What do you want to hear? he says. What else can I tell you? I
could tell you about something that happened when you were a baby.
It involves you, he says. But only in a minor way.

1. Strega Italian herbal liqueur.

Everything Stuck to Him 781

 7 Tell me, she says. But first fix us another so you won’t have to stop
NOTES in the middle.
8 He comes back from the kitchen with drinks, settles into his chair,
begins.

9 They were kids themselves, but they were crazy in love, this
eighteen-year-old boy and this seventeen-year-old girl when they
married. Not all that long afterwards they had a daughter.
10 The baby came along in late November during a cold spell that just
waterfowl (WAWT uhr fowl) happened to coincide with the peak of the waterfowl season. The boy
n. birds that live in or near loved to hunt, you see. That’s part of it.
water
11 The boy and girl, husband and wife, father and mother, they lived
in a little apartment under a dentist’s office. Each night they cleaned
the dentist’s place upstairs in exchange for rent and utilities. In
summer they were expected to maintain the lawn and the flowers. In
winter the boy shoveled snow and spread rock salt on the walks. Are
you still with me? Are you getting the picture?
12 I am, she says.
13 That’s good, he says. So one day the dentist finds out they were
letterhead (LEHT uhr hehd) using his letterhead for their personal correspondence. But that’s
n. personalized stationery another story.
14 He gets up from his chair and looks out the window. He sees the
tile rooftops and the snow that is falling steadily on them.
15 Tell the story, she says.
16 The two kids were very much in love. On top of this they had
great ambitions. They were always talking about the things they were
going to do and the places they were going to go.

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782 UNIT 6
 17 Now the boy and girl slept in the bedroom, and the baby slept in
the living room. Let’s say the baby was about three months old and NOTES

had only just begun to sleep through the night.

18 On this one Saturday night after finishing his work upstairs, the CLOSE READ
boy stayed in the dentist’s office and called an old hunting friend of ANNOTATE: In paragraphs
his father’s. 18–24, mark the phrases
19 Carl, he said when the man picked up the receiver, believe it or that the author uses
to refer to the two
not, I’m a father.
protagonists of the
20 Congratulations, Carl said. How is the wife?
remembered (internal)
21 She’s fine, Carl. Everybody’s fine. story.
22 That’s good, Carl said, I’m glad to hear it. But if you called about
going hunting, I’ll tell you something. The geese are flying to beat the QUESTION: Why does
the author name Carl,
band. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many. Got five today. Going back
a minor character, but
in the morning, so come along if you want to.
leave the two protagonists
23 I want to, the boy said. unnamed?
24 The boy hung up the telephone and went downstairs to tell the
CONCLUDE: What effect
girl. She watched while he laid out his things. Hunting coat, shell
does this choice have
bag, boots, socks, hunting cap, long underwear, pump gun.
on the way that readers
25 What time will you be back? the girl said. perceive the characters?
26 Probably around noon, the boy said. But maybe as late as six
o’clock. Would that be too late?
27 It’s fine, she said. The baby and I will get along fine. You go and
have some fun. When you get back, we’ll dress the baby up and go
visit Sally.
28 The boy said, Sounds like a good idea.
29 Sally was the girl’s sister. She was striking. I don’t know if you’ve
seen pictures of her. The boy was a little in love with Sally, just as he
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Everything Stuck to Him 783

 was a little in love with Betsy, who was another sister the girl had. The
NOTES boy used to say to the girl, If we weren’t married, I could go for Sally.
30 What about Betsy? the girl used to say. I hate to admit it, but I truly
feel she’s better looking than Sally and me. What about Betsy?
31 Betsy too, the boy used to say.

32 After dinner he turned up the furnace and helped her bathe the
baby. He marveled again at the infant who had half his features and
half the girl’s. He powdered the tiny body. He powdered between
fingers and toes.
33 He emptied the bath into the sink and went upstairs to check the
overcast (OH vuhr kast) adj. air. It was overcast and cold. The grass, what there was of it, looked
covered with clouds, as a like canvas, stiff and gray under the street light.
gray sky
34 Snow lay in piles beside the walk. A car went by. He heard
sand under the tires. He let himself imagine what it might be like
shotgun (SHOT guhn) n. gun tomorrow, geese beating the air over his head, shotgun plunging
with a long, smooth barrel, against his shoulder.
that is often used to fire
“shot,” or small, pellet-like
35 Then he locked the door and went downstairs.
ammunition 36 In bed they tried to read. But both of them fell asleep, she first,
letting the magazine sink to the quilt.

37 It was the baby’s cries that woke him up.

38 The light was on out there, and the girl was standing next to the
crib rocking the baby in her arms. She put the baby down, turned out
the light, and came back to the bed.
CLOSE READ 39 He heard the baby cry. This time the girl stayed where she was.
ANNOTATE: In paragraphs The baby cried fitfully and stopped. The boy listened, then dozed.
39–45, mark the repeated But the baby’s cries woke him again. The living room light was
actions of the baby.
burning. He sat up and turned on the lamp.
QUESTION: Why does the 40 I don’t know what’s wrong, the girl said, walking back and forth
author repeat references to with the baby. I’ve changed her and fed her, but she keeps on crying.
this action? I’m so tired I’m afraid I might drop her.
CONCLUDE: How does this 41 You come back to bed, the boy said. I’ll hold her for a while.

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repeated detail add to the 42 He got up and took the baby, and the girl went to lie down again.
effect of the remembered 43 Just rock her for a few minutes, the girl said from the bedroom.
story? Maybe she’ll go back to sleep.
44 The boy sat on the sofa and held the baby. He jiggled it in his lap
until he got its eyes to close, his own eyes closing right along. He rose
carefully and put the baby back in the crib.
45 It was a quarter to four, which gave him forty-five minutes. He
crawled into bed and dropped off. But a few minutes later the baby
was crying again, and this time they both got up.
46 The boy did a terrible thing. He swore.
47 For God’s sake, what’s the matter with you? the girl said to the
boy. Maybe she’s sick or something. Maybe we shouldn’t have given
her the bath.
48 The boy picked up the baby. The baby kicked its feet and smiled.

784 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 49 Look, the boy said, I really don’t think there’s anything wrong
with her. NOTES

50 How do you know that? the girl said. Here, let me have her. I
know I ought to give her something, but I don’t know what it’s
supposed to be.
51 The girl put the baby down again. The boy and the girl looked at
the baby, and the baby began to cry.
52 The girl took the baby. Baby, baby, the girl said with tears in her
eyes.
53 Probably it’s something on her stomach, the boy said.
54 The girl didn’t answer. She went on rocking the baby, paying no
attention to the boy.

55 The boy waited. He went to the kitchen and put

on water for coffee. He drew his woolen underwear
on over his shorts and T-shirt, buttoned up, then got
into his clothes. If you want a family, you’re
56 What are you doing? the girl said.
57 Going hunting, the boy said. going to have to choose.
58 I don’t think you should, she said. I don’t want
to be left alone with her like this.
59 Carl’s planning on me going, the boy said. We’ve
planned it.
60 I don’t care about what you and Carl planned, she said. And I
don’t care about Carl, either. I don’t even know Carl.
61 You’ve met Carl before. You know him, the boy said. What do you
mean you don’t know him?
62 That’s not the point and you know it, the girl said.
63 What is the point? the boy said. The point is we planned it.
64 The girl said, I’m your wife. This is your baby. She’s sick or
something. Look at her. Why else is she crying?
65 I know you’re my wife, the boy said.
66 The girl began to cry. She put the baby back in the crib. But the
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baby started up again. The girl dried her eyes on the sleeve of her
nightgown and picked the baby up.

67 The boy laced up his boots. He put on his shirt, his sweater, his
coat. The kettle whistled on the stove in the kitchen.
68 You’re going to have to choose, the girl said. Carl or us. I mean it.
69 What do you mean? the boy said.
70 You heard what I said, the girl said. If you want a family, you’re
going to have to choose.
71 They stared at each other. Then the boy took up his hunting gear
and went outside. He started the car. He went around to the car
windows and, making a job of it, scraped away the ice.
72 He turned off the motor and sat awhile. And then he got out and
went back inside.

Everything Stuck to Him 785

 73 The living-room light was on. The girl was asleep on the bed. The
NOTES baby was asleep beside her.
CLOSE READ 74 The boy took off his boots. Then he took off everything else. In
ANNOTATE: In paragraphs his socks and his long underwear, he sat on the sofa and read the
74–84, mark the main Sunday paper.
parts of speech—nouns,
75 The girl and the baby slept on. After a while, the boy went to the
verbs, and any adjectives or
kitchen and started frying bacon.
adverbs.
76 The girl came out in her robe and put her arms around the boy.
QUESTION: Why does 77 Hey, the boy said.
the author omit most 78 I’m sorry, the girl said.
modifiers?
79 It’s all right, the boy said.
CONCLUDE: What is the 80 I didn’t mean to snap like that.
effect of the author’s 81 It was my fault, he said.
choice to limit the types of 82 You sit down, the girl said. How does a waffle sound with bacon?
words used in this scene?
83 Sounds great, the boy said.
84 She took the bacon out of the pan and made waffle batter. He sat
at the table and watched her move around the kitchen.
85 She put a plate in front of him with bacon, a waffle. He spread
butter and poured syrup. But when he started to cut, he turned the
plate into his lap.
86 I don’t believe it, he said, jumping up from the table.
87 If you could see yourself, the girl said.
88 The boy looked down at himself, at everything stuck to his
underwear.
89 I was starved, he said, shaking his head.
90 You were starved, she said, laughing.
91 He peeled off the woolen underwear and threw it at the bathroom
door. Then he opened his arms and the girl moved into them.
92 We won’t fight anymore, she said.
93 The boy said, We won’t.
94 He gets up from his chair and refills their glasses.
95 That’s it, he says. End of story. I admit it’s not much of a story.
96 I was interested, she says.
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97 He shrugs and carries his drink over to the window. It’s dark now
but still snowing.
98 Things change, he says. I don’t know how they do. But they do
without your realizing it or wanting them to.
99 Yes, that’s true, only—But she does not finish what she started.
100 She drops the subject. In the window’s reflection he sees her study
her nails. Then she raises her head. Speaking brightly, she asks if he is
going to show her the city, after all.
101 He says, Put your boots on and let’s go.
102 But he stays by the window, remembering. They had laughed.
They had leaned on each other and laughed until the tears had
come, while everything else—the cold, and where he’d go in it—was
outside, for a while anyway. ❧

786 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. Where and at what time of year does the introductory story take place?

2. How old are the boy and girl in the internal story?

3. What does the boy want to do on Sunday?

4. What causes the quarrel between the young husband and wife?

5. What event at breakfast explains the story’s title?

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6. Notebook Write a summary of “Everything Stuck to Him” to confirm your

understanding of the text.

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the story. Briefly research
that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of
the story?

Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting.
Think about ways in which your research helped deepen your understanding of the story.

Everything Stuck to Him 787

 making meaning

Close Read the Text

1. This model, from paragraph 11 of the text, shows two sample
annotations, along with questions and conclusions. Close read
the passage, and find another detail to annotate. Then, write a
question and your conclusion.
EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM

ANNOTATE: The narrator uses third-person

pronouns.
QUESTION: Why does the narrator use this point
of view?
ANNOTATE: The
CONCLUDE: The narrator may be trying to
narrator asks two
distance himself from the person he was.
questions.
QUESTION: Why
Each night they cleaned the dentist’s do these questions
place upstairs in exchange for rent and appear here?
utilities. In summer they were expected CONCLUDE:
to maintain the lawn and the flowers. In The narrator is
pausing to check
winter the boy shoveled snow and spread
his daughter’s
rock salt on the walks. Are you still with understanding of
me? Are you getting the picture? the story thus far.

Tool Kit 2. For more practice, go back into the text, and complete the
Close-Read Guide and close-read notes.
Model Annotation
3. Revisit a section of the text you found important during your first
read. Read this section closely, and annotate what you notice.
Ask yourself questions such as “Why did the author make this
choice?” What can you conclude?

Cite textual evidence

Analyze the Text
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to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

1. Make Inferences What does the daughter’s request suggest about her
relationship to her father?
2. (a) Interpret Why might the boy have been so eager to go hunting with
 Standards Carl? (b) Support What details in the text support your interpretation?
Reading Literature
• Cite strong and thorough textual 3. Make a Judgment Was the girl right to insist that the boy stay home?
evidence to support analysis of Explain your answer.
what the text says explicitly as well
as inferences drawn from the text, 4. Historical Perspectives Could this story have taken place in any
including determining where the text historical period, or do you see evidence that the tale is specifically
leaves matters uncertain. anchored in the mid-twentieth century? Explain.
• Analyze how an author’s choices
concerning how to structure specific 5. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
parts of a text contribute to its condition? What have you learned about relationships and youth
overall structure and meaning as well
as its aesthetic impact. by reading this text?

788 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Narrative Structure A frame story is a narrative that consists of two
parts: an introductory story and an internal story. The narrative begins and
ends with the introductory story, which frames the internal story like
bookends.

• In this narrative structure, the internal story, or story-within-a-story, is

typically the more important tale.
• The internal story usually takes place in another time and place.
• The narrator of the introductory story may or may not be a character in
the internal story.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

1. In which paragraph does the internal story begin? How do you know?
2. Use this chart to record notes about the internal story in “Everything Stuck to Him.”

ELEMENTS DETAILS AND IMAGES

Setting

Characters

Conflict
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Climax

Resolution

3. Suppose that the internal story had a first-person narrator. How do you think the
story’s emotional impact would be different? Explain.
4. Reread paragraphs 93–99, when the narrative returns to the introductory story.
(a) What do you think the father may mean when he says, “Things change”?
(b) Why do you think the adult daughter “does not finish what she started”?

Everything Stuck to Him 789

 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Concept Vocabulary
waterfowl letterhead overcast shotgun

EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM

Why These Words? The concept vocabulary words are all compound
words. They help create a sense of the internal story’s setting and action. For
example, the sky was overcast, and the boy planned to hunt waterfowl.

1. How does the concept vocabulary clarify the reader’s understanding of the
internal story’s setting and action?

2. What other compound words in the selection can you identify?

Practice
Notebook The concept vocabulary words appear in “Everything Stuck
to Him.”
1. Use each word in a sentence that demonstrates your understanding of the
word’s meaning.
2. Challenge yourself to replace each concept vocabulary word in the
sentences you wrote with one or two related words. How does each word
change affect the meaning of your original sentence?

Word Study
Endocentric Compounds A compound word is made up of two or more
 WORD NETWORK
individual words. An endocentric compound combines one word that
Add words related to the
conveys the basic meaning and a modifier that restricts or specifies the
human condition from the
meaning of the word. For example, the compound word waterfowl combines
text to your Word Network.
the words water and fowl. The modifier water describes the type of fowl,
or bird.

1. Find five examples of endocentric compounds, and record them.

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2. For each word, note the base word and the modifier. Finally, provide a
 STANDARDS
definition of each word.
Language
• Demonstrate command of the
conventions of standard English
grammar and usage when writing or
speaking.
• Apply knowledge of language to
understand how language functions
in different contexts, to make
effective choices for meaning or style,
and to comprehend more fully when
reading or listening.

790 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Conventions and Style

Pronouns and Antecedents An experienced writer may stretch or break
the rules and conventions of standard English in order to achieve an effect, FOLLOW THROUGH
create a personal style, or capture the reader’s attention. Refer to the Grammar
Handbook to learn more
Carver purposely breaks English conventions in “Everything Stuck to Him.” about these terms.
For example, he does not enclose dialogue with quotation marks. He also
leaves the subjects of some sentences deliberately ambiguous, or unclear.
This is especially true when the subjects of his sentences are pronouns,
words that stand for a person, place, or thing, without a clear antecedent,
what the pronoun refers to.

EXAMPLE
“She’s in Milan for Christmas and wants to know what it was like when
she was a kid.”
The pronoun she does not have a clear antecedent. Readers need to
gather details over the next few paragraphs before concluding that “She”
is the narrator’s adult daughter.

Read It
1. Analyze examples of pronouns in Carver’s story that lack a clear antecedent.
In the right-hand column, rewrite the example so that the meaning is clear.

PASSAGE REWRITE

The boy loved to hunt, you see. When he was younger, the narrator loved to hunt. His love of hunting will
That’s part of it. be an important part of the story.
(paragraph 10)

He gets up from his chair and looks

out the window.
(paragraph 14)

It’s fine, she said.

(paragraph 27)
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That’s not the point and you know

it, the girl said.
(paragraph 62)

It was my fault, he said.

(paragraph 81)

2. Connect to Style Reread paragraphs 94–95 of “Everything Stuck

to Him.” Mark the pronouns, and identify their antecedents. Then,
write a possible explanation of why Carver leaves pronoun-antecedent
relationships unclear. What effect does this ambiguity have on readers?

Write It
Notebook Choose a short passage from “Everything Stuck to Him”
that contains unclear antecedents, and rewrite it to be unambiguous. Then,
explain how the rewrite changes the impact of the passage.

Everything Stuck to Him 791

 making meaning

Writing to Sources
Narrative writing often contains factual details that make the plot and setting
seem realistic, even when the story is fictional.

EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM Assignment

Colic is a condition in which an otherwise healthy baby cries for extended
periods of time. Conduct research on colic and its effects on newborns
and parents. Then, integrate the information you find into a realistic
narrative scene that shows how the boy and the girl in “Everything
Stuck to Him” might have reacted if they had known what colic is and
whether or not their baby had it.
Your narrative should include:
• information about colic and its effects
• details from “Everything Stuck to Him,” used as background to
develop events and dialogue
• a minimalist style consistent with Carver’s

Vocabulary and Conventions Connection In your narrative, consider

including several of the concept vocabulary words. Consider whether
ambiguous pronouns will help you create an effective narrative.

waterfowl letterhead overcast shotgun

Reflect on Your Writing

After you have written your narrative, answer the following questions.

1. How did your effort to imitate Carver’s style influence your understanding
of his story and writing style?

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 STANDARDS 2. What details about colic or characteristics of the boy and the girl
Reading Literature characters did you use in your writing? How did they help support your
Analyze the impact of the author’s narrative?
choices regarding how to develop
and relate elements of a story or
drama.
Writing
Write narratives to develop real or 3. Why These Words? The words you choose make a difference in your
imagined experiences or events using writing. Which words helped you to convey important ideas precisely?
effective technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured event
sequences.
Speaking and Listening
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts
and tasks, demonstrating a command
of formal English when indicated or
appropriate.

792 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 essential question: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Speaking and Listening

Assignment
With a partner, improvise a dialogue between the father and his
daughter that continues the conversation they were having at the end
of “Everything Stuck to Him.” Once you have polished and rehearsed
your dialogue, present it to the class. After your presentation, lead
a whole-class discussion about how the dialogue connected to the
story and continued its themes. Follow these steps to complete the
assignment.

1. Analyze the Characters With your partner, discuss the relationship

between the father and his daughter. Decide what the daughter was
starting to say at the end of the story before she changed the subject.
Draw a conclusion about what happened to the mother. Make sure your
decisions are consistent with information in the story.
2. Plan Your Dialogue As you develop your dialogue, focus on each
character’s motivations. Why is the daughter bringing this topic up now?
Is there anything the father has been wanting to say to his daughter? Do
the characters want to reach an understanding or resolution before their
dialogue is over?
3. Prepare Your Delivery Practice your dialogue with your partner. Pay
attention to nonverbal methods of communication, such as tone, pitch,
volume, pacing, facial expressions, and body language.
4. Evaluate Dialogues As your classmates deliver their dialogues, listen
carefully. Use an evaluation guide like the one shown to analyze their
dialogues.

Evaluation Guide  evidence log

Rate each statement on a scale of 1 (not demonstrated) Before moving on to a

to 4 (demonstrated). new selection, go to your
Evidence Log and record
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Partners clearly enacted the characters and the situation. what you learned from
“Everything Stuck to Him.”
Partners crafted a dialogue consistent with the story.

Partners communicated clearly and expressively.

Partners used a variety of speaking tones and pitches.

Partners used gestures and other body language effectively.

Everything Stuck to Him 793

 MAKING MEANING

About the Author

The Leap
Concept Vocabulary
You will encounter the following words as you read “The Leap.” Before
reading, note how familiar you are with each word. Then, rank the words in
order from most familiar (1) to least familiar (6).

Award-winning novelist, WORD YOUR RANKING

poet, and short-story writer encroaching
Louise Erdrich (b.1954) was
born to a German American instantaneously
father and a mother who
was half Chippewa. In a anticipation
popular series of interrelated
novels, including Love constricting
Medicine (1984) and The
Beet Queen (1986), Erdrich perpetually
describes the lives of three
families living in a fictional superannuated
North Dakota town. Native
American traditions and After completing the first read, come back to the concept vocabulary and
lore have greatly influenced review your rankings. Mark changes to your original rankings as needed.
Erdrich’s writing, which
often merges local history
with current issues and
employs multiple narrators to First Read FICTION
reflect a complex variety of Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
perspectives. Her 2012 novel opportunity to complete the close-read notes after your first read.
The Round House won the
National Book Award.

NOTICE whom the story ANNOTATE by marking

is about, what happens, vocabulary and key passages
where and when it happens, you want to revisit.
and why those involved react

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as they do.

CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing

the selection to what you the Comprehension Check.
already know and what you
have already read.

 STANDARDS
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the
grades 11–CCR text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.

794 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ANCHOR TEXT | SHORT STORY

The Leap
Louise Erdrich

BACKGROUND
Traveling circuses first came to the United States from Great Britain in 1793
and quickly established themselves as a part of American popular culture.
Showcasing a variety of performers—including clowns, animal trainers, and
trapeze artists—circuses would draw and thrill crowds in large cities and
small towns alike.

M y mother is the surviving half of a blindfold trapeze act, not

a fact I think about much even now that she is sightless, the
result of encroaching and stubborn cataracts. She walks slowly
NOTES
encroaching (ehn KROHCH
ihng) adj.
intruding; steadily
through her house here in New Hampshire, lightly touching her way advancing
along walls and running her hands over knickknacks, books, the drift
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of a grown child’s belongings and castoffs. She has never upset an

object or as much as brushed a magazine onto the floor. She has never
lost her balance or bumped into a closet door left carelessly open. CLOSE READ
2 It has occurred to me that the catlike precision of her movements ANNOTATE: In paragraph
in old age might be the result of her early training, but she shows so 2, mark descriptive words
little of the drama or flair one might expect from a performer that I and phrases in the final
tend to forget the Flying Avalons. She has kept no sequined costume, sentence.
no photographs, no fliers or posters from that part of her youth. I QUESTION: Why might
would, in fact, tend to think that all memory of double somersaults the author have chosen to
and heart-stopping catches had left her arms and legs were it not craft such a long, almost
for the fact that sometimes, as I sit sewing in the room of the rebuilt poetic, sentence to follow
house in which I slept as a child, I hear the crackle, catch a whiff of two ordinary sentences?
smoke from the stove downstairs, and suddenly the room goes dark, CONCLUDE: What overall
the stitches burn beneath my fingers, and I am sewing with a needle effect does this sentence
of hot silver, a thread of fire. create?

The Leap 795

 3 I owe her my existence three times. The first was when she saved
NOTES herself. In the town square a replica tent pole, cracked and splintered,
now stands cast in concrete. It commemorates the disaster that put
our town smack on the front page of the Boston and New York
tabloids. It is from those old newspapers, now historical records,
that I get my information. Not from my mother, Anna of the Flying
Avalons, nor from any of her in-laws, nor certainly from the other
half of her particular act, Harold Avalon, her first husband. In one
news account it says, “The day was mildly overcast, but nothing in
the air or temperature gave any hint of the sudden force with which
the deadly gale would strike.”
4 I have lived in the West, where you can see the weather coming
for miles, and it is true that out here we are at something of a
disadvantage. When extremes of temperature collide, a hot and cold
instantaneously (ihn stuhn TAY front, winds generate instantaneously behind a hill and crash upon
nee uhs lee) adv.
immediately you without warning. That, I think, was the likely situation on that
day in June. People probably commented on the pleasant air, grateful
that no hot sun beat upon the striped tent that stretched over the
entire center green. They bought their tickets and surrendered them
anticipation (an tihs uh PAY in anticipation. They sat. They ate caramelized popcorn and roasted
shuhn) n. eager expectation peanuts. There was time, before the storm, for three acts. The White
Arabians1 of Ali-Khazar rose on their hind legs and waltzed. The
Mysterious Bernie folded himself into a painted cracker tin, and the
Lady of the Mists made herself appear and disappear in surprising
places. As the clouds gathered outside, unnoticed, the ringmaster
cracked his whip, shouted his introduction, and pointed to the ceiling
of the tent, where the Flying Avalons were perched.
5 They loved to drop gracefully from nowhere, like two sparkling
birds, and blow kisses as they threw off their plumed helmets and
high-collared capes. They laughed and flirted openly as they beat
their way up again on the trapeze bars. In the final vignette of their
act, they actually would kiss in midair, pausing, almost hovering as
they swooped past one another. On the ground, between bows, Harry

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Avalon would skip quickly to the front rows and point out the smear
of my mother’s lipstick, just off the edge of his mouth. They made a
romantic pair all right, especially in the blindfold sequence.
6 That afternoon, as the anticipation increased, as Mr. and Mrs.
Avalon tied sparkling strips of cloth onto each other’s face and as
they puckered their lips in mock kisses, lips destined “never again
to meet,” as one long breathless article put it, the wind rose, miles
off, wrapped itself into a cone, and howled. There came a rumble
of electrical energy, drowned out by the sudden roll of drums. One
detail not mentioned by the press, perhaps unknown—Anna was
pregnant at the time, seven months and hardly showing, her stomach
muscles were that strong. It seems incredible that she would work
high above the ground when any fall could be so dangerous, but the

1. Arabians horses of the Arabian breed.

796 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 explanation—I know from watching her go blind—is that my mother
lives comfortably in extreme elements. She is one with the constant NOTES

dark now, just as the air was her home, familiar to her, safe, before the
storm that afternoon.
7 From opposite ends of the tent they waved, blind and smiling,
to the crowd below. The ringmaster removed his hat and called for
silence, so that the two above could concentrate. They rubbed their
hands in chalky powder, then Harry launched himself and swung,
once, twice, in huge calibrated beats across space. He hung from his
knees and on the third swing stretched wide his arms, held his hands
out to receive his pregnant wife as she dove from her shining bar.
8 It was while the two were in midair, their hands about to
meet, that lightning struck the main pole and sizzled down the
guy wires, filling the air with a blue radiance that Harry Avalon
must certainly have seen through the cloth of his blindfold as
the tent buckled and the edifice2 toppled him forward, the swing
continuing and not returning in its sweep, and Harry going down,
down into the crowd with his last thought, perhaps, just a prickle
of surprise at his empty hands.
9 My mother once said that I’d be amazed at how many things a CLOSE READ
person can do within the act of falling. Perhaps, at the time, she was ANNOTATE: Mark the
teaching me to dive off a board at the town pool, for I associate the section of paragraph 9 that
interrupts the story the
idea with midair somersaults. But I also think she meant that even
narrator is telling about her
in that awful doomed second one could think, for she certainly did.
mother’s feat at the circus
When her hands did not meet her husband’s, my mother tore her years earlier.
blindfold away. As he swept past her on the wrong side, she could
have grasped his ankle, the toe-end of his tights, and gone down QUESTION: Why does
the narrator interrupt her
clutching him. Instead, she changed direction. Her body twisted
story?
toward a heavy wire and she managed to hang on to the braided
metal, still hot from the lightning strike. Her palms were burned so CONCLUDE: How does
terribly that once healed they bore no lines, only the blank scar tissue this interruption affect the
reader’s understanding of
of a quieter future. She was lowered, gently, to the sawdust ring just
both the mother and the
underneath the dome of the canvas roof, which did not entirely settle
narrator?
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but was held up on one end and jabbed through, torn, and still on fire
in places from the giant spark, though rain and men’s jackets soon
put that out.
10 Three people died, but except for her hands my mother was
not seriously harmed until an overeager rescuer broke her arm in
extricating her and also, in the process, collapsed a portion of the tent
bearing a huge buckle that knocked her unconscious. She was taken
to the town hospital, and there she must have hemorrhaged,3 for they
kept her, confined to her bed, a month and a half before her baby was
born without life.
11 Harry Avalon had wanted to be buried in the circus cemetery
next to the original Avalon, his uncle, so she sent him back with his
brothers. The child, however, is buried around the corner, beyond

2. edifice (EHD uh fihs) n. large structure or building.

3. hemorrhaged (HEHM uh rihjd) v. bled heavily.

The Leap 797

 this house and just down the highway. Sometimes I used to walk
NOTES there just to sit. She was a girl, but I rarely thought of her as a sister
or even as a separate person really. I suppose you could call it the
egocentrism4 of a child, of all young children, but I considered her a
less finished version of myself.
CLOSE READ 12 When the snow falls, throwing shadows among the stones, I can
ANNOTATE: In paragraph easily pick hers out from the road, for it is bigger than the others and
12, mark words and in the shape of a lamb at rest, its legs curled beneath. The carved
phrases that describe lamb looms larger as the years pass, though it is probably only my
increasing size or clarity.
eyes, the vision shifting, as what is close to me blurs and distances
QUESTION: For the sharpen. In odd moments, I think it is the edge drawing near, the
narrator, what types of edge of everything, the unseen horizon we do not really speak of in
things are becoming larger the eastern woods. And it also seems to me, although this is probably
or more clearly defined?
an idle fantasy, that the statue is growing more sharply etched, as if,
CONCLUDE: What does this instead of weathering itself into a porous mass, it is hardening on the
passage suggest about the hillside with each snowfall, perfecting itself.
narrator’s perspective on 13 It was during her confinement in the hospital that my mother met
life? my father. He was called in to look at the set of her arm, which was
complicated. He stayed, sitting at her bedside, for he was something
of an armchair traveler and had spent his war quietly, at an air force
training grounds, where he became a specialist in arms and legs
broken during parachute training exercises. Anna Avalon had been
to many of the places he longed to visit—Venice, Rome, Mexico, all
through France and Spain. She had no family of her own and was
taken in by the Avalons, trained to perform from a very young age.
They toured Europe before the war, then based themselves in New
York. She was illiterate.
14 It was in the hospital that she finally learned to read and write, as a
way of overcoming the boredom and depression of those weeks, and
it was my father who insisted on teaching her. In return for stories
of her adventures, he graded her first exercises. He bought her her
first book, and over her bold letters, which the pale guides of the
penmanship pads could not contain, they fell in love.

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15 I wonder if my father calculated the exchange he offered: one form
of flight for another. For after that, and for as long as I can remember,
my mother has never been without a book. Until now, that is, and
it remains the greatest difficulty of her blindness. Since my father’s
recent death, there is no one to read to her, which is why I returned,
in fact, from my failed life where the land is flat. I came home to read
to my mother, to read out loud, to read long into the dark if I must, to
read all night.
16 Once my father and mother married, they moved onto the old
farm he had inherited but didn’t care much for. Though he’d been
thinking of moving to a larger city, he settled down and broadened
his practice in this valley. It still seems odd to me, when they could
have gone anywhere else, that they chose to stay in the town where

4. egocentrism (ee goh SEHN trihz uhm) n. self-centeredness; inability to distinguish one’s
own needs and interests from those of others.

798 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 NOTES

the disaster had occurred, and which my father in the first place
had found so constricting. It was my mother who insisted upon it, constricting (kuhn STRIHKT
ihng) adj. limiting; tightening
after her child did not survive. And then, too, she loved the sagging
farmhouse with its scrap of what was left of a vast acreage of woods
and hidden hay fields that stretched to the game park.
17 I owe my existence, the second time then, to the two of them and
the hospital that brought them together. That is the debt we take for
granted since none of us asks for life. It is only once we have it that
we hang on so dearly.
18 I was seven the year the house caught fire, probably from standing
ash. It can rekindle, and my father, forgetful around the house and
perpetually exhausted from night hours on call, often emptied what perpetually (puhr PEHCH oo
uhl lee) adv.
happening all
he thought were ashes from cold stoves into wooden or cardboard
the time
containers. The fire could have started from a flaming box, or perhaps
a buildup of creosote inside the chimney was the culprit. It started
right around the stove, and the heart of the house was gutted. The
baby-sitter, fallen asleep in my father’s den on the first floor, woke to
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find the stairway to my upstairs room cut off by flames. She used the
phone, then ran outside to stand beneath my window.
19 When my parents arrived, the town volunteers had drawn water
from the fire pond and were spraying the outside of the house,
preparing to go inside after me, not knowing at the time that there
was only one staircase and that it was lost. On the other side of the
house, the superannuated extension ladder broke in half. Perhaps the superannuated (soo puhr AN
yu ayt ihd) adj. too old to be
clatter of it falling against the walls woke me, for I’d been asleep up
usable; obsolete
to that point.
20 As soon as I awakened, in the small room that I now use for
sewing, I smelled the smoke. I followed things by the letter then,
was good at memorizing instructions, and so I did exactly what was
taught in the second-grade home fire drill. I got up. I touched the
back of my door before opening it. Finding it hot, I left it closed and

The Leap 799

 stuffed my rolled-up rug beneath the crack. I did not hide under my
NOTES bed or crawl into my closet. I put on my flannel robe, and then I sat
down to wait.
21 Outside, my mother stood below my dark window and saw clearly
that there was no rescue. Flames had pierced one side wall, and the
glare of the fire lighted the massive limbs and trunk of the vigorous
old elm that had probably been planted the year the house was built,
a hundred years ago at least. No leaf touched the wall, and just one
thin branch scraped the roof. From below, it looked as though even
a squirrel would have had trouble jumping from the tree onto the
house, for the breadth of that small branch was no bigger than my
mother’s wrist.
22 Standing there, beside Father, who was preparing to rush back
around to the front of the house, my mother asked him to unzip her
dress. When he wouldn’t be bothered, she made him understand. He
couldn’t make his hands work, so she finally tore it off and stood
there in her pearls and stockings. She directed one of the men to
lean the broken half of the extension ladder up against the trunk of
the tree. In surprise, he complied. She ascended. She vanished. Then
she could be seen among the leafless branches of late November as
she made her way up and, along her stomach, inched the length of a
bough that curved above the branch that brushed the roof.
23 Once there, swaying, she stood and balanced. There were plenty
of people in the crowd and many who still remember, or think they
do, my mother’s leap through the ice-dark air toward that thinnest
extension, and how she broke the branch falling so that it cracked
in her hands, cracked louder than the flames as she vaulted with
it toward the edge of the roof, and how it hurtled down end over
end without her, and their eyes went up, again, to see where she
had flown.
CLOSE READ 24 I didn’t see her leap through air, only heard the sudden thump
ANNOTATE: In paragraph and looked out my window. She was hanging by the backs of her
24, mark words and heels from the new gutter we had put in that year, and she was

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phrases that describe the smiling. I was not surprised to see her, she was so matter-of-fact. She
mother’s manner as she tapped on the window. I remember how she did it, too. It was the
rescues her daughter. friendliest tap, a bit tentative, as if she was afraid she had arrived too
QUESTION: What aspect early at a friend’s house. Then she gestured at the latch, and when
of the mother’s character I opened the window she told me to raise it wider and prop it up
does the author emphasize with the stick so it wouldn’t crush her fingers. She swung down,
with these details? caught the ledge, and crawled through the opening. Once she was
CONCLUDE: What is the in my room, I realized she had on only underclothing, a bra of the
effect of the contrast heavy stitched cotton women used to wear and step-in, lace-trimmed
between the mother’s drawers. I remember feeling light-headed, of course, terribly relieved,
actions and her attitude? and then embarrassed for her to be seen by the crowd undressed.
25 I was still embarrassed as we flew out the window, toward earth,
me in her lap, her toes pointed as we skimmed toward the painted
target of the fire fighter’s net.

800 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 26 I know that she’s right. I knew it even then. As you fall there is
time to think. Curled as I was, against her stomach, I was not startled NOTES

by the cries of the crowd or the looming faces. The wind roared
and beat its hot breath at our back, the flames whistled. I slowly
wondered what would happen if we missed the circle or bounced out
of it. Then I wrapped my hands around my mother’s hands. I felt the
brush of her lips and heard the beat of her heart in my ears, loud as
thunder, long as the roll of drums. ❧

Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. What happened when lightning hit the circus tent while the Avalons were performing?

2. What did Anna’s second husband teach Anna to do?

3. Why has the narrator returned from the West to live with her mother?

4. How did Anna Avalon save the narrator when the narrator was seven years old?
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5. Notebook To confirm your understanding, create a timeline of key events in

“The Leap.”

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly research
that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect of
the story?

The Leap 801

 making meaning

Close Read the Text

1. This model, from paragraph 9 of the text, shows two
sample annotations, along with questions and conclusions.
Close read the passage, and find another detail to
annotate. Then, write a question and your conclusion.
THE LEAP

ANNOTATE: This sentence describes Anna’s

actions as she falls.
QUESTION: What do these actions suggest
about Anna?
ANNOTATE: This
CONCLUDE: She is brave and quick thinking. phrase seems to
have a deeper
meaning for
Her body twisted toward a heavy wire Anna’s future.
and she managed to hang on to the
QUESTION: What
braided metal, still hot from the lightning later decision
strike. Her palms were burned so terribly does this phrase
that once healed they bore no lines, only suggest?
the blank scar tissue of a quieter future. CONCLUDE: Anna
will leave her circus
life behind.

Tool Kit 2. For more practice, go back into the text and complete the close-read
notes.
Close-Read Guide and
Model Annotation 3. Revisit a section of the text you found important during your first read. Read
this section closely and annotate what you notice. Ask yourself questions
such as “Why did the author make this choice?” What can you conclude?

Cite textual evidence

Analyze the Text to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

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1. (a) What is the source for the narrator’s account of the tent pole disaster?
(b) Interpret What does this explanation suggest about the impact of
the disaster on Anna? Explain.
2. Analyze What does the narrator’s return from the West to her mother’s
house suggest about her feelings toward her mother? Does she feel
obligated, or does she feel something deeper?
 Standards 3. Historical Perspectives What connections can you make between
Reading Literature Anna’s life changes and the United States before and after World War II?
• Cite strong and thorough textual
evidence to support analysis of 4. Essential Question Connection: What do stories reveal about the
what the text says explicitly as well human condition? What have you learned about human bravery and
as inferences drawn from the text, sacrifice by reading this story?
including determining where the text
leaves matters uncertain.
• Analyze the impact of the author’s
choices regarding how to develop
and relate elements of a story or
drama.

802 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Narrative Structure In literary works, suspense is the feeling of growing
curiosity, tension, or anxiety the reader feels about the outcome of events.
Writers create suspense by raising questions in the minds of their readers.
Suspense reaches its peak at the climax of a plot. In “The Leap,” Erdrich
skillfully uses two techniques to build suspense.

• Foreshadowing is the use of clues to suggest events that have not yet
happened. For example, at the end of paragraph 2, details such as “I
hear the crackle,” “the stitches burn,” and “a thread of fire” hint at the
impact of the powerful fire that the narrator will describe in the climax of
the short story.
• Pacing is the speed or rhythm of writing. Writers may deliberately speed
up or slow down pacing in order to create suspense. For example, in
paragraph 4, the narrator delays her account of the tent pole disaster
by describing the setting and the circus acts. These digressions increase
readers’ feelings of tension and anticipation.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

1. Reread paragraph 7 and identify three details that contribute to suspense.
2. Reread paragraphs 18–19. Describe how the story is paced in these paragraphs. What
effect does this pacing create?
3. Use this chart to record notes about Erdrich’s use of suspense, foreshadowing, and pacing.

PARAGRAPH(S) NOTES ON SUSPENSE, FORESHADOWING, OR PACING

6–9
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15

24

4. Describe the overall effect of pacing and foreshadowing in the story. How do these elements
affect the reader’s understanding of events, characters, and themes?

The Leap 803

 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Concept Vocabulary
encroaching anticipation perpetually

instantaneously constricting superannuated

THE LEAP

Why These Words? These concept vocabulary words all suggest distance
or closeness, especially in relation to time. For example, instantaneously
means “in an instant,” or “immediately.” Something that happens
perpetually is continuous or endless. A superannuated tool or object is so
old-fashioned or worn out that it is no longer useful.

1. How does the concept vocabulary clarify the reader’s understanding of

the story?

2. What other words in the selection connect to this concept?

Practice
Notebook Respond to these questions.
1. Use each concept vocabulary word in a sentence that demonstrates your
understanding of the word’s meaning.
2. Challenge yourself to replace each concept vocabulary word in your
sentences with a synonym. How does changing the words affect the
meanings of your sentences? Which word choices are more effective?

 WORD NETWORK Word Study

Add words related to the Latin Root: -strict- The Latin root -strict- means “to bind” or “to compress.”
human condition from the In paragraph 16, the narrator’s father finds his hometown constricting, or
text to your Word Network.
limiting. The word constrict also has a medical meaning. It is used to describe a
part of the body that narrows, closes, or compresses. For example, when
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you step out in bright sunlight, your pupils constrict, or get smaller, to take in
less light.

1. Find four words that contain the root -strict-. Challenge yourself to come
 STANDARDS up with one word that has a medical meaning.
Reading Literature
Determine the meaning of words
and phrases as they are used in
the text, including figurative and
connotative meanings; analyze the
impact of specific word choices on
meaning and tone, including words
with multiple meanings or language 2. For each word you choose, record the word, its part of speech, and its
that is particularly fresh, engaging,
or beautiful.
meaning. Use a print or online college-level dictionary as needed.
Language
Identify and correctly use patterns of
word changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech.

804 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Author’s Style
Motif A motif is an important recurring, or repeating, element in literature,
mythology, or other type of artistic expression. In “The Leap,” Erdrich uses
recurring motifs to highlight symbols and develop themes.

• A symbol is a person, place, object, or idea that represents not only

itself but also something beyond or outside itself.
• A theme in a work is an underlying central insight about human life
or behavior.

The first step in interpreting motifs is to recognize when they are present.
While reading, be alert to repetition in events, imagery, description, or
dialogue. For example, you might notice the repetition of Anna’s three
“leaps.” Once you have identified a possible motif, consider what this
repetition may represent and how it connects to the story’s themes.

Read It
1. Use the chart to analyze motifs in “The Leap.” Consider how the
meanings and associations of each motif change with each appearance.

MOTIF WHERE IT APPEARS ANALYSIS

“roll of drums” paragraph 6

paragraph 26

arms/limbs paragraph 10

paragraph 13

paragraph 21
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2. Explain how Anna’s three leaps are both literal and symbolic.

3. Connect to Style How does Erdrich use recurring images to develop the
story’s most important themes?

Write It
Notebook Another motif in the story is the idea of the narrator’s
debt to her mother for her existence. This motif first occurs in paragraph 3:
“I owe her my existence three times.” In a paragraph, explain what this motif
contributes to the story. What would be lost if this motif were omitted?

The Leap 805

 EFFECTIVE EXPRESSION

Writing to Sources
An anecdote is a brief story about an interesting, amusing, or strange event.
An anecdote is told to entertain or to make a point. The person telling an
anecdote may include a brief opinion or argument to underscore a moral or
lesson. For example, in paragraph 17 of “The Leap” the narrator provides
THE LEAP
this commentary:

I owe my existence, the second time then, to the two of

them and the hospital that brought them together. That is
the debt we take for granted since none of us asks for life.
It is once we have it that we hang on so dearly.

Assignment
Write a short, entertaining anecdote about an event in your or your
family’s past. Tell about a time when a parent, teacher, or coach
intervened in a situation in a way that made you feel grateful. Include an
opinion that highlights an important lesson. Conclude your anecdote with
a paragraph that explains how your experience compares to that of the
narrator in “The Leap.”

Vocabulary and Conventions Connection You may want to use some

of the concept vocabulary words in your anecdote. Consider varying your
pacing or adding foreshadowing to increase suspense.

encroaching anticipation perpetually

instantaneously constricting superannuated

Reflect on Your Writing

After completing your anecdote, answer the following questions.

1. How did writing an anecdote improve your understanding of

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Erdrich’s style?

 STANDARDS
Writing
Write narratives to develop real or
imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well-chosen 2. What literary elements did you use to make your anecdote more
details, and well-structured event entertaining or effective? Were they successful? Explain.
sequences.
Speaking and Listening
Present information, findings, and
supporting evidence, conveying a
clear and distinct perspective, such
that listeners can follow the line of 3. Why These Words? The words you choose make a difference in your
reasoning, alternative or opposing
perspectives are addressed, and writing. Which words helped you convey important details or ideas?
the organization, development,
substance, and style are appropriate
to purpose, audience, and a range of
formal and informal tasks.

806 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Speaking and Listening

Assignment
Choose one of the following quotations, and explain in a brief oral
response to literature how it connects to the plot and themes of
“The Leap.” Present your response to the class, and lead the class in a
discussion of your ideas.
• Love is the chain whereby to bind a child to its parents.
— Abraham Lincoln

• Courage is grace under pressure.

— Ernest Hemingway

• What do we owe to those we love?

— Ellen McLaughlin

1. Analyze the Quotations Carefully consider each quotation—both its

meaning and its associations. Paraphrase each quotation and think about
its purpose. Lincoln’s statement, for example, focuses on children, parents,
and love; Hemingway provides a concise definition of courage. Choose
the quotation that you think is the best match with “The Leap.”
2. Connect to Plot and Theme Review the major plot events in the story.
Check that you understand the chronology of events, as well as their
causes and effects. Then, state one important theme the events bring out,
and explain how that theme relates to the quotation you selected.
3. Prepare Your Delivery As you practice, be sure to pay attention to
nonverbal methods of communication, such as volume, tone, pitch,
pacing, posture, gestures, eye contact, and facial expressions.
4. Evaluate Responses As your classmates deliver their oral responses,
listen carefully. Use an evaluation guide like the one shown to analyze
their responses.

Evaluation Guide  evidence log

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Rate each statement on a scale of 1 (not demonstrated) Before moving on to a

to 4 (demonstrated). new selection, go to your
Evidence Log and record
The speaker clearly identified the quotation being discussed. what you learned from
“The Leap.”
The speaker identified specific and persuasive links between the
meaning of the quotation and the story’s plot and theme.

The speaker used a variety of inflections and tones when speaking.

The speaker used appropriate pacing, posture, gestures, and facial

expressions.

The Leap 807

 PERFORMANCE TASK: WRITING FOCUS

WRITING TO SOURCES

• EVERYDAY USE
Write a Narrative
You have read three short stories that employ flashbacks or framing devices
• EVERYTHING STUCK TO HIM
to tell stories. Now you will use your understanding of those texts to create
• THE LEAP a narrative that explores a question related to the human condition in a
fresh way.

Assignment
Write a fictional narrative addressing this question:
How do stressful situations often reveal the best and
worst in people?
Begin by creating a fictional scenario that is dramatic and stressful enough
to trigger widely different responses from characters. Then, think about how
you might develop characters whose reactions will give readers insight into
the issues raised by the prompt. Finally, reflect on the structure of the stories
you read in this unit. Use plot devices similar to the ones in those texts, such
as frame stories or flashbacks, to add interest to your narrative and provide
additional insight into characters and events.

Elements of a Fictional Narrative

Tool Kit A fictional narrative is a story about an imagined experience. The elements
Student Model of of such narratives are invented by their authors. A fictional narrative may
a Fictional Narrative feature a narrator who is part of the story or a narrator who is a detached
observer of the action.

A well-written fictional narrative usually contains these elements:

• a clear and consistent point of view
• well-developed characters
• a smooth sequence of events or experiences, which may include
flashbacks, subplots, or frame stories
• effective use of dialogue, description, and/or reflection to develop
the story

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• sensory language and precise, descriptive details to clarify experiences
• a conclusion that brings the story to a satisfying close

Model Narrative Text For a model of a well-crafted LAUNCH TEXT

fictional narrative, see the Launch Text, “Old Man at UNIT
6 INTRODUCTION

LAUNCH TEXT | NARRATIVE MODEL

the Bridge.”
This selection is an example of
a narrative text. It is a fictional
narrative because it is narrated by
a character and describes events
that did not actually happen. This
is the type of writing you will
develop in the Performance-Based
Assessment at the end of the unit.
As you read, look closely at
the author’s use of details and

Challenge yourself to find all of the elements of an

dialogue. Mark words and phrases
that suggest the personalities of
the narrator and the old man, as
well as the tension of the situation
in which they meet.

Old Man at the Bridge

 STANDARDS effective fictional narrative in the text. You will have

Ernest Hemingway

A n old man with steel rimmed spectacles 8 “Yes,” he said, “I stayed, you see, taking

an opportunity to review these elements as you

and very dusty clothes sat by the side of care of animals. I was the last one to leave the

Writing
the road. There was a pontoon bridge across town of San Carlos.”
the river and carts, trucks, and men, women 9 He did not look like a shepherd nor a
and children were crossing it. The mule- herdsman and I looked at his black dusty
drawn carts staggered up the steep bank clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel
from the bridge with soldiers helping push rimmed spectacles and said, “What animals

• Write narratives to develop real or

against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks were they?”

prepare to write your own fictional narrative.

ground up and away heading out of it all 10 “Various animals,” he said, and shook his
and the peasants plodded along in the ankle head. “I had to leave them.”
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deep dust. But the old man sat there without 11 I was watching the bridge and the African
moving. He was too tired to go any farther. looking country of the Ebro Delta and

imagined experiences or events using

2 It was my business to cross the bridge, wondering how long now it would be before
explore the bridgehead beyond and find out we would see the enemy, and listening all the
to what point the enemy had advanced. I did while for the first noises that would signal
this and returned over the bridge. There were that ever mysterious event called contact, and
not so many carts now and very few people the old man still sat there.

effective technique, well-chosen

on foot, but the old man was still there. 12 “What animals were they?” I asked.
3 “Where do you come from?” I asked him. 13 “There were three animals altogether,” he
4 “From San Carlos,” he said, and smiled. explained. “There were two goats and a cat
5 That was his native town and so it gave and then there were four pairs of pigeons.”
him pleasure to mention it and he smiled. 14 “And you had to leave them?” I asked.

details, and well-structured event

6 “I was taking care of animals,” he explained. 15 “Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain
7 “Oh,” I said, not quite understanding. told me to go because of the artillery.”

754 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

sequences. LIT22_SE11_U06_LT.indd 754 22/03/21 7:13 PM

• Write routinely over extended

time frames and shorter time frames
for a range of tasks, purposes, and
audiences.

808 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Prewriting / Planning  evidence log

Focus on a Conflict The stories that you, like all writers, tell are influenced Review your Evidence Log
by your own life. Make a list of conflicts you have experienced, witnessed, and identify key details you
or studied. Choose a conflict from your list, and think about ways you can may want to use in your
turn that conflict into a fictional story that reveals characters at their best narrative.
and worst.

Create a Story Chart Make a story chart, like the one shown, to plan the stages of your
narrative. Events from “Old Man at the Bridge” have been filled in so that you can trace the
narrative arc in the Launch Text.

STORY CHART
Exposition: Rising Action: Climax: Identify the Resolution: Tell how
Establish the setting Describe the events point of greatest the conflict is or is not
and characters, and set that increase the tension. resolved.
up the conflict. conflict and tension.

During the Spanish Civil The narrator wants to The old man tries to get The conflict doesn’t
War, an old man sits by get the old man out of up and move, but he resolve: The old man
a bridge while others danger, but the old man sits back down. He can’t gives up; the narrator
evacuate. The narrator is too tired to move. get up. He is worried leaves him to face the
stops to talk to him. about animals he left advancing enemy alone.
behind.

Develop Your Characters Once you have selected the characters who will appear in
your narrative, start to develop them using a chart like this one.

MAIN CHARACTER

Appearance

Attitude/Personal
Characteristics
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Motivations

Connect to Texts After you have identified the basic plot events and
characters, decide how you can use plot devices to add interest to your  Standards
Writing
story. Review the use of the frame story in “Everything Stuck to Him” • Engage and orient the reader by
and “The Leap.” Determine if a similar framing device might work for setting out a problem, situation,
your story. Also, consider Erdrich’s use of foreshadowing in “The Leap.” or observation and its significance,
Just as she dropped hints about the fire, you could hint at later events in establishing one or multiple point(s)
of view, and introducing a narrator
your story. and/or characters; create a smooth
progression of experiences or events.
One final device to consider is the flashback, in which the action • Use a variety of techniques to
suddenly reverts back to a past event that was important to the main sequence events so that they build
on one another to create a coherent
character’s development or to the present action of the story. whole and build toward a particular
tone and outcome.

Performance Task: Write a Narrative 809

 Performance Task: Writing focus

Drafting
Establish a Point of View The point of view you choose helps set the
tone for your story. Are you going to be a neutral observer, reporting on
events rather than participating in them? Then, you will use a third-person
narrator. Are you going to interpret events directly through the eyes of a
narrator who participates in the events of the story? Then, you will write
using a first-person point of view. Notice how the choice of point of view
affects the examples in this chart.

NARRATOR DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE

The narrator is a character in the I knew what I had to do. I had
First-person
story. to tell Shana the truth.
Julia was finally ready to tell
Third-person The narrator is outside the story and
Shana the truth, but Shana
omniscient knows everything that happens.
didn’t want to hear it.

The narrator is outside the story and Julia was finally ready to tell
Third-person limited knows only what one character does Shana the truth. But would
and thinks. Shana listen?

Begin the Story Memorably You can draw from a variety of strategies to
engage your readers right from the start. Remember to select a strategy that
sets a proper tone for your story, whether you intend your story to be serious
or humorous, thoughtful or lighthearted. Here are a few ideas to grab the
attention of your audience:
• Start off with a simple declarative statement: It was not my most heroic
moment.
• Start off with a question: What makes us do the right thing in the worst
possible situations?
• Start in the middle of the action: As I looked down at the 200-foot drop
I said to myself, “What am I doing here?”

Highlight the Conflict When you are setting up the exposition, rising
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action, and climax of the story, be sure to emphasize the main conflict. The
prompt asks you to explore how people react in times of stress. This lends
 Standards itself naturally to describing characters and their responses to events in a way
Writing that builds tension throughout the story until the climax.
• Engage and orient the reader by
setting out a problem, situation,
or observation and its significance,
End in a Satisfying Way Make sure that your ending flows naturally
establishing one or multiple point(s) from the events of the story. Above all, though, end it in a way that will
of view, and introducing a narrator be satisfying and memorable, and that reinforces the main point of the
and/or characters; create a smooth
story—people under stress behave both their best and their worst. Keep
progression of experiences or events.
• Use a variety of techniques to in mind that it can be just as effective to end a story with some elements
sequence events so that they build unresolved as it is to tie all the loose ends up neatly.
on one another to create a coherent
whole and build toward a particular
tone and outcome.
• Provide a conclusion that follows
from and reflects on what is
experienced, observed, or resolved
over the course of the narrative.

810 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: STYLE

Add Variety: Dialogue

Dialogue The conversations between and among people in a story are
called dialogue. This narrative technique can serve several purposes:
• exposing conflict between characters
• revealing personality traits
• providing explanation or advancing the plot
• showing what characters think and value
• indicating what characters understand and how they communicate

Read It
These sentences from the Launch Text use dialogue to establish a connection
between the two characters and to reveal their feelings and traits. PUNCTUATION
Punctuate dialogue correctly.
• “Where do you come from?” I asked him. (The narrator expresses
• Use quotation marks before
his interest mainly through questions directed to the old man.) and after a character’s
• “I am without politics,” he said. “I am seventy-six years old. I have spoken words.
come twelve kilometers now and I think now I can go no further.” • Use a comma to set off
(The old man states his problem and reveals his innocence in his the speaker’s tag from the
own words.) speaker’s words.
• Use quotation marks
• “Why not,” I said, watching the far bank where now there were
around each part of a
no carts. (The narrator’s curt response suggests that the old man’s divided quotation.
problems are not his main concern.) • If end punctuation, such
• “I was taking care of animals,” he said dully, but no longer to me. as a question mark or an
“I was only taking care of animals.” (The old man talks to himself, exclamation point, is part
of the quotation, keep it
expressing his confusion and sorrow.)
inside the quotation marks.

Write It
As you draft your narrative, look for ways to incorporate dialogue. Start a
new paragraph each time the speaker changes. There are a variety of ways
in which to write dialogue. Notice in these examples how the words being
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spoken are set apart from their tags, such as he said or I urged.

PLACEMENT OF DIALOGUE EXAMPLE

before a tag “Where do you come from?” I asked him.

. . . I looked at his black dusty clothes and his

 Standards
after a tag gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles
Writing
and said, “What animals were they?” Use narrative techniques, such
as dialogue, pacing, description,
“I know no one in that direction,” he said, “but reflection, and multiple plot lines, to
splitting a single sentence
thank you very much.” develop experiences, events, and/or
characters.
“If you are rested I would go,” I urged. “Get up Language
splitting multiple sentences
and try to walk now.” Demonstrate command of the
conventions of standard English
capitalization, punctuation, and
spelling when writing.

Performance Task: Write a Narrative 811

 Performance Task: Writing focus

Making Writing Sophisticated

Integrating Sensory Language Vivid, detailed description makes

characters and settings come alive for readers. An important part of such
description is sensory language, which features details that appeal to one
of the five senses. Writers use sensory language to describe how things look,
sound, taste, feel, or smell. Vivid sensory adjectives, adverbs, and verbs can
combine to create an overall impression of a scene or event. Notice how
each of these examples affects you as you read it.
ADJECTIVE ADVERB VERB

Sight scarlet garishly soar

Hearing piercing softly creak

(Sound)

Taste bitter juicily savor

Touch slippery roughly tap

Smell rancid fragrantly reek

Read It
These examples from the Launch Text show how the writer uses sensory
language to establish a sense of place

LAUNCH TEXT EXCERPT

The initial description An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty
sets the scene. clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge
Readers can envision across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children
the old man and
were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep
can both “see” and
bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the
“hear” the peasants,
carts, and trucks. spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading
out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep
dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too
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tired to go any farther.

…
The comparison in
this paragraph shows I was watching the bridge and the African looking country
the dryness of the of the Ebro Delta and wondering how long now it would be
Spanish countryside before we would see the enemy, and listening all the while for
and points to the
the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event
silence and the strain
called contact, and the old man still sat there.
on the narrator as he
listens for the enemy’s
approach.

812 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

College and Career Readiness

Write It
Think of sensory words and phrases that can clarify a reader’s impression
of your characters and the situations in which you place them. Start by
completing this chart with specific details. Then, go back to your draft to
determine how to incorporate those details into your narrative.

SENSE CHARACTER 1 CHARACTER 2 SETTING

Sight

Hearing
(Sound)

Taste

Touch
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Smell

Use a Thesaurus to Find Precise Words Even the most experienced

writers sometimes refer to a thesaurus to find the words that best express  Standards
what they want to say. A thesaurus can be a valuable resource when it Writing
Use precise words and phrases,
comes to finding sensory language that fits your needs. Here are thesaurus telling details, and sensory language
lists of synonyms for the first three examples from the chart of sensory to convey a vivid picture of the
words. Note that not every synonym is appropriate in every case; you must experiences, events, setting, and/or
characters.
choose the word that works best in context.
Language
Consult general and specialized
SCARLET syn. crimson, red, ruby, cherry, garnet
reference materials, both print and
GARISHLY syn. brashly, gaudily, brightly, vulgarly, flamboyantly digital, to find the pronunciation of
a word or determine or clarify its
SOAR syn. fly, ascend, rocket, circle, arise, climb precise meaning, its part of speech,
its etymology, or its standard usage.

Performance Task: Write a Narrative 813

 Performance Task: Writing focus

Revising
Evaluating Your Draft
Use the following checklist to evaluate the effectiveness of your first draft.
Then, use your evaluation and the instruction on this page to guide your
revision.

FOCUS AND ORGANIZATION EVIDENCE AND ELABORATION CONVENTIONS

Provides an introduction that sets Uses techniques such as Attends to the norms
the scene and introduces characters dialogue, description, and and conventions of the
and conflict. reflection to develop the discipline, especially
experience being narrated. the correct punctuation
Establishes a sequence of events of dialogue.
that unfolds smoothly and logically. Uses sensory language and
precise details to clarify
Incorporates plot devices, such as events for the reader.
foreshadowing, flashback, and frame
stories, to add interest to the story. Uses vocabulary and word
choices that are appropriate
Provides a conclusion that resolves for the audience and
the narrative in a satisfying way. purpose.

Revising for Focus and Organization

Sequence of Events Maintaining a consistent point of view will help you
 WORD NETWORK
present a realistic perspective on setting, characters, and events. Would
Include interesting words a reader be puzzled about what happened first, next, and last in your
from your Word Network in
narrative? Consider adding time words and phrases that clarify the sequence.
your narrative.
Some examples are given here.

after a while at that point before by then

eventually initially just then later

meanwhile previously soon afterward ultimately Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Conclusion Remember that your conclusion should settle or resolve the

conflict and provide a satisfying ending for the reader. Is your conclusion too
abrupt? Should you add more detail to the falling action in the plot to make
your conclusion seem more plausible?
 Standards
Writing Revising for Evidence and Elaboration
• Use narrative techniques, such
as dialogue, pacing, description, Dialogue The effectiveness of your narrative depends on how well you
reflection, and multiple plot lines, to establish a believable conversation between the characters. Have you
develop experiences, events, and/or
characters. captured the “sound” of each character? Would each character be likely to
• Provide a conclusion that follows say the words you have given him or her? If not, make some changes to your
from and reflects on what is dialogue to improve its authenticity.
experienced, observed, or resolved
over the course of the narrative.

814 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

PEER REVIEW

Exchange drafts with a classmate. Use the checklist to evaluate your classmate’s narrative,
and provide supportive feedback.
1. Does the dialogue advance the plot or serve some other important purpose, such as
building tension?
yes no If no, suggest what you might change.

2. Does the introduction clearly set a scene and introduce the conflict?
yes no If no, tell what you think should be added.

3. Is the ending satisfying, believable, and understandable?

yes no If no, tell what you found confusing.

4. What is the strongest part of your classmate’s narrative? Why?

Editing and Proofreading

Edit for Conventions Reread your draft for accuracy and consistency.
Correct errors in grammar and word usage. Make sure that you have used
sensory language correctly in context.

Proofread for Accuracy Read your draft carefully, correcting errors in

spelling and punctuation. Punctuate dialogue correctly, using quotation
marks and commas or end marks as needed.

Publishing and Presenting

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Work with a partner to present your narrative as a dramatic dialogue. Each

of you should take the part of one of your characters and read the dialogue
as though you were actors in a play. If you wish, one of you may read
the narration as well. Practice together and then present your dialogue to
the class.

Reflecting
Reflect on what you learned by writing your narrative. Are you happy with
the characters you chose? Were you able to incorporate them into a unified
 Standards
narrative? What was difficult about incorporating a narrative technique, such
Writing
as flashback or foreshadowing, into your narrative? Develop and strengthen writing as
needed by planning, revising, editing,
rewriting, or trying a new approach,
focusing on addressing what is most
significant for a specific purpose and
audience.

Performance Task: Write a Narrative 815

 OVERVIEW: SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

What do stories reveal about

the human condition?
As you read these selections, work with your group to explore how short stories
allow us to see life from vastly different perspectives.
From Text to Topic Perhaps the word change best characterizes the past few
decades of American life. In a time of rapid change, Americans have embraced
new technologies, new social rules, and new ways of interacting with the rest of
the world. As you read the selections in this section, consider how they address
enduring human traits and what it means to live in a civil society.

Small-Group Learning Strategies

Throughout your life, in school, in your community, and in your career, you will
continue to develop strategies when you work in teams. Use these strategies during
Small-Group Learning. Add ideas of your own at each step.

STRATEGY ACTION PLAN

Prepare • Complete your assignments so that you are prepared for group work.
• Organize your thinking so you can contribute to your group’s discussions.

Participate fully • Make eye contact to signal that you are listening and taking in what is being said.
• Use text evidence when making a point.

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Support others • Build on ideas from others in your group.
• Invite others who have not yet spoken to join the discussion.

Clarify • Paraphrase the ideas of others to ensure that your understanding is correct.
• Ask follow-up questions.

816 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 CONTENTS
LITERARY HISTORY

A Brief History of the Short Story

D. F. McCourt

The short story, as a genre, is passing

away—or is it?

SHORT STORY

An Occurrence at
Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce

What thoughts go through the mind

of a man who is about to be executed?
COMPARE

SHORT STORY

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Katherine Anne Porter

A dying woman wrestles with memories

of the past and realities of the present.
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PERFORMANCE TASK
SPEAKING AND LISTENING FOCUS
Present a Narrative
The Small-Group readings focus on “last moments”—of characters’ lives and
possibly even for short stories as a genre. After reading, your group will write and
present a narrative.

Overview: Small-Group Learning 817

 OVERVIEW: SMALL-GROUP LEARNING

Working as a Team
1. Take a Position In your group, discuss the following question:
What life experiences or situations are universal—true for
all people in all times and places?
As you take turns sharing your positions, be sure to provide reasons
for your response. After all group members have shared, discuss how
people deal with these experiences or situations differently and what their
responses reveal about their personalities.

2. List Your Rules As a group, decide on the rules that you will follow
as you work together. Two samples are provided. Add two more of your
own. As you work together, you may add or revise rules based on your
experience together.
• Encourage a variety of ideas before you look for common features.
• Give group members the chance to comment further on their ideas as
discussion continues.

3. Apply the Rules Practice working as a group. Share what you have
learned about the ways in which stories reveal truths about the human
condition. Make sure each person in the group contributes. Take notes on
and be prepared to share with the class one insight that you heard from
another member of your group.
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4. Name Your Group Choose a name that reflects the unit topic.

Our group’s name:

5. Create a Communication Plan Decide how you want to communicate

with one another. For example, you might use online collaboration tools,
email, or instant messaging.

Our group’s decision:

818 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Making a Schedule
First, find out the due dates for the small-group activities. Then, preview the
texts and activities with your group, and make a schedule for completing
the tasks.

SELECTION ACTIVITIES DUE DATE

A Brief History of the Short Story

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall

Working on Group Projects

As your group works together, you’ll find it more effective if each person has
a specific role. Different projects require different roles. Before beginning a
project, discuss the necessary roles, and choose one for each group member.
Some possible roles are listed here. Add your ideas to the list.

Project Manager: monitors the schedule and keeps everyone on task

Researcher: organizes research activities
Recorder: takes notes during group meetings
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Overview: Small-Group Learning 819

 MAKING MEANING

About the Author

A Brief History of the Short Story
Concept Vocabulary
As you perform your first read of “A Brief History of the Short Story,”
you will encounter these words.

supplanted   ascendant   renaissance
As a child, D. F. (“Duff”)
McCourt, a freelance writer Context Clues If these words are unfamiliar to you, try using context
and the co-founder and clues—words and phrases that appear in nearby text—to help you
editor of AE—The Canadian determine their meanings. There are various types of context clues that you
Science Fiction Review, may encounter as you read.
developed a great love
for books and magazines. Restatement, or Synonyms: That diminutive child is so tiny that she
That passion continued can’t reach the first step.
into his adult life. A writer
of published short stories Definition: Studies show that the vocabulary children learn when they
and novellas himself, he are very young is formative, or fundamental to their development.
is interested in the history
Contrast of Ideas: That social movement could have soldiered on.
of both forms. He believes
Instead, it died out.
firmly that the strength of
magazines as a medium is
essential to the continued Apply your knowledge of context clues and other vocabulary strategies to
vitality of science fiction and determine the meanings of unfamiliar words you encounter during your
other genres. first read.

First Read NONFICTION

Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete a close read after your first read.

NOTICE the general ideas of ANNOTATE by marking

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the text. What is it about? vocabulary and key passages
Who is involved? you want to revisit.

CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing

the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
 STANDARDS already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
Reading Informational Text have already read. the selection.
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literary nonfiction in
the grades 11–CCR text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.
Language
Use context as a clue to the meaning
of a word or phrase.

820 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 LITERARY HISTORY

A Brief History
of the
Short Story
D. F. McCourt

BACKGROUND
Electronic books, or e-books, are digital files that can display on various
devices, such as computers and cellphones, in a way similar to printed
books. Though e-books first emerged in the late 1990s, they failed to gain
popularity until the mid-2000s, when dedicated electronic reading devices
improved the quality of the reading experience. This new medium has
allowed more writers to publish a wider variety of work, including short
stories. It has also lowered the costs that writers and publishers previously
faced when bringing new work to appreciative audiences.

T here’s something you should know. The short story was very
nearly drowned in the tub as an infant. As literary forms go,
the short story is very young. Certainly its roots go back centuries—
NOTES

we can see it gestating in The Canterbury Tales,1 in fairy tales, and

in poems of a middling length. Arguably, even the conversational
traditions of the anecdote, the joke, and the parable can be seen as
precursors of the form. But the short story as we know it sprang
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into full-fledged existence as recently as the 1820s. It appeared,

unheralded, to fill a sudden need created by the invention of the
“gift book.”
2 Gift books were annual collections of poems, artwork, and literary
criticism, aimed primarily at an audience of upper-class women in
England and North America. Seeking additional ways to fill the pages
of these popular publications, editors began soliciting submissions of
short pieces of prose to accompany artwork already purchased (rather
the opposite of the way it is usually done these days). In so doing, they
created the first paying market for short fiction. All modern literary
magazines can trace their pedigree back to these gift books. In 1837,
Nathaniel Hawthorne collected a number of stories that he had written
for the gift book market and published them to great critical acclaim as
Twice Told Tales. And with that, short stories had arrived.
1. The Canterbury Tales collection of stories written by Geoffrey Chaucer in the
fourteenth century.

A Brief History of the Short Story 821

 3 Two hundred years may seem quite a long time, but consider that
NOTES the novel dates back to at least 1605 (the year Miguel de Cervantes’s
Don Quixote was published) and you get a better idea of the short
story’s relative youth. Over its entire lifetime, the fate of the form has
been inextricably tied to that of magazines. In the early twentieth
century, literacy in the United States and Canada became near
universal for the first time and, as a direct result, magazine sales
boomed. On the erudite2 front, there were publications like The
English Review and The Southwest Review, but there were also the
decidedly lower brow Argosy and Adventure. This was the era of the
pulp magazine and it brought with it the birth of genre literature.
4 Horror stories, detective stories, and most especially science fiction
evolved in short stories, cut their teeth in the magazines. It is no
surprise that the beginning of the Golden Age of Science Fiction is
identified most strongly not with a novel but with the publication
of a magazine (the July 1939 issue of Astounding Science Fiction, to be
precise). Most of the formative novels of early- and mid-twentieth-
century science fiction were more like grown-up short stories in
form than like other contemporary novels. In fact, some of the most
famous science fiction novels—including Isaac Asimov’s Foundation,
A. E. Van Vogt’s The Silkie, Robert A. Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky,
and Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles—were fix-ups (a term
for a novel created by stitching a series of previously published
short stories together). It wasn’t until quite recently, around the 1984
publication of William Gibson’s Neuromancer and the 1985 publication
of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, that the two parallel
traditions of the science fiction novel and the modern literary novel
began to collide.
5 And yet, despite the fact that in its brief history the short story
had brought into existence entire genres and traditions of literature,
it came perilously close to death. In the 1950s, owning a television
suddenly became within reach of the average North American family.
The half-an-hour-less-commercials format of shows like I Love Lucy,

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Dragnet, and The Honeymooners targeted the same entertainment niche
as the magazine. Over the decades that followed, the circulation
numbers of almost all magazines that ran short fiction saw a steady
decline. The novel soldiered on, but the state of the short story
became so dire that in 2007 Stephen King3 opened his piece “What
Ails the Short Story” for the New York Times Book Review thus:
The American short story is alive and well. Do you like the sound of
that? Me too. I only wish it were actually true.
6 So much can happen in four years. 2007 was the year that e-book
readers burst onto the scene and, while the rise of the online
Mark context clues or indicate
another strategy you used that magazine was already underway, it has stepped up considerably in
helped you determine meaning. the years since. More importantly, in 2007 television was still clinging
supplanted (suh PLANT ihd) v. to its cultural sovereignty, but it has since been firmly supplanted
MEANING:
2. erudite (EHR oo dyt) adj. characterized by great knowledge; learned or scholarly.
3. Stephen King (b. 1947) American author of horror novels and short stories.

822 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 by the Internet. At the turn of the millennium, there was much ink
spilled over the decline in the amount of reading people were doing, NOTES

but the truth is that many of us are reading more than ever, we just
aren’t doing it on paper. When reading on a screen rather than the
page, there are new considerations. A narrative of a few thousand
words can be easily read, enjoyed, and digested while sitting before
a monitor; a novella, far less so. This is an environment practically
designed for the literary form Edgar Allan Poe defined as a tale that
“can be read in one sitting.” Further, e-book readers are allowing
publishers to easily make shorter works available at a reasonable
price, without having to worry that a book’s spine be thick enough to
hold its own on a bookstore shelf.
7 Video, of course, is quite at home online, but the real meat of the
Mark context clues or indicate
Internet has always been text. Preferably text that limits itself to a another strategy you used that
screen or two in length. As long as the Internet holds its throne as helped you determine meaning.
the defining medium of our time, the short story will be ascendant. ascendant (uh SEHN duhnt)
It is true however that the form is undoubtedly being influenced and adj.
MEANING:
changed by the demands of its new homes. Personally, I’m thrilled to
be taking part in that continued evolution, thrilled just to be present
for the renaissance of the form that shaped science fiction, thrilled to renaissance (REHN uh sons) n.
be able to say unequivocally: “The short story is alive and well.” ❧ MEANING:

Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read. Review and clarify
details with your group.

1. According to the author, what significant event happened in 1837?

2. According to the author, what three genres owe their origins to the short story?
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3. Why did the short story nearly die in the 1950s? What developments made it strong again?

4. Notebook Confirm your understanding of the text by writing a summary.

RESEARCH
Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting. For
example, you may want to learn more about one of the short-story magazines the author
mentions: The English Review, The Southwest Review, Argosy, Adventure, or Astounding
Science Fiction. Share your discoveries with your group.

A Brief History of the Short Story 823

 MAKING MEANING

Close Read the Text

With your group, revisit sections of the text you marked
during your first read. Annotate details that you notice.
What questions do you have? What can you conclude?
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE
SHORT STORY

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Analyze the Text to support your answers.

Complete the activities.

1. Review and Clarify With your group, reread paragraphs 1–2. How did
GROUP DISCUSSION the gift book give rise to the short story and to literary magazines?
Almost everyone has
personal preferences 2. Present and Discuss Now, work with your group to share the passages
regarding short fiction. from the selection that you found especially important. Take turns
Encourage group members presenting your passages. Discuss what you noticed in the selection,
to relate the author’s what questions you asked, and what conclusions you reached.
information and insights
to their own reading 3. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
experiences. condition? How does this literary history shed light on the short story’s
ability to address the human condition? Discuss with your group.

language development

Concept Vocabulary
 WORD NETWORK supplanted    ascendant    renaissance
Add words related to the
human condition from the Why These Words? The three concept vocabulary words from the text are
text to your Word Network. related. With your group, determine what the words have in common. Write
your ideas and add another word that fits the category.

Practice

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Notebook Confirm your understanding of these words from the text by
using them in sentences. Be sure to use context clues that hint at each word’s
meaning.
 STANDARDS
Reading Informational Text
• Analyze a complex set of ideas or
sequence of events and explain how
Word Study
specific individuals, ideas, or events Latin Root: -scend- Many words in English use the Latin root -scend-,
interact and develop over the course which means “climb.” For example, ascendant is an adjective that combines
of the text.
• Analyze and evaluate the the root -scend- with the prefix ad-, meaning “to” or “toward.” Ascendant,
effectiveness of the structure an then, means “climbing toward” or “rising.” Find several other words that
author uses in his or her exposition have this same root. Use a reliable print or digital dictionary to verify your
or argument, including whether
the structure makes points clear, choices. Record the words and their meanings.
convincing, and engaging.
Language
Identify and correctly use patterns of
word changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech.

824 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 essential question: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Sequence of Events Authors often use chronological order, or the
order in which things happened, to structure nonfiction pieces that describe GROUP DISCUSSION
historical events or explain a change over time. When you read a text that As members of your group
describes a sequence of events, look at how specific people, ideas, or events discuss their charts, you may
are connected. Consider the details the author chooses to include about each find it helpful to plot out key
time period and why those details might be significant or important. events on a timeline.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Use the chart below to analyze how McCourt structures events in “A Brief
History of the Short Story.” Then, share your chart with your group, and
discuss how McCourt uses this organization to emphasize his main ideas
about the short story.

Paragraph TIME FRAMEVENT SIGNIFICANCE

1 • 14th century • Canterbury Tales published • first use of short story

• 1820s • ”gift books” invented form
• created need for short
stories

4
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5–6

7–8

A Brief History of the Short Story 825

 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Conventions and Style

Active and Passive Voice In grammar, voice reveals the relationship
between the subject of a sentence and the action described in that sentence.
Voice may be either active or passive.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE • In active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action.
SHORT STORY
Isabel reads science fiction novels.
A high-speed elevator carried passengers to the Observation Deck.
CLARIFICATION • In passive voice, the subject of the sentence receives the action. Passive
Some grammar handbooks voice often uses or implies a form of the verb “be,” such as am, is, are,
or style guides may advise was, or were.
against using passive voice. Science fiction novels are read by Isabel.
However, it is a stylistic
The passengers were carried to the Observation Deck by a high-speed
choice that may give clarity
elevator.
or provide emphasis. For
example, “The reactor was Active voice helps the writer create strong, clear writing. Active voice also
shut down” emphasizes the keeps writing concise because it uses fewer words than passive voice does
event, whereas “The head to describe an action. However, the passive voice may be useful in scientific
engineer shut the reactor writing or other explanations because it removes names or pronouns and
down” gives more emphasis instead focuses on describing facts or concepts. Passive voice can also be useful
to the person performing the when the writer does not know—or does not want to name—the person or
action. thing performing the action, or when that person or thing is unimportant.

The lost toddler was found in the mall’s food court.

The rumors that are being spread have no basis in fact.

Read It
1. Label each of these sentences from the text as active or passive.

a. The short story was very nearly drowned in the tub as an infant.
b. All modern literary magazines can trace their pedigree back to these
gift books.
c. But the short story . . . sprang into full-fledged existence as recently as

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the 1820s.
d. A narrative of a few thousand words can be easily read, enjoyed, and
digested while sitting before a monitor. . . .
Connect to Style With your group, discuss why the author’s use of
 STANDARDS the active voice is effective, as well as why he uses the passive voice when
Writing
Conduct short as well as more
he does.
sustained research projects to
answer a question or solve a Write It
problem; narrow or broaden the
inquiry when appropriate; synthesize Notebook Write a paragraph to express your thoughts about a short
multiple sources on the subject, story you found particularly exciting or moving. Experiment with using both
demonstrating understanding of the
subject under investigation.
the active and the passive voice in your writing.
Language
Apply the understanding that usage
is a matter of convention, can
change over time, and is sometimes
contested.

826 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 EFFECTIVE EXPRESSION

Research
Assignment
As a group, create a research report that relates to “A Brief History of
the Short Story” to share with the class. Choose one of these options:
 an extended definition of the term short story that shows how its
meaning has developed over time

 a graph that shows how e-book sales compare with print book
sales over time, along with a summary of what you learned about
publishing trends and people’s reading habits

 an analytical paper that presents and compares what a variety of

famous American authors have said about the short story genre

Project Plan Have each group member review “A Brief History of the Short
Story” and do some general reading about the subject you have chosen, to  EVIDENCE LOG
get an idea of the information you need. Then, as a group, list these kinds of Before moving on to a
information. Assign individual group members to research different aspects new selection, go to your
of the topic. Finally, determine how you will present the text and what Evidence Log and record
images will accompany it. what you learned from
“A Brief History of the
Conduct Research Use this chart to keep track of the types of information Short Story.”
you are researching and the group member assigned to each type. Also,
record the sources each person consults and the details needed for proper
citation.

KIND OF INFORMATION WHO IS RESPONSIBLE SOURCE INFORMATION FOR CITATION

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A Brief History of the Short Story 827

 MAKING MEANING

Comparing Texts
In this lesson, you will read and compare “An
Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Jilting
of Granny Weatherall.” The work you do with your
AN OCCURRENCE AT THE JILTING OF GRANNY
OWL CREEK BRIDGE
group on “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” WEATHERALL
will help prepare you for the comparing task.

About the Author

An Occurrence at Owl
Creek Bridge
Concept Vocabulary
As you perform your first read of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,”
you will encounter these words.
Ambrose Bierce
(1842–1914?) was born in etiquette   deference   dictum
Ohio and raised on a farm
in Indiana. The poverty in Context Clues If these words are unfamiliar to you, try using context
which he was raised helped clues such as these to help you determine their meanings.
foster Bierce’s unsentimental
outlook. His writing and Elaborating Details: The former officer was abject when he was
worldview were further reduced in rank from captain to corporal.
shaped by his career as a
Union officer in the Civil Restatement, or Synonyms: The general was a paragon of
War. The brutality he saw leadership, the standard against which other officers were judged.
during the war cemented
his cynicism. Bierce explored Apply your knowledge of context clues and other vocabulary strategies to
themes of cruelty and death
determine the meanings of unfamiliar words you encounter during your
in his writing, earning
first read.
himself the nickname
“Bitter Bierce.”
First Read FICTION
Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete a close read after your first read.

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NOTICE whom the story is ANNOTATE by marking

about, what happens, where vocabulary and key passages
and when it happens, and you want to revisit.
why those involved react as
they do.
 STANDARDS
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing
grades 11–CCR text complexity the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
band proficiently, with scaffolding as already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
needed at the high end of the range.
have already read. the selection.
Language
Use context as a clue to the meaning
of a word or phrase.

828 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 SHORT STORY

An Occurrence at
Owl Creek Bridge
Ambrose Bierce

BACKGROUND
The senseless violence, death, and destruction Ambrose Bierce witnessed
during the American Civil War (1861–1865) convinced him that war was
terrible and futile. He set much of his best fiction, including this story,
against the backdrop of this divisive war, in which the agricultural South,
whose economy was based on slavery, battled the more industrialized
North. Fought mostly in the South, the war caused hundreds of thousands
of casualties on both sides.
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I
1

A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama, looking

down into the swift water twenty feet below. The man’s hands
were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord. A rope closely
NOTES

encircled his neck. It was attached to a stout cross timber above

his head and the slack fell to the level of his knees. Some loose
boards laid upon the sleepers supporting the metals of the railway
supplied a footing for him and his executioners—two private soldiers
of the Federal army, directed by a sergeant who in civil life may have
been a deputy sheriff. At a short remove upon the same temporary
platform was an officer in the uniform of his rank, armed. He was
a captain. A sentinel at each end of the bridge stood with his rifle in

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 829

 the position known as “support,” that is to say, vertical in front of
NOTES the left shoulder, the hammer resting on the forearm thrown straight
across the chest—a formal and unnatural position, enforcing an erect
carriage of the body. It did not appear to be the duty of these two
men to know what was occurring at the center of the bridge; they
merely blockaded the two ends of the foot planking that traversed it.
2 Beyond one of the sentinels nobody was in sight: the railroad ran
straight away into a forest for a hundred yards, then, curving, was
lost to view. Doubtless there was an out-post farther along. The other
bank of the stream was open ground—a gentle acclivity1 topped with
a stockade of vertical tree trunks, loopholed for rifles, with a single
embrasure through which protruded the muzzle of a brass cannon
commanding the bridge. Midway of the slope between bridge and fort
were the spectators—a single company of infantry in line, at “parade
rest,” the butts of the rifles on the ground, the barrels inclining slightly
backward against the right shoulder, the hands crossed upon the stock.
A lieutenant stood at the right of the line, the point of his sword upon
the ground, his left hand resting upon his right. Excepting the group of
four at the center of the bridge, not a man moved. The company faced
the bridge, staring stonily, motionless. The sentinels, facing the banks
of the stream, might have been statues to adorn the bridge. The captain
stood with folded arms, silent, observing the work of his subordinates,
Mark context clues or indicate
another strategy you used that but making no sign. Death is a dignitary who when he comes
helped you determine meaning. announced is to be received with formal manifestations of respect,
etiquette (EHT ih kiht) n. even by those most familiar with him. In the code of military etiquette
MEANING: silence and fixity are forms of deference.
3 The man who was engaged in being hanged was apparently about
deference (DEHF uhr uhns) n. thirty-five years of age. He was a civilian, if one might judge from
MEANING: his habit, which was that of a planter. His features were good—a
straight nose, firm mouth, broad forehead, from which his long, dark
hair was combed straight back, falling behind his ears to the collar
of his well-fitting frock coat. He wore a mustache and pointed beard,
but no whiskers; his eyes were large and dark gray, and had a kindly

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expression which one would hardly have expected in one whose neck
was in the hemp. Evidently this was no vulgar assassin. The liberal
military code makes provision for hanging many kinds of persons,
and gentlemen are not excluded.
4 The preparations being complete, the two private soldiers
stepped aside and each drew away the plank upon which he had
been standing. The sergeant turned to the captain, saluted and
placed himself immediately behind that officer, who in turn moved
apart one pace. These movements left the condemned man and the
sergeant standing on the two ends of the same plank, which spanned
three of the crossties of the bridge. The end upon which the civilian
stood almost, but not quite, reached a fourth. This plank had been
held in place by the weight of the captain; it was now held by that of

1. acclivity (uh KLIHV uh tee) n. upward slope.

830 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 the sergeant. At a signal from the former the latter would step aside,
the plank would tilt and the condemned man go down between two NOTES

ties. The arrangement commended itself to his judgment as simple

and effective. His face had not been covered nor his eyes bandaged.
He looked a moment at his “unsteadfast footing,” then let his gaze
wander to the swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his
feet. A piece of dancing driftwood caught his attention and his eyes
followed it down the current. How slowly it appeared to move! What
a sluggish stream!
5 He closed his eyes in order to fix his last thoughts upon his
wife and children. The water, touched to gold by the early sun, the
brooding mists under the banks at some distance down the stream,
the fort, the soldiers, the piece of drift—all had distracted him. And
now he became conscious of a new disturbance. Striking through the
thought of his dear ones was a sound which he could neither ignore
nor understand, a sharp, distinct, metallic percussion like the stroke
of a blacksmith’s hammer upon the anvil; it had the same ringing
quality. He wondered what it was, and whether immeasurably
distant or near by—it seemed both. Its recurrence was regular, but
as slow as the tolling of a death knell. He awaited each stroke with
impatience and—he knew not why—apprehension. The intervals of
silence grew progressively longer; the delays became maddening.
With their greater infrequency the sounds increased in strength and
sharpness. They hurt his ear like the thrust of a knife; he feared he
would shriek. What he heard was the ticking of his watch.
6 He unclosed his eyes and saw again the water below him. “If
I could free my hands,” he thought, “I might throw off the noose
and spring into the stream. By diving I could evade the bullets and,
swimming vigorously, reach the bank, take to the woods and get
away home. My home, thank God, is as yet outside their lines; my
wife and little ones are still beyond the invader’s farthest advance.”
7 As these thoughts, which have here to be set down in words, were
flashed into the doomed man’s brain rather than evolved from it the
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captain nodded to the sergeant. The sergeant stepped aside.

II
8 Peyton Farquhar was a well-to-do planter, of an old and highly
respected Alabama family. Being a slave owner and like other
slave owners a politician he was naturally an original secessionist
and ardently devoted to the Southern cause. Circumstances of
an imperious nature, which it is unnecessary to relate here, had
prevented him from taking service with the gallant army that had
fought the disastrous campaigns ending with the fall of Corinth,2 and
he chafed under the inglorious restraint, longing for the release of his
energies, the larger life of the soldier, the opportunity for distinction.

2. Corinth Mississippi town that was the site of an 1862 Civil War battle.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 831

 That opportunity, he felt, would come, as it comes to all in war time.
NOTES Meanwhile he did what he could. No service was too humble for
him to perform in aid of the South, no adventure too perilous for
him to undertake if consistent with the character of a civilian who
Mark context clues or indicate
another strategy you used that was at heart a soldier, and who in good faith and without too much
helped you determine meaning. qualification assented to at least a part of the frankly villainous
dictum (DIHK tuhm) n. dictum that all is fair in love and war.
MEANING: 9 One evening while Farquhar and his wife were sitting on a rustic
bench near the entrance to his grounds, a gray-clad soldier rode up
to the gate and asked for a drink of water. Mrs. Farquhar was only
too happy to serve him with her own white hands. While she was
fetching the water her husband approached the dusty horseman and
inquired eagerly for news from the front.
10 “The Yanks are repairing the railroads,“ said the man, “and are
getting ready for another advance. They have reached the Owl
Creek bridge, put it in order and built a stockade on the north bank.
The commandant has issued an order, which is posted everywhere,
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declaring that any civilian caught interfering with the railroad, its
bridges, tunnels or trains will be summarily hanged. I saw the order.”
11 “How far is it to the Owl Creek bridge?” Farquhar asked.
12 “About thirty miles.”
13 “Is there no force on this side the creek?”
14 “Only a picket post3 half a mile out, on the railroad, and a single
sentinel at this end of the bridge.”
15 “Suppose a man—a civilian and student of hanging—should
elude the picket post and perhaps get the better of the sentinel,” said
Farquhar, smiling, “what could he accomplish?”
16 The soldier reflected. “I was there a month ago,” he replied. “I
observed that the flood of last winter had lodged a great quantity of

3. picket post troops sent ahead with news of a surprise attack.

832 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 driftwood against the wooden pier at this end of the bridge. It is now
dry and would burn like tow.”4 NOTES

17 The lady had now brought the water, which the soldier drank.
He thanked her ceremoniously, bowed to her husband and rode
away. An hour later, after nightfall, he repassed the plantation,
going northward in the direction from which he had come. He was a
Federal scout.

III
18 As Peyton Farquhar fell straight downward through the bridge he
lost consciousness and was as one already dead. From this state
he was awakened—ages later, it seemed to him—by the pain of a
sharp pressure upon his throat, followed by a sense of suffocation.
Keen, poignant agonies seemed to shoot from his neck downward
through every fiber of his body and limbs. These pains appeared
to flash along well-defined lines of ramification5 and to beat with
an inconceivably rapid periodicity. They seemed like streams of
pulsating fire heating him to an intolerable temperature. As to his
head, he was conscious of nothing but a feeling of fullness—of
congestion. These sensations were unaccompanied by thought. The
intellectual part of his nature was already effaced: he had power
only to feel, and feeling was torment. He was conscious of motion.
Encompassed in a luminous cloud, of which he was now merely
the fiery heart, without material substance, he swung through
unthinkable arcs of oscillation, like a vast pendulum. Then all at once,
with terrible suddenness, the light about him shot upward with the
noise of a loud plash; a frightful roaring was in his ears, and all was
cold and dark. The power of thought was restored; he knew that
the rope had broken and he had fallen into the stream. There was
no additional strangulation; the noose about his neck was already
suffocating him and kept the water from his lungs. To die of hanging
at the bottom of a river!—the idea seemed to him ludicrous. He
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opened his eyes in the darkness and saw above him a gleam of light,
but how distant, how inaccessible! He was still sinking, for the light
became fainter and fainter until it was a mere glimmer. Then it began
to grow and brighten, and he knew that he was rising toward the
surface—knew it with reluctance, for he was now very comfortable.
“To be hanged and drowned,” he thought, “that is not so bad; but I
do not wish to be shot. No; I will not be shot; that is not fair.”
19 He was not conscious of an effort, but a sharp pain in his wrist
apprised him that he was trying to free his hands. He gave the
struggle his attention, as an idler might observe the feat of a juggler,
without interest in the outcome. What splendid effort!— what
magnificent, what superhuman strength! Ah, that was a fine endeavor!
4. tow (toh) n. coarse, broken fibers of hemp or flax before spinning.
5. flash along well-defined lines of ramification spread out quickly along branches from
a central point.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 833

 Bravo! The cord fell away; his arms parted and floated upward, the
NOTES hands dimly seen on each side in the growing light. He watched them
with a new interest as first one and then the other pounced upon
the noose at his neck. They tore it away and thrust it fiercely aside,
its undulations resembling those of a water-snake. “Put it back, put
it back!” He thought he shouted these words to his hands, for the
undoing of the noose had been succeeded by the direst pang that he
had yet experienced. His neck ached horribly; his brain was on fire;
his heart, which had been fluttering faintly, gave a great leap, trying
to force itself out at his mouth. His whole body was racked and
wrenched with an insupportable anguish! But his disobedient hands
gave no heed to the command. They beat the water vigorously with
quick, downward strokes, forcing him to the surface. He felt his head
emerge: his eyes were blinded by the sunlight; his chest expanded
convulsively, and with a supreme and crowning agony his lungs
engulfed a great draft of air, which instantly he expelled in a shriek!
20 He was now in full possession of his physical senses. They were,
indeed, preternaturally6 keen and alert. Something in the awful
disturbance of his organic system had so exalted and refined them that
they made record of things never before perceived. He felt the ripples
upon his face and heard their separate sounds as they struck. He looked
at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual trees, the
leaves and the veining of each leaf—saw the very insects upon them: the
locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders stretching their webs
from twig to twig. He noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops
upon a million blades of grass. The humming of the gnats that danced
above the eddies of the stream, the beating of the dragonflies’ wings, the
strokes of the water spiders’ legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—
all these made audible music. A fish slid along beneath his eyes and he
heard the rush of its body parting the water.
21 He had come to the surface facing down the stream: in a moment
the visible world seemed to wheel slowly round, himself the
pivotal point, and he saw the bridge, the fort, the soldiers upon the

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bridge, the captain, the sergeant, the two privates, his executioners.
They were in silhouette against the blue sky. They shouted and
gesticulated, pointing at him. The captain had drawn his pistol,
but did not fire; the others were unarmed. Their movements were
grotesque and horrible, their forms gigantic.
22 Suddenly he heard a sharp report and something struck the water
smartly within a few inches of his head, spattering his face with
spray. He heard a second report, and saw one of the sentinels with
his rifle at his shoulder, a light cloud of blue smoke rising from the
muzzle. The man in the water saw the eye of the man on the bridge
gazing into his own through the sights of the rifle. He observed that
it was a gray eye and remembered having read that gray eyes were
keenest, and that all famous marksmen had them. Nevertheless, this
one had missed.

6. preternaturally (pree tuhr NACH uhr uh lee) adv. abnormally; extraordinarily.

834 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 23 A counterswirl had caught Farquhar and turned him half round;
he was again looking into the forest on the bank opposite the fort. NOTES

The sound of a clear, high voice in a monotonous singsong now

rang out behind him and came across the water with a distinctness
that pierced and subdued all other sounds, even the beating of the
ripples in his ears. Although no soldier, he had frequented camps
enough to know the dread significance of that deliberate, drawling,
aspirated chant; the lieutenant on shore was taking a part in the
morning’s work. How coldly and pitilessly—with what an even, calm
intonation, presaging,7 and enforcing tranquility in the men—with
what accurately measured intervals fell those cruel words:
24 “Attention, company! . . . Shoulder arms! . . . Ready! . . . Aim! . . .
Fire!”
25 Farquhar dived—dived as deeply as he could. The water roared
in his ears like the voice of Niagara, yet he heard the dulled thunder
of the volley and, rising again toward the surface, met shining bits of
metal, singularly flattened, oscillating slowly downward. Some of
them touched him on the face and hands, then fell away, continuing
their descent. One lodged between his collar and neck; it was
uncomfortably warm and he snatched it out.
26 As he rose to the surface, gasping for breath, he saw that
he had been a long time under water; he was perceptibly farther
down stream—nearer to safety. The soldiers had almost finished
reloading; the metal ramrods flashed all at once in the sunshine
as they were drawn from the barrels, turned in the air, and thrust

7. presaging (prih SAY jihng) v. predicting; warning.

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An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 835

 into their sockets. The two sentinels fired again, independently and
NOTES ineffectually.
27 The hunted man saw all this over his shoulder; he was now
swimming vigorously with the current. His brain was as energetic as
his arms and legs: he thought with the rapidity of lightning.
28 “The officer,” he reasoned, “will not make that martinet’s8 error a
second time. It is as easy to dodge a volley as a single shot. He has
probably already given the command to fire at will. God help me,
I cannot dodge them all!”
29 An appalling plash within two yards of him was followed by
a loud, rushing sound, diminuendo,9 which seemed to travel back
through the air to the fort and died in an explosion which stirred the
very river to its deeps! A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell
down upon him, blinded him, strangled him! The cannon had taken
a hand in the game. As he shook his head free from the commotion
of the smitten water he heard the deflected shot humming through
the air ahead, and in an instant it was cracking and smashing the
branches in the forest beyond.
30 “They will not do that again,” he thought; “the next time they will
use a charge of grape.10 I must keep my eye upon the gun; the smoke
will apprise me—the report arrives too late; it lags behind the missile.
That is a good gun.”
31 Suddenly he felt himself whirled round and round—spinning
like a top. The water, the banks, the forests, the now distant bridge,
fort and men—all were commingled and blurred. Objects were
represented by their colors only; circular horizontal streaks of color—
that was all he saw. He had been caught in a vortex and was being
whirled on with a velocity of advance and gyration that made him
giddy and sick. In a few moments he was flung upon the gravel at the
foot of the left bank of the stream—the southern bank—and behind a
projecting point which concealed him from his enemies. The sudden
arrest of his motion, the abrasion of one of his hands on the gravel,
restored him, and he wept with delight. He dug his fingers into the

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sand, threw it over himself in handfuls and audibly blessed it. It
looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing
beautiful which it did not resemble. The trees upon the bank were
giant garden plants; he noted a definite order in their arrangement,
inhaled the fragrance of their blooms. A strange, roseate11 light shone
through the spaces among their trunks and the wind made in their
branches the music of aeolian harps.12 He had no wish to perfect his
escape—was content to remain in that enchanting spot until retaken.

8. martinet (mahr tuh NEHT) n. strict military disciplinarian.

9. diminuendo (duh mihn yoo EHN doh) musical term used to describe a gradual
reduction in volume.
10. charge of grape cluster of small iron balls—“grape shot”—that disperse once fired
from a cannon.
11. roseate (ROH zee iht) adj. rose-colored.
12. aeolian (ee OH lee uhn) harps stringed instruments that produce music when played by
the wind. In Greek mythology, Aeolus is the god of the winds.

836 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 32 A whiz and rattle of grapeshot among the branches high above his
head roused him from his dream. The baffled cannoneer had fired NOTES

him a random farewell. He sprang to his feet, rushed up the sloping

bank, and plunged into the forest.
33 All that day he traveled, laying his course by the rounding sun.
The forest seemed interminable; nowhere did he discover a break in
it, not even a woodman’s road. He had not known that he lived in so
wild a region. There was something uncanny in the revelation.
34 By night fall he was fatigued, footsore, famishing. The thought of
his wife and children urged him on. At last he found a road which
led him in what he knew to be the right direction. It was as wide and
straight as a city street, yet it seemed untraveled. No fields bordered
it, no dwelling anywhere. Not so much as the barking of a dog
suggested human habitation. The black bodies of the trees formed
a straight wall on both sides, terminating on the horizon in a point,
like a diagram in a lesson in perspective. Overhead, as he looked
up through this rift in the wood, shone great golden stars looking
unfamiliar and grouped in strange constellations. He was sure
they were arranged in some order which had a secret and malign
significance. The wood on either side was full of singular noises,
among which—once, twice, and again, he distinctly heard whispers
in an unknown tongue.
35 His neck was in pain and lifting his hand to it he found it horribly
swollen. He knew that it had a circle of black where the rope had
bruised it. His eyes felt congested: he could no longer close them. His
tongue was swollen with thirst; he relieved its fever by thrusting it
forward from between his teeth into the cold air. How softly the turf
had carpeted the untraveled avenue—he could no longer feel the
roadway beneath his feet!
36 Doubtless, despite his suffering, he had fallen asleep while
walking, for now he sees another scene—perhaps he has merely
recovered from a delirium. He stands at the gate of his own home. All
is as he left it, and all bright and beautiful in the morning sunshine.
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He must have traveled the entire night. As he pushes open the

gate and passes up the wide white walk, he sees a flutter of female
garments; his wife, looking fresh and cool and sweet, steps down
from the veranda to meet him. At the bottom of the steps she stands
waiting, with a smile of ineffable joy, an attitude of matchless grace
and dignity. Ah, how beautiful she is! He springs forward with
extended arms. As he is about to clasp her he feels a stunning blow
upon the back of the neck; a blinding white light blazes all about him
with a sound like the shock of a cannon—then all is darkness and
silence!
37 Peyton Farquhar was dead; his body, with a broken neck, swung
gently from side to side beneath the timbers of the Owl Creek
bridge. ❧

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 837

Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read. Review and clarify
details with your group.

1. As the story begins, what event is about to take place on the bridge?

2. In the war that divides the nation, which side does Farquhar support?

3. Why has Farquhar been sentenced to die?

4. What surprising event happens after Farquhar first loses consciousness?

5. How do the soldiers try to stop Farquhar after he drops into the water?

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6. Notebook Confirm your understanding of the story by writing a summary.

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the story. Briefly
research that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an
aspect of the story?

Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the story you find interesting.
For example, you may want to learn about the Battle of Shiloh, which took place in part
along Owl Creek.

838 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 MAKING MEANING

Close Read the Text

With your group, revisit sections of the text you marked
during your first read. Annotate details that you notice.
What questions do you have? What can you conclude?
AN OCCURRENCE AT
OWL CREEK BRIDGE
Cite textual evidence
Analyze the Text to support your answers.

Complete the activities.

1. Review and Clarify With your group, reread paragraphs 36–37 of the
selection. Do the details in the story prepare readers for that ending, or
does it come as a complete surprise? What does the ending suggest about
the nature of reality?
2. Present and Discuss Now, work with your group to share the passages
from the text that you found especially important. Take turns presenting
your passages. Discuss what you noticed in the selection, what questions
you asked, and what conclusions you reached.
3. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
condition? What has this narrative taught you about the human
condition? Discuss with your group.

language development

Concept Vocabulary
etiquette    deference    dictum  WORD NETWORK
Add words related to the
Why These Words? The concept vocabulary words from the text are human condition from the
related. With your group, determine what the words have in common. Write text to your Word Network.
your ideas, and add another word that fits the category.
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Practice
Notebook Confirm your understanding of these words from the text by
using them in a short narrative paragraph. Then, trade papers with another
group member and challenge him or her to underline the context clues that
reveal the meaning of each word.

Word Study  STANDARDS

Latin Suffix: -um In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” the author Language
• Determine or clarify the meaning
uses the word dictum, which is the singular form of the Latin noun dicta. of unknown and multiple-meaning
The Latin suffix -um is used to form the singular of many Latin nouns, words and phrases based on grades
including bacteria, curricula, and media. Use a dictionary or online source to 11–12 reading and content, choosing
find three other words that feature this suffix. Record the words and their flexibly from a range of strategies.
• Identify and correctly use
meanings. patterns of word changes that
indicate different meanings or
parts of speech.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 839

 MAKING MEANING

Analyze Craft and Structure

Author’s Choices: Structure Ambrose Bierce chose to structure this story
in three sections, each representing a shift in time and perspective. The shift
in perspective is amplified by Bierce’s choice of point of view, which affects
every aspect of the story. Different points of view convey different types of
AN OCCURRENCE AT
OWL CREEK BRIDGE information to the reader.
• In stories told from an omnisicient third-person point of view, the
narrator is an observer who can describe everything that happens, as
well as the private thoughts and feelings of all the characters.

• In stories told from a limited third-person point of view, readers’

information is limited to what a single character feels, thinks, and
observes.

The point of view in this story shifts. As it shifts, so do the emotional tone
and sense of time. To emphasize this change, Bierce introduces yet another
narrative approach. He uses stream of consciousness, a technique in which
a character’s thoughts are presented as the mind experiences them—in short
bursts without obvious logic.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

COLLABORATION
Practice to support your answers.
You may want to have
individual group members Notebook Complete the activity and questions.
complete the activity and 1. Working with your group, reread the story to find examples of the two
questions first, and then different points of view Bierce uses. Then, use a chart like this one to
work as a group to share and analyze the effect of these choices.
agree on responses.
THIRD-PERSON POINT OF VIEW

Limited or Omniscient? Effect

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2. (a) What do you learn in Section II about the main character’s home
life, political loyalties, and motivations? (b) How does this detailed
information shed light on the scene described in Section I?
3. (a) What point of view does Bierce use in Section III? (b) Explain why
this choice of point of view is essential to the story’s overall impact.
(c) What is the effect of the shift in point of view in the last paragraph
of the story?
 Standards
Reading Literature 4. (a) Which details in the second paragraph of Section III are revealed
Analyze how an author’s choices through the use of stream of consciousness? (b) What is the “sharp
concerning how to structure specific
pain” that sparks Farquhar’s thoughts? (c) In what way does this
parts of a text contribute to its
overall structure and meaning as well passage mimic the natural, jumbled flow of thought?
as its aesthetic impact.

840 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Language development

Conventions and Style

Varying Syntax for Effect Writers often vary their syntax, or the
structures of their sentences, to achieve particular effects. In doing so,
they may even choose to deviate from the conventions of standard English
grammar. Ambrose Bierce, for example, employs a device known as
asyndeton—the omission of a coordinating conjunction, such as and or or,
where one would normally appear—to reinforce the stream-of-consciousness
feel of Section III of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
Consider this excerpt from the story:


He looked at the forest on the bank of the stream, saw the individual
trees, the leaves and the veining of each leaf—saw the very insects
upon them: the locusts, the brilliant-bodied flies, the gray spiders
stretching their webs from twig to twig. (paragraph 20)

Typically, the coordinating conjunction and would precede the underlined

word. Bierce’s choice to employ asyndeton, however, speeds up the rhythm
of the passage. The reader gets the sense that the narrator is listing each
creature just as it catches Farquhar’s eye—that the reader is experiencing
Farquhar’s world at the very moment that he is.

Read It
1. Work individually. Read these examples of Bierce’s use of asyndeton in
“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” In each sentence, mark where Bierce
has chosen to omit a coordinating conjunction.

a. The humming of the gnats that danced above the eddies of the stream,
the beating of the dragonflies’ wings, the strokes of the water spiders’
legs, like oars which had lifted their boat—all these made audible
music.
b. A rising sheet of water curved over him, fell down upon him, blinded
him, strangled him!
c. It looked like diamonds, rubies, emeralds; he could think of nothing
beautiful which it did not resemble.
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d. The trees upon the bank were giant garden plants; he noted a definite
order in their arrangement, inhaled the fragrance of their blooms.

2. Connect to Style Reread paragraph 21 of “An Occurrence at Owl

Creek Bridge,” and identify the sentence in which Bierce employs asyndeton.
Then, discuss with your group how the syntax of this sentence contributes to
Bierce’s stream-of-consciousness narration.

 STANDARDS
Write It Language
Notebook Write a one-paragraph stream-of-consciousness narrative. • Apply the understanding that
usage is a matter of convention, can
Use asyndeton in at least one of your sentences. Indicate where you have change over time, and is sometimes
omitted any coordinating conjunctions. contested.
• Vary syntax for effect, consulting
references for guidance as needed;
apply an understanding of syntax
to the study of complex texts when
reading.

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge 841

 MAKING MEANING

Comparing Texts
You will now read “The Jilting of Granny
Weatherall.” First, complete the first-read and
close-read activities. Then, compare the narrative
AN OCCURRENCE AT OWL THE JILTING OF GRANNY
CREEK BRIDGE
structures in “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” WEATHERALL
and “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”

About the Author

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall
Concept Vocabulary
As you perform your first read of “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” you will
encounter these words.

clammy   hypodermic   dyspepsia
The life of Katherine Anne
Porter (1890–1980) spanned Familiar Word Parts Separating an unfamiliar word into its parts—roots,
World War I, the Great prefixes, or suffixes—can often help you determine its meaning.
Depression, World War II,
and the rise of the nuclear Example: The root -circ- means “ring” or “circle.” Thus, something that
age. For Porter, her fiction is circular has a ringlike shape, and something that circulates moves in a
was an “effort to grasp the ringlike path. When you come across an unfamiliar word that contains the
meaning of those threats, root -circ-, such as circuitous, you know that it has properties that relate
to trace them to their to a circle. Even if you cannot identify a word’s exact definition, you can
sources, and to understand
approximate the meaning well enough to keep reading. Circuitous is an
the logic of this majestic
adjective that means “roundabout; indirect.”
and terrible failure of the
life of man in the Western
Apply your knowledge of familiar word parts and other vocabulary strategies
world.” Her stories often
feature characters at pivotal
to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words you encounter during your
moments, who face dramatic first read.
change, the constricting
bonds of family, and the
First Read FICTION
weight of the past.
Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete a close read after your first read.
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NOTICE whom the story is ANNOTATE by marking

about, what happens, where vocabulary and key passages
and when it happens, and you want to revisit
 STANDARDS
why those involved react as
Reading Literature they do.
By the end of grade 11, read and
literature, including stories, dramas,
and poems, nonfiction in the grades
11–CCR text complexity band CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing
proficiently, with scaffolding as the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
needed at the high end of the range.
already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
Language
have already read. the selection.
Identify and correctly use patterns of
word changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech.

842 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 SHORT STORY

The Jilting of
Granny Weatherall
Katherine Anne Porter

BACKGROUND
Katherine Anne Porter’s view of life and the fiction she wrote were shaped
by a sense of disillusionment resulting from World War I, the despair of
the Great Depression, and the World War II horrors of Nazism and nuclear
warfare. Sometimes, as in the novel Ship of Fools, Porter focuses on
political issues such as Nazism. In contrast, works such as “The Jilting of
Granny Weatherall” pinpoint the dissolving families and communities of the
modern age.
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S he flicked her wrist neatly out of Doctor Harry’s pudgy careful

fingers and pulled the sheet up to her chin. The brat ought to
be in knee breeches. Doctoring around the country with spectacles
NOTES

on his nose! “Get along now, take your schoolbooks and go. There’s
nothing wrong with me.”
2 Doctor Harry spread a warm paw like a cushion on her forehead
where the forked green vein danced and made her eyelids twitch.
“Now, now, be a good girl, and we’ll have you up in no time.”
3 “That’s no way to speak to a woman nearly eighty years old just
because she’s down. I’d have you respect your elders, young man.”
4 “Well, Missy, excuse me,” Doctor Harry patted her cheek. “But I’ve
got to warn you, haven’t I? You’re a marvel, but you must be careful
or you’re going to be good and sorry.”

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 843

 5 “Don’t tell me what I’m going to be. I’m on my feet now, morally
NOTES speaking. It’s Cornelia. I had to go to bed to get rid of her.”
6 Her bones felt loose, and floated around in her skin, and Doctor
Harry floated like a balloon around the foot of the bed. He floated
and pulled down his waistcoat and swung his glasses on a cord.
“Well, stay where you are, it certainly can’t hurt you.”
7 “Get along and doctor your sick,” said Granny Weatherall. “Leave
a well woman alone. I’ll call for you when I want you . . . Where
were you forty years ago when I pulled through milk leg1 and double
pneumonia? You weren’t even born. Don’t let Cornelia lead you on,”
she shouted, because Doctor Harry appeared to float up to the ceiling
and out. “I pay my own bills, and I don’t throw my money away
on nonsense!”
8 She meant to wave good-bye, but it was too much trouble. Her
eyes closed of themselves, it was like a dark curtain drawn around
the bed. The pillow rose and floated under her, pleasant as a
hammock in a light wind. She listened to the leaves rustling outside
the window. No, somebody was swishing newspapers: no, Cornelia
and Doctor Harry were whispering together. She leaped broad
awake, thinking they whispered in her ear.
9 “She was never like this, never like this!” “Well, what can we
expect?” “Yes, eighty years old. . . .”
10 Well, and what if she was? She still had ears. It was like Cornelia to
whisper around doors. She always kept things secret in such a public
way. She was always being tactful and kind. Cornelia was dutiful;
that was the trouble with her. Dutiful and good: “So good and
dutiful,” said Granny, “that I’d like to spank her.” She saw herself
spanking Cornelia and making a fine job of it.
11 “What’d you say, Mother?”
12 Granny felt her face tying up in hard knots.
13 “Can’t a body think, I’d like to know?“
14 “I thought you might want something.”
15 “I do. I want a lot of things. First off, go away and don’t whisper.”

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16 She lay and drowsed, hoping in her sleep that the children would
keep out and let her rest a minute. It had been a long day. Not that
she was tired. It was always pleasant to snatch a minute now and
then. There was always so much to be done, let me see: tomorrow.
17 Tomorrow was far away and there was nothing to trouble about.
Things were finished somehow when the time came; thank God
there was always a little margin over for peace: then a person could
spread out the plan of life and tuck in the edges orderly. It was good
to have everything clean and folded away, with the hair brushes
and tonic bottles sitting straight on the white embroidered linen: the
day started without fuss and the pantry shelves laid out with rows
of jelly glasses and brown jugs and white stone-china jars with blue
whirligigs and words painted on them: coffee, tea, sugar, ginger,

1. milk leg painful swelling of the leg.

844 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 cinnamon, allspice: and the bronze clock with the lion on top nicely
dusted off. The dust that lion could collect in twenty-four hours! The NOTES

box in the attic with all those letters tied up, well, she’d have to go
through that tomorrow. All those letters—George’s letters and John’s
letters and her letters to them both—lying around for the children
to find afterwards made her uneasy. Yes, that would be tomorrow’s Mark familiar word parts or
indicate another strategy you
business. No use to let them know how silly she had been once. used that helped you determine
18 While she was rummaging around she found death in her mind meaning.
and it felt clammy and unfamiliar. She had spent so much time clammy (KLAM ee) adj.
preparing for death there was no need for bringing it up again. Let MEANING:

it take care of itself now. When she was sixty she had felt very old,
finished, and went around making farewell trips to see her children
and grandchildren, with a secret in her mind: This is the very last of
your mother, children! Then she made her will and came down with
a long fever. That was all just a notion like a lot of other things, but it
was lucky too, for she had once for all got over the idea of dying for
a long time. Now she couldn’t be worried. She hoped she had better
sense now. Her father had lived to be one hundred and two years old
and had drunk a noggin of strong hot toddy on his last birthday. He
told the reporters it was his daily habit, and he owed his long life to
that. He had made quite a scandal and was very pleased about it. She
believed she’d just plague Cornelia a little.
19 “Cornelia! Cornelia!“ No footsteps, but a sudden hand on her
cheek. “Bless you, where have you been?”
20 “Here, mother.“
21 “Well, Cornelia, I want a noggin of hot toddy.”
22 “Are you cold, darling?”
23 “I’m chilly, Cornelia. Lying in bed stops the circulation. I must
have told you that a thousand times.”
24 Well, she could just hear Cornelia telling her husband that Mother
was getting a little childish and they’d have to humor her. The thing
that most annoyed her was that Cornelia thought she was deaf,
dumb, and blind. Little hasty glances and tiny gestures tossed around
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her and over her head saying, “Don’t cross her, let her have her way,
she’s eighty years old,” and she sitting there as if she lived in a thin
glass cage. Sometimes Granny almost made up her mind to pack up
and move back to her own house where nobody could remind her
every minute that she was old. Wait, wait, Cornelia, till your own
children whisper behind your back!
25 In her day she had kept a better house and had got more work
done. She wasn’t too old yet for Lydia to be driving eighty miles for
advice when one of the children jumped the track, and Jimmy still
dropped in and talked things over: “Now, Mammy, you’ve a good
business head, I want to know what you think of this? . . .” Old.
Cornelia couldn’t change the furniture around without asking. Little
things, little things! They had been so sweet when they were little.
Granny wished the old days were back again with the children young
and everything to be done over. It had been a hard pull, but not too

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 845

 much for her. When she thought of all the food she had cooked, and
NOTES all the clothes she had cut and sewed, and all the gardens she had
made—well, the children showed it. There they were, made out of
her, and they couldn’t get away from that. Sometimes she wanted to
see John again and point to them and say, Well, I didn’t do so badly,
did I? But that would have to wait. That was for tomorrow. She used
to think of him as a man, but now all the children were older than
their father, and he would be a child beside her if she saw him now.
It seemed strange and there was something wrong in the idea. Why,
he couldn’t possibly recognize her. She had fenced in a hundred acres
once, digging the post holes herself and clamping the wires with just
a negro boy to help. That changed a woman. John would be looking
for a young woman with the peaked Spanish comb in her hair
and the painted fan. Digging post holes changed a woman. Riding
country roads in the winter when women had their babies was
another thing: sitting up nights with sick horses and sick children
and hardly ever losing one. John, I hardly ever lost one of them!
John would see that in a minute, that would be something he could
understand, she wouldn’t have to explain anything!
26 It made her feel like rolling up her sleeves and putting the whole
place to rights again. No matter if Cornelia was determined to be
everywhere at once, there were a great many things left undone on
this place. She would start tomorrow and do them. It was good to
be strong enough for everything, even if all you made melted and
changed and slipped under your hands, so that by the time you
finished you almost forgot what you were working for. What was it I
set out to do? she asked herself intently, but she could not remember.
A fog rose over the valley, she saw it marching across the creek
swallowing the trees and moving up the hill like an army of ghosts.
Soon it would be at the near edge of the orchard, and then it was time
to go in and light the lamps. Come in, children, don’t stay out in the
night air.
27 Lighting the lamps had been beautiful. The children huddled up to

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her and breathed like little calves waiting at the bars in the twilight.
Their eyes followed the match and watched the flame rise and settle
in a blue curve, then they moved away from her. The lamp was
lit, they didn’t have to be scared and hang on to mother any more.
Never, never, never more. God, for all my life I thank Thee. Without
Thee, my God, I could never have done it. Hail Mary, full of grace.
28 I want you to pick all the fruit this year and see that nothing is
wasted. There’s always someone who can use it. Don’t let good
things rot for want of using. You waste life when you waste good
food. Don’t let things get lost. It’s bitter to lose things. Now, don’t
let me get to thinking, not when I am tired and taking a little nap
before supper. . . .
29 The pillow rose about her shoulders and pressed against her heart
and the memory was being squeezed out of it: oh, push down the
pillow, somebody: it would smother her if she tried to hold it. Such a

846 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 fresh breeze blowing and such a green day with no threats in it. But
he had not come, just the same. What does a woman do when she NOTES

has put on the white veil and set out the white cake for a man and he
doesn’t come? She tried to remember. No, I swear he never harmed
me but in that. He never harmed me but in that . . . and what if he
did? There was the day, the day, but a whirl of dark smoke rose and
covered it, crept up and over into the bright field where everything
was planted so carefully in orderly rows. That was hell, she knew hell
when she saw it. For sixty years she had prayed against remembering
him and against losing her soul in the deep pit of hell, and now the
two things were mingled in one and the thought of him was a smoky
cloud from hell that moved and crept in her head when she had just
got rid of Doctor Harry and was trying to rest a minute. Wounded
vanity, Ellen, said a sharp voice in the top of her mind. Don’t let
your wounded vanity get the upper hand of you. Plenty of girls get
jilted. You were jilted, weren’t you? Then stand up to it. Her eyelids
wavered and let in streamers of blue-gray light like tissue paper over
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The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 847

 her eyes. She must get up and pull the shades down or she’d never
NOTES sleep. She was in bed again and the shades were not down. How
could that happen? Better turn over, hide from the light, sleeping in
the light gave you nightmares. “Mother, how do you feel now?” and
a stinging wetness on her forehead. But I don’t like having my face
washed in cold water!
30 Hapsy? George? Lydia? Jimmy? No, Cornelia, and her features
were swollen and full of little puddles. “They’re coming, darling,
they’ll all be here soon.” Go wash your face, child, you look funny.
31 Instead of obeying, Cornelia knelt down and put her head on
the pillow. She seemed to be talking but there was no sound. “Well,
are you tongue-tied? Whose birthday is it? Are you going to give
a party?”
32 Cornelia’s mouth moved urgently in strange shapes. “Don’t do
that, you bother me, daughter.”
33 “Oh, no, Mother. Oh, no. . . .”
34 Nonsense. It was strange about children. They disputed your every
word. “No what, Cornelia?”
35 “Here’s Doctor Harry.”
36 “I won’t see that boy again. He just left five minutes ago.”
37 ”That was this morning, Mother. It’s night now. Here’s the nurse.”
38 “This is Doctor Harry, Mrs. Weatherall. I never saw you look so
young and happy!”
39 “Ah, I’ll never be young again—but I’d be happy if they’d let me
lie in peace and get rested.”
40 She thought she spoke up loudly, but no one answered. A warm
weight on her forehead, a warm bracelet on her wrist, and a breeze
Mark familiar word parts or went on whispering, trying to tell her something. A shuffle of leaves
indicate another strategy you
used that helped you determine in the everlasting hand of God, He blew on them and they danced
meaning. and rattled. “Mother, don’t mind, we’re going to give you a little
hypodermic (hy puh DUR hypodermic.” “Look here, daughter, how do ants get in this bed? I
mihk) n. saw sugar ants yesterday.” Did you send for Hapsy too?
MEANING: 41 It was Hapsy she really wanted. She had to go a long way back

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through a great many rooms to find Hapsy standing with a baby on
her arm. She seemed to herself to be Hapsy also, and the baby on
Hapsy’s arm was Hapsy and himself and herself, all at once, and
there was no surprise in the meeting. Then Hapsy melted from within
and turned flimsy as gray gauze and the baby was a gauzy shadow,
and Hapsy came up close and said, “I thought you’d never come,”
and looked at her very searchingly and said, “You haven’t changed a
bit!” They leaned forward to kiss, when Cornelia began whispering
from a long way off, “Oh, is there anything you want to tell me? Is
there anything I can do for you?”
42 Yes, she had changed her mind after sixty years and she would like
to see George. I want you to find George. Find him and be sure to tell
him I forgot him. I want him to know I had my husband just the same
and my children and my house like any other woman. A good house
too and a good husband that I loved and fine children out of him.

848 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Better than l hoped for even. Tell him I was given back everything
he took away and more. Oh, no, oh, God, no, there was something NOTES

else besides the house and the man and the children. Oh, surely they
were not all? What was it? Something not given back. . . . Her breath
crowded down under her ribs and grew into a monstrous frightening
shape with cutting edges; it bored up into her head, and the agony
was unbelievable: Yes, John, get the Doctor now, no more talk, my
time has come.
43 When this one was born it should be the last. The last. It should
have been born first, for it was the one she had truly wanted.
Everything came in good time. Nothing left out, left over. She was
strong, in three days she would be as well as ever. Better. A woman
needed milk in her to have her full health.
44 “Mother, do you hear me?”
45 ”I’ve been telling you—”
46 ”Mother, Father Connolly’s here.”
47 “I went to Holy Communion only last week. Tell him I’m not so
sinful as all that.”
48 “Father just wants to speak to you.”
49 He could speak as much as he pleased. It was like him to drop
in and inquire about her soul as if it were a teething baby, and then
stay on for a cup of tea and a round of cards and gossip. He always
had a funny story of some sort, usually about an Irishman who
made his little mistakes and confessed them, and the point lay in
some absurd thing he would blurt out in the confessional showing
his struggles between native piety and original sin. Granny felt easy
about her soul. Cornelia, where are your manners? Give Father
Connolly a chair. She had her secret comfortable understanding with
a few favorite saints who cleared a straight road to God for her. All
as surely signed and sealed as the papers for the new Forty Acres.
Forever . . . heirs and assigns2 forever. Since the day the wedding cake
was not cut, but thrown out and wasted. The whole bottom dropped
out of the world, and there she was blind and sweating with nothing
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under her feet and the walls falling away. His hand had caught her
under the breast, she had not fallen, there was the freshly polished
floor with the green rug on it, just as before. He had cursed like a
sailor’s parrot and said, “I’ll kill him for you.” Don’t lay a hand on
him, for my sake leave something to God. “Now, Ellen, you must
believe what I tell you. . . .”
50 So there was nothing, nothing to worry about any more, except
sometimes in the night one of the children screamed in a nightmare,
and they both hustled out shaking and hunting for the matches and
calling, “There, wait a minute, here we are!” John, get the doctor now,
Hapsy’s time has come. But there was Hapsy standing by the bed
in a white cap. “Cornelia, tell Hapsy to take off her cap. I can’t see
her plain.”

2. assigns n. people to whom property is transferred.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 849

 51 Her eyes opened very wide and the room stood out like a picture
NOTES she had seen somewhere. Dark colors with the shadows rising
towards the ceiling in long angles. The tall black dresser gleamed
with nothing on it but John’s picture, enlarged from a little one, with
John’s eyes very black when they should have been blue. You never
saw him, so how do you know how he looked? But the man insisted
the copy was perfect, it was very rich and handsome. For a picture,
yes, but it’s not my husband. The table by the bed had a linen cover
and a candle and a crucifix. The light was blue from Cornelia’s silk
lampshades. No sort of light at all, just frippery. You had to live
forty years with kerosene lamps to appreciate honest electricity.
She felt very strong and she saw Doctor Harry with a rosy nimbus
around him.
52 “You look like a saint, Doctor Harry, and I vow that’s as near as
you’ll ever come to it.”
53 ”She’s saying something.”
54 “I heard you, Cornelia. What’s all this carrying on?“
55 “Father Connolly’s saying—”
56 Cornelia’s voice staggered and bumped like a cart in a bad road.
It rounded corners and turned back again and arrived nowhere.
Granny stepped up in the cart very lightly and reached for the reins,
but a man sat beside her and she knew him by his hands, driving

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850 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 the cart. She did not look in his face, for she knew without seeing,
but looked instead down the road where the trees leaned over and NOTES

bowed to each other and a thousand birds were singing a Mass. She
felt like singing too, but she put her hand in the bosom of her dress
and pulled out a rosary, and Father Connolly murmured Latin in
a very solemn voice and tickled her feet.3 My God, will you stop
that nonsense? I’m a married woman. What if he did run away and
leave me to face the priest by myself? I found another a whole world
better. I wouldn’t have exchanged my husband for anybody except
St. Michael4 himself, and you may tell him that for me with a thank
you in the bargain.
57 Light flashed on her closed eyelids, and a deep roaring shook
her. Cornelia, is that lightning? I hear thunder. There’s going to be a
storm. Close all the windows. Call the children in. . . . “Mother, here
we are, all of us.” “Is that you, Hapsy?“ “Oh, no. I’m Lydia. We drove
as fast as we could.” Their faces drifted above her, drifted away. The
rosary fell out of her hands and Lydia put it back. Jimmy tried to
help, their hands fumbled together, and Granny closed two fingers
around Jimmy’s thumb. Beads wouldn’t do, it must be something
alive. She was so amazed her thoughts ran round and round. So,
my dear Lord, this is my death and I wasn’t even thinking about it.
My children have come to see me die. But I can’t, it’s not time. Oh,
I always hated surprises. I wanted to give Cornelia the amethyst
set—Cornelia, you’re to have the amethyst set, but Hapsy’s to wear
it when she wants, and, Doctor Harry, do shut up. Nobody sent for
you. Oh, my dear Lord, do wait a minute. I meant to do something Mark familiar word parts or
indicate another strategy you
about the Forty Acres, Jimmy doesn’t need it and Lydia will later on, used that helped you determine
with that worthless husband of hers. I meant to finish the altar cloth meaning.
and send six bottles of wine to Sister Borgia for her dyspepsia. I want dyspepsia (dihs PEHP
to send six bottles of wine to Sister Borgia, Father Connolly, now see uh) n.
don’t let me forget. MEANING:

58 Cornelia’s voice made short turns and tilted over and crashed.
“Oh, Mother, oh, Mother, oh Mother. . . .”
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59 “I’m not going, Cornelia. I’m taken by surprise. I can’t go.”

60 You’ll see Hapsy again. What about her? “I thought you’d never
come.“ Granny made a long journey outward, looking for Hapsy.
What if I don’t find her? What then? Her heart sank down and down,
there was no bottom to death, she couldn’t come to the end of it.
The blue light from Cornelia’s lampshade drew into a tiny point in
the center of her brain, it flickered and winked like an eye, quietly
it fluttered and dwindled. Granny lay curled down within herself,
amazed and watchful, staring at the point of light that was herself;
her body was now only a deeper mass of shadow in an endless
darkness and this darkness would curl around the light and swallow
it up. God, give a sign!

3. murmured . . . feet administered the last rites of the Catholic Church.

4. St. Michael one of the archangels.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 851

 61 For the second time there was no sign. Again no bridegroom and
NOTES the priest in the house. She could not remember any other sorrow
because this grief wiped them all away. Oh, no, there’s nothing more
cruel than this—I’ll never forgive it. She stretched herself with a deep
breath and blew out the light. ❧

Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read. Review and clarify
details with your group.

1. Where is Granny Weatherall as she speaks to the doctor?

2. Who is taking care of Granny Weatherall as she is dying?

3. What journey did Granny Weatherall take when she was sixty years old?

4. What happened to Granny Weatherall sixty years earlier?

5. What does Granny Weatherall want George to know?

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6. Notebook Confirm your understanding of the text by writing a summary.

RESEARCH
Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly
research that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on an aspect
of the story?

Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting.
For example, you may want to learn about doctors’ house calls—why they once were a
widespread practice, why they are less common today, and whether they might again
become popular. Share your findings with your group.

852 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 MAKING MEANING

Close Read the Text

With your group, revisit sections of the text you marked
during your first read. Annotate details that you notice.
What questions do you have? What can you conclude?
THE JILTING OF
GRANNY WEATHERALL
Cite textual evidence
Analyze the Text to support your answers.

Complete the activities.

1. Review and Clarify With your group, reread the sections of the story
GROUP DISCUSSION
that describe Hapsy (paragraphs 41, 50, and 57–60). Discuss her role
in Granny Weatherall’s thoughts. Why do you think Hapsy is such an Granny Weatherall’s jumbled
thoughts concern the past
important figure for Granny Weatherall?
and the present. As you
2. Present and Discuss Now, work with your group to share the discuss the story, cite textual
passages from the selection that you found especially important. Take evidence to support your
turns presenting your passages. Discuss what you noticed in the story, interpretation of when the
what questions you asked, and what conclusions you reached. events are taking place.
3. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
condition? What has this story taught you about life and loss? Discuss
with your group.

language development

Concept Vocabulary
hypodermic   clammy   dyspepsia

Why These Words? The three concept vocabulary words from the text are  WORD NETWORK
related. With your group, determine what the words have in common. Write
Add words related to the
your ideas, and add another word that fits the category.
human condition from the
text to your Word Network.
Practice
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Confirm your understanding of the concept vocabulary words by using them

in a short conversation with your group members. If you are unsure about
the exact meaning of a word, look it up in a print or online college-level
dictionary before you begin.

Word Study
Greek Prefix: dys- In “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall,” Granny
Weatherall thinks about Sister Borgia’s dyspepsia. This word includes the
Greek prefix dys-, meaning “bad” or “difficult.” This prefix often appears in
scientific terms involving medical or psychological diagnoses. Use a dictionary
or online resource to identify three other words that have this prefix. Write
the words and their meanings. Explain how the meaning of the prefix  Standards
contributes to the meaning of each word. Language
Identify and correctly use patterns of
word changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 853

 MAKING MEANING

Analyze Craft and Structure

Author’s Choices: Narrative Structure People’s thoughts do not flow
in neat patterns. Instead, they move unpredictably among perceptions,
memories, and ideas. During the early 1900s, some writers began using a
literary device called stream of consciousness to try to re-create a sense of
THE JILTING OF
GRANNY WEATHERALL the disjointed, natural flow of thought. Stream-of-consciousness narratives
feature the following qualities:
• They present sequences of thought as if they were coming directly from
a character’s mind. The thoughts may or may not be complete or relate
to one another.
• They tend to omit punctuation and transitions that appear in more
traditional prose.
Stream-of-consciousness narratives often involve the use of flashback, a
scene from the past that interrupts the present action of a story. A flashback
may take the form of a memory, a story, a dream or daydream, or a switch
by the narrator to a time in the past. Stream-of-consciousness stories may
also involve shifts in the narrative point of view, or the perspective from
which events are told. In this story, Porter’s third-person narrator essentially
disappears into Granny Weatherall’s first-person narration.

Practice
Notebook Work with your group to answer the questions.
1. Use the chart to identify two points at which Granny’s thoughts shift
from one subject to another without an obvious transition. What
associations might connect her thoughts in each of these examples?

THOUGHT OR NEXT THOUGHT

TRIGGERING DETAIL
MEMORY OR MEMORY

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2. (a) What details trigger Granny’s flashback to lighting the lamps

when the children were young? (b) What is the connection
between the flashback and her experience in the present?
3. Analyze two other flashbacks in the story. (a) Identify the form
the flashback takes (i.e., dream, memory, etc.). (b) Explain what
you learn from each flashback about Granny’s life.
 Standards 4. (a) What qualities does the use of stream-of-consciousness
Reading Literature
Analyze how an author’s choices
narration, flashback, and shifting narrative point of view lend to
concerning how to structure specific the story? (b) Overall, do you think these techniques are effective
parts of a text contribute to its for the telling of this particular tale? Explain.
overall structure and meaning as well
as its aesthetic impact.

854 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Language development

Author’s Style
Author’s Choices: Figurative Language Literary works almost
always contain two broad types of language—literal and figurative. Literal
language means what it says, conveying information, ideas, and feelings in
a direct way. Figurative language, by contrast, is language that is used
imaginatively and expresses more than its literal meanings. Two common
types of figurative language are metaphors and similes.
• A metaphor is a direct comparison between two apparently unlike
things.  Standards
Reading Literature
Example: Doctor Harry spread a warm paw . . . on her forehead. . . . Determine the meaning of words
(paragraph 2) and phrases as they are used in
the text, including figurative and
• A simile is a comparison between two apparently unlike things made connotative meanings; analyze the
using an explicit comparison word such as like, as, than, or resembles. impact of specific word choices on
meaning and tone, including words
Example: The pillow rose and floated under her, pleasant as a hammock with multiple meanings or language
in a light wind. (paragraph 8) that is particularly fresh, engaging,
or beautiful.
Porter uses these devices to show how Granny Weatherall makes
Language
connections in her mind as she begins to lose her connection to reality. Demonstrate understanding
of figurative language, word
Read It relationships, and nuances in word
1. Work individually. Use this chart to identify the simile or metaphor in each meanings.
passage from “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.”

Passage Metaphor or Simile Effect

Her bones felt loose, and floated

around in her skin, and Doctor
Harry floated like a balloon around
the foot of the bed. (paragraph 6)

Cornelia’s voice staggered and

bumped like a cart in a bad road.
(paragraph 56)
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Things were finished somehow

when the time came; thank God
there was always a little margin
over for peace: then a person
could spread out the plan of life
and tuck in the edges orderly.
(paragraph 17)

2. Connect to Style With your group, discuss how the author’s use of
simile and metaphor affects what you envision as you read each of the
passages in the chart.

Write It
Notebook Write a paragraph in which you describe what you learned
about the human condition from “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Use
at least one simile and one metaphor to make your language more vivid
and interesting.
The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 855
 EFFECTIVE EXPRESSION

Writing to Compare
You have read two classic American stories that employ nonlinear narrative
techniques: “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” and “The Jilting of Granny
Weatherall.” Now, deepen your understanding of both stories by comparing
them and sharing your analysis in a group presentation.
AN OCCURRENCE AT
OWL CREEK BRIDGE

Assignment
Prepare and deliver an oral presentation in which you compare and
contrast how stream-of-consciousness narration works in the two stories
you have studied. During your presentation, include dramatic readings
of relevant passages to highlight important features of the stream-of-
consciousness technique. End your presentation by drawing conclusions
about the strengths and limitations of this literary device. Then, hold a
THE JILTING OF brief question-and-answer session with your audience.
GRANNY WEATHERALL

Planning
Define the Term Work with your group to craft a definition of
stream of consciousness. Complete this sentence.

Stream of consciousness is

Analyze the Texts Review the stories individually, looking for passages
that illustrate specific features of stream-of-consciousness narration. Use
 Standards
the chart to gather your ideas. Then, work together as a group to select
Reading Literature
Analyze how an author’s choices examples that best reveal similarities and differences between the two
concerning how to structure specific stories. Aim to include at least two passages from each story.
parts of a text contribute to its
overall structure and meaning as well QUALITY OR
as its aesthetic impact. PROPOSED PASSAGE
EFFECT IT SHOWS
Writing
Write informative/explanatory texts An Occurrence at
to examine and convey complex Owl Creek Bridge
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ideas, concepts, and information
clearly and accurately through the
effective selection, organization, and
analysis of content.
Speaking and Listening
Adapt speech to a variety of contexts
and tasks, demonstrating a command
of formal English when indicated or
appropriate.
The Jilting of Granny
Weatherall

856 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 essential question: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Organize the Presentation  EVIDENCE LOG

Outline the Content Your presentation should include these elements: Before moving on to a
• a formal introduction in which you define stream of consciousness new selection, go to your
• explanations of at least two effects of stream-of-consciousness narration Evidence Log and record
what you learned from “An
• dramatic readings from the stories that provide strong examples of Occurrence at Owl Creek
each effect and reveal similarities and differences between the two works Bridge” and “The Jilting of
• a memorable conclusion Granny Weatherall.”
• a lively question-and-answer session

With your group, follow this outline frame to plan an effective sequence.
Decide how you will transition from explanations to examples.

Outline Frame
1. Introduction: Define stream-of-consciousness narration.
2 Present Point 1: Explain one effect of stream-of-consciousness narration. Deliver readings:
Read passages from each story that show similarities and differences in how this quality appears in
the two stories.
Present Point 2: Explain a second effect of stream-of-consciousness narration. Deliver
3. 
readings: Read passages from each story that show similarities and differences in how this quality
appears in the two stories.
Conclusion: Explain what makes stream-of-consciousness narration effective in the two
4. 
stories under discussion.
5. Question & Answer Session

Assign Tasks and Write Some of the sections of your presentation need
to be written ahead of time, whereas others simply need preparation. Decide
whether you will work together to draft or prepare for each section, or whether
you will assign the different tasks to individual group members.

Annotate Passages and Rehearse An annotated reading script will

help you deliver dramatic readings with power and expression. Copy the
passages exactly and practice reading them aloud several times, trying different
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approaches. The following annotations can help you remember the best choices.

/ = brief pause // = longer pause

underscore = emphasis double underscore = strong emphasis

!!! = speed up XXX = slow down

Deliver the Presentation

Keep the following points in mind as you give your oral presentation:

• Do not keep your eyes glued to the page during the dramatic readings.
Instead, look up to make a connection with your audience.
• Speak clearly and avoid either rushing or speaking too slowly.
During the final question-and-answer session, share the responsibility of
answering. If your audience is reluctant to speak, pose and answer questions
that they might find interesting.

The Jilting of Granny Weatherall 857

 PERFORMANCE TASK: SPEAKING AND LISTENING FOCUS

SOURCES

• A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE

Present a Narrative
SHORT STORY

• AN OCCURRENCE AT
Assignment
OWL CREEK BRIDGE You have read a history of the short story, and you have read and
compared two short stories that feature stream-of-consciousness
• THE JILTING OF
GRANNY WEATHERALL narration. Review how the technique is used in short stories. Then,
work with your group to plan, present, and video-record a stream-of-
consciousness narrative that responds to this statement:
The day felt as if it would never end.
Form teams and work together to find examples from the texts to help
you write. Then, present your video narrative for the class.

Plan With Your Group

Analyze the Text Divide into two subgroups. One will analyze
stream-of-consciousness techniques within one of the selections; the other
group will analyze the other selection. Decide which techniques your group
will use in your narrative.

WHICH CHARACTERS ARE REVEALED THROUGH STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS?

TITLE
HOW?

An Occurrence at Owl
Creek Bridge

The Jilting of Granny

Weatherall

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The best examples of the techniques are:

Draft Your Narrative With your group, plan your narrative, roughing out
the plot and characters. Identify the main conflict, and decide how it will be
 STANDARDS resolved. Then, work on incorporating stream-of-consciousness techniques
Speaking and Listening into the story.
Propel conversations by posing and
responding to questions that probe Plan Use of Media Consider how to make the best use of the digital
reasoning and evidence; ensure a media available to you. With your group, discuss graphics, audio, or visual
hearing for a full range of positions
elements you will use to help viewers better understand your stream-of-
on a topic or issue; clarify, verify, or
challenge ideas and conclusions; consciousness video.
and promote divergent and creative
perspectives.

858 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION : What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Organize Your Presentation Decide how your group will convert your
story into a script and then a video. Create a detailed storyboard. Make sure
that your stream-of-consciousness techniques are visually represented. Make
a plan for presenting your narrative by answering questions such as these:
How many different characters are in your video? How will you divide the
technical tasks? Use this chart to organize tasks.

Rehearse With Your Group

Practice With Your Group As you act out your narrative, use this checklist
to evaluate the effectiveness of your group’s first run-through. Then, use your
evaluation and the instructions here to guide your revision.

PRESENTATION
CONTENT USE OF MEDIA
TECHNIQUES

The narrative relates Digital media Actors speak

to the prompt. is used clearly, with
effectively to aid appropriate
Stream-of- understanding emotion.
consciousness and create
techniques are used interest. Actors seem
in the narrative. well prepared.
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Film the Narrative When you are satisfied with your narrative, find a
quiet place to film it using a recorder or smart phone. Depending on your
equipment, you may want to film several versions before deciding on the one
you want to share. If desired, you may want to use digital effects to enhance
the presentation.
 STANDARDS
Present and Evaluate Writing
Present your video to the class, and invite feedback. As you watch other • Write narratives to develop real
or imagined experiences or events
groups’ videos, evaluate how well they meet the requirements on the using well-chosen details, and well-
checklist. structured event sequences.
• Use narrative techniques, such
as dialogue, pacing, description,
reflection, and multiple plot lines, to
develop experiences, events, and/or
characters.

Performance Task: Present a Narrative 859

 OVERVIEW: INDEPENDENT LEARNING

ESSENTIAL QUESTION:

What do stories reveal about

the human condition?
Some situations are shaped by changes in society, but many aspects of human life
are timeless. In this section, you will complete your study of short stories and the
human condition by exploring an additional selection related to the topic. You’ll
then share what you learn with classmates. To choose a text, follow these steps.

Look Back Think about the selections you have already studied. What more do
you want to know about short stories and the insights they provide?

Look Ahead Preview the texts by reading the descriptions. Which one seems most
interesting and appealing to you?

Look Inside Take a few minutes to scan the text you chose. Choose a different
one if this text doesn’t meet your needs.

Independent Learning Strategies

Throughout your life, in school, in your community, and in your career, you will need
to rely on yourself to learn and work on your own. Review these strategies and the
actions you can take to practice them during Independent Learning. Add ideas of
your own for each category.

STRATEGY ACTION PLAN

Create a schedule • Understand your goals and deadlines.

• Make a plan for what to do each day.

Practice what you • Use first-read and close-read strategies to deepen your understanding. Copyright © SAVVAS Learning Company LLC. All Rights Reserved.

have learned • After you read, evaluate the usefulness of the evidence to help you understand
the topic.
• Consider the quality and reliability of the source.

Take notes • Record important ideas and information.

• Review your notes before preparing to share with a group.

860 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 CONTENTS
Choose one selection. Selections are available online only.
SHORT STORY

The Tell-Tale Heart

Edgar Allan Poe

Violence, revenge, and madness converge in this

classic short story.

SHORT STORY

The Man to Send Rain Clouds

Leslie Marmon Silko

Initially at odds, two ancient traditions come together in

a tribute to a beloved grandfather.

SHORT STORY

Ambush
Tim O’Brien

For one Vietnam War veteran, a child’s question evokes vivid

memories from a distant battlefield.

SHORT STORY
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Housepainting
Lan Samantha Chang

Why would a seemingly simple task spark tensions

within a family?

PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT PREP

Review Notes for a Narrative
Complete your Evidence Log for the unit by evaluating what you have learned
and synthesizing the information you have recorded.

Overview: Independent Learning 861

 INDEPENDENT LEARNING

First-Read Guide Tool Kit

First-Read Guide and
Model Annotation
Use this page to record your first-read ideas.

Selection Title:

NOTICE new information or ideas you learn ANNOTATE by marking vocabulary and key
about the unit topic as you first read this text. passages you want to revisit.

CONNECT ideas within the selection to other RESPOND by writing a brief summary of
knowledge and the selections you have read. the selection.

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 STANDARD
Reading Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

862 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Close-Read Guide Tool Kit

Close-Read Guide and
Model Annotation
Use this page to record your close-read ideas.

Selection Title:

Close Read the Text Analyze the Text

Revisit sections of the text you marked during Think about the author’s choices of patterns,
your first read. Read these sections closely structure, techniques, and ideas included in
and annotate what you notice. Ask yourself the text. Select one and record your thoughts
questions about the text. What can you about what this choice conveys.
conclude? Write down your ideas.

QuickWrite
Pick a paragraph from the text that grabbed your interest. Explain the power of this passage.
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 STANDARD
Reading Read and comprehend complex literary and informational texts independently and proficiently.

Overview: Independent Learning 863

 INDEPENDENT learning

Share Your Independent Learning

Prepare to Share
 evidence log
Go to your Evidence Log
What do stories reveal about the human condition?
and record what you learned Even when you read something independently, you can continue to grow by
from the text you read. sharing what you have learned with others. Reflect on the text you explored
independently, and write notes about its connection to the unit. In your
notes, consider why this text belongs in this unit.

Learn From Your Classmates

Discuss It Share your ideas about the text you explored on your own.
As you talk with your classmates, jot down ideas that you learn from them.

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Reflect
Review your notes, and mark the most important insight you gained from
these writing and discussion activities. Explain how this idea adds to your
understanding of the importance of stories as they reveal the human
condition.

 Standards
Speaking and Listening
Initiate and participate effectively in
a range of collaborative discussions
with diverse partners on grades
11–12 topics, texts, and issues,
building on others’ ideas and
expressing their own clearly and
persuasively.

864 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 PERFORMANCE-BASED ASSESSMENT prep

Review Notes for a Narrative

At the beginning of this unit, you expressed a point of view about the
following question:

How does a fictional character or characters respond to

life-changing news?

 EVIDENCE LOG

Review your Evidence Log and your QuickWrite from the beginning of the
unit. Have your ideas changed?

Yes NO

Identify at least three textual details that caused you Identify at least three textual details that reinforced
to alter your ideas. your original ideas.

1. 1.

2. 2.

3. 3.

Give one example of life-changing news that might affect someone strongly:
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Give one example of a way in which someone might react to that news:

Evaluate the Strength of Your Content Do you have enough content

to write your narrative? Do you have enough details to develop multiple
characters? If not, make a plan.

Do research about short stories Talk with my classmates

Reread a selection Ask a fiction writer

Other:

Performance-Based Assessment Prep 865

 performance-based assessment

sources Part 1
• WHOLE-CLASS
Whole-class SELECTIONS
selections
Writing to Sources: Narrative
• small-group selections
small-group selections In this unit, you read a variety of texts in which ordinary lives prove to
contain extraordinary moments. You met characters who encounter stressful,
• independent-LEARNING
independent choice
unexpected, or life-changing situations. In each case, characters’ responses
selection
reveal their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their hopes and fears. By
reading stories about fictional characters, you may have learned something
useful about what it means to be human.

Assignment
Write a short story in which you introduce and develop a protagonist, and set
up a problem or conflict the character must face. Use the third-person point of
view. Before you write, think about your answer to this question:

How does a fictional character or characters respond to

life-changing news?
As your character faces conflicts, how does he or she respond? Will your
character’s response be instructive to readers? If so, how? If not, why not?
What will your character learn, and in what ways will he or she change? Bring
your character’s story to a resolution or epiphany that demonstrates a truth
about the human condition.

Reread the Assignment Review the assignment to be sure you fully

 WORD NETWORK
understand it. The task may reference some of the academic words
As you write and revise your presented at the beginning of the unit. Be sure you understand each of the
narrative, use your Word
words given below in order to complete the assignment correctly.
Network to help vary your
word choices.
Academic Vocabulary

colloquial tension epiphany

protagonist resolution

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Review the Elements of a Narrative Before you begin writing, read the
Narrative Rubric. Once you have completed your first draft, check it against
the rubric. If one or more of the elements is missing or not as strong as it
could be, revise your narrative to add or strengthen that component.

 Standards
Writing
• Write narratives to develop real or
imagined experiences or events using
effective technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured event
sequences.
• Write routinely over extended
time frames and shorter time frames
for a range of tasks, purposes, and
audiences.

866 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 essential question: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Narrative Rubric
Focus and Organization Technique and Development Language Conventions
The introduction engages the reader The narrative adeptly The narrative consistently
and introduces original characters incorporates dialogue and uses conventions of standard
and conflict. description. English usage and mechanics.

The narrative establishes an Precise details and sensory

engrossing sequence of events that language give the reader a clear
unfolds smoothly and logically. picture of events.
4
The conclusion follows from
and resolves the narrative in a
satisfying way.

The introduction is somewhat Dialogue and description move The narrative demonstrates
engaging and introduces characters the narrative forward. accuracy in conventions of
and conflict. standard English usage and
Some precise details and sensory mechanics.
The narrative establishes a sequence language give the reader a
of events that unfolds smoothly and picture of events.
logically.
3
The conclusion follows from and
resolves the narrative.

The introduction introduces Some dialogue or description The narrative demonstrates

characters and conflict. may appear. some accuracy in conventions
of standard English usage and
Events are mostly in sequence, but Some details give the reader a mechanics.
some events may not belong or may general picture of events.
be omitted.
2 The conclusion follows from the
narrative.
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The introduction fails to introduce Dialogue and description do not The narrative contains
characters and conflict, or there is no appear or are minimal and seem mistakes in conventions of
introduction. to appear as afterthoughts. standard English usage and
mechanics.
Events are not in a clear sequence, Few details are included, or
and some events may be omitted. details fail to give the reader a
picture of events.
1 The conclusion does not follow
from the narrative, or there is no
conclusion.

Performance-Based Assessment 867

 performance-based assessment

Part 2
Speaking and Listening: Storytelling
Session

Assignment
After completing your narrative, conduct a storytelling session for your class.
Memorize the key plot points, character descriptions, and most important lines
of dialogue from your story. You may refer to some notes as you tell your story,
but do not read aloud. When you address your audience, remember to use
appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation.

Select digital audio to add interest and enhance the mood of your story.
Consider using sound effects, background music, or an instrumental musical
score to accompany your story.

To be an effective storyteller, consider the following:

• Keep it simple. What can you cut from your written narrative while
retaining the gist of the story?
 Standards • Pump up the emotion. How can music and sound cues affect your
Speaking and Listening
audience and improve their listening experience?
Make strategic use of digital
media in presentations to enhance
understanding of findings, reasoning, Review the Rubric Before you tell your story, check your plans against this
and evidence and to add interest.
rubric. If one or more of the elements is missing or not as strong as it could
be, revise your presentation.

Content Use of Media Presentation Techniques

The storyteller engages the Included media have a positive The speaker’s word choice,
audience by describing original impact on listener experience. volume, pitch, and eye contact
3 characters, conflict, and reflect the story’s content and are
resolution. appropriate to the audience.

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The storyteller describes Included media neither improve The speaker’s word choice,
characters, conflict, and nor detract from listener volume, pitch, and eye contact
2 resolution. experience. somewhat reflect the story’s
content and are appropriate to
the audience.

The storyteller’s presentation is Included media are distracting or The speaker’s word choice,
flat and dull, or the sequence of otherwise detract from listener volume, pitch, and eye contact
1 events is hard to follow. experience. do not reflect the story’s content
and are not appropriate to the
audience.

868 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 UNIT
6 REFLECTION

Reflect on the Unit

Now that you’ve completed the unit, take a few moments to reflect on
your learning. Use the questions below to think about where you succeeded,
what skills and strategies helped you, and where you can continue to grow
in the future.

Reflect on the Unit Goals

Look back at the goals at the beginning of the unit. Use a different
colored pen to rate yourself again. Think about readings and activities that
contributed the most to the growth of your understanding. Record your
thoughts.

Reflect on the Learning Strategies

Discuss It Write a reflection on whether you were able to improve your
learning based on your Action Plans. Think about what worked, what didn’t,
and what you might do to keep working on these strategies. Record your
ideas before joining a class discussion.

Reflect on the Text

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Choose a selection that you found challenging, and explain what made
it difficult.

Explain something that surprised you about a text in the unit.

 STANDARDS
Which activity taught you the most about how stories reveal the human Speaking and Listening
condition? What did you learn? Come to discussions prepared,
having read and researched material
under study; explicitly draw on that
preparation by referring to evidence
from texts and other research on
the topic or issue to stimulate a
thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange
of ideas.

Unit Reflection 869

SHORT STORY

The Tell-Tale
Heart
Edgar Allan Poe

About the Author

Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849) had a short and
troubled life, but his groundbreaking stories have long
survived him. Shortly after Poe’s birth, his father
abandoned his family. When Poe was only two years
old, his mother died, leaving him in the care of
foster parents. With dreams of becoming a poet,
the teenaged Poe quarreled bitterly with his
business-minded foster father, John Allan. Poe then went from one job to
another, struggling to make a living while practicing his craft. He died in
poverty at the age of 40.

BACKGROUND
Gothic literature is a style of writing that is characterized by fear,
death, doom, and horror. Settings in gothic literature are often wildly
romantic—with dramatic landscapes, gloomy mansions, and wild
weather adding to the sense of suspense. Edgar Allan Poe transformed

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the genre by moving the settings to everyday locations and focusing on
the more subtle, psychological horrors of the human mind.

NOTES
1

T rue!—nervous—very, very dreadfully nervous I had been

and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had
sharpened my senses—not destroyed—not dulled them. Above
all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven
and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I
mad? Hearken!1 and observe how healthily—how calmly I can tell
you the whole story.
2 It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but
once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was
none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never

1. Hearken! (HAHR kuhn) listen!

IL1 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Tell-Tale Heart

 wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had
no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes NOTES

resembled that of a vulture —a pale blue eye, with a film over it.
Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees—
very gradually—I made up my mind to take the life of the old
man, and thus rid myself of the eye forever.
3 Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know
nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how
wisely I proceeded—with what caution—with what foresight—
with what dissimulation2 I went to work! I was never kinder to
the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And
every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and
opened it—oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening
sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed,
so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you
would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved
it slowly—very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old
man’s sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the
opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!—
would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my
head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously—oh, so
cautiously—cautiously (for the hinges creaked)—I undid it just
so much that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this
I did for seven long nights—every night just at midnight—but
I found the eye always closed; and so it was impossible to do the
work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his evil eye.
And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the
chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name
in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So
you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed,
to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him
while he slept.
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4 Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in

opening the door. A watch’s minute hand moves more quickly
than did mine. Never, before that night, had I felt the extent of my
own powers—of my sagacity.3 I could scarcely contain my feelings
of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by
little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts.
I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he
moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think
that I drew back—but no. His room was as black as pitch with the
thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear
of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the
door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

2. dissimulation (dih sihm yoo LAY shuhn) n. hiding of one’s thoughts or feelings.
3. sagacity (suh GAS uh tee) n. high intelligence and sound judgment.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Tell-Tale Heart IL2

 5 I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my
NOTES thumb slipped upon the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up
in the bed, crying out—“Who’s there?”
6 I kept quite still and said nothing. For a whole hour I did not
move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down.
He was still sitting up in the bed, listening;—just as I have done,
night after night, hearkening to the deathwatches4 in the wall.
7 Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of
mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief—oh, no!—it
was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul
when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a
night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled
up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the
terrors that distracted me. l say I knew it well. I knew what the old
man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.
8 I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight
noise, when he had turned in the bed. His fears had been ever
since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them
causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself—“It is
nothing but the wind in the chimney—it is only a mouse crossing
the floor,” or “it is merely a cricket which has made a single
chirp.” Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these
suppositions: but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because
Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow
before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful
influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel—
although he neither saw nor heard—to feel the presence of my
head within the room.
9 When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing
him lie down, I resolved to open a little—a very, very little crevice
in the lantern. So I opened it—you cannot imagine how stealthily,
stealthily—until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of the

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spider, shot from out the crevice and fell upon the vulture eye.
10 It was open—wide, wide open—and I grew furious as I gazed
upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness—all a dull blue, with a
hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but
I could see nothing else of the old man’s face or person for I had
directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the spot.
11 And now—have I not told you that what you mistake for
madness is but over acuteness of the senses?—now, I say, there
came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes
when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well, too. It was the
beating of the old man’s heart. It increased my fury, as the beating
of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

4. deathwatches (DEHTH woch uhz) n. wood-boring beetles whose heads make a tapping
sound; they are superstitiously regarded as an omen of death.

IL3 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Tell-Tale Heart

 12 But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed.
I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain NOTES

the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart
increased. It grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder
every instant. The old man’s terror must have been extreme! It
grew louder, I say, louder every moment!—do you mark me well?
I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead
hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so
strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for
some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating
grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a
new anxiety seized me—the sound would be heard by a neighbor!
The old man’s hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the
lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once—once only.
In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed
over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But,
for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This,
however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall.
At length it ceased. The old man was dead. l removed the bed and
examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my
hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was
no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me
no more.
13 If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I
describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the
body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First
of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms
and the legs.
14 I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber,
and deposited all between the scantlings.5 I then replaced the
boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye—not even
his—could have detected anything wrong. There was nothing to
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wash out—no stain of any kind—no blood-spot whatever. I had

been too wary for that. A tub had caught all—ha! ha!
15 When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o’clock—
still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came
a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light
heart—for what had I now to fear? There entered three men,
who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of
the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the
night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had
been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been
deputed to search the premises.
16 I smiled—for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome.
The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man,

5. scantlings (SKANT lihngz) n. small beams or timbers.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Tell-Tale Heart IL4

 I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over
NOTES the house. I bade them search—search well. I led them, at length,
to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed.
In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the
room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I
myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my
own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of
the victim.
17 The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them.
I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily,
they chatted of familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting
pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a
ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing
became more distinct:—it continued and became more distinct:
I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and
gained definitiveness—until, at length, I found that the noise was
not within my ears.
18 No doubt I now grew very pale;—but I talked more fluently, and
with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased—and what could
I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound—much such a sound as a watch
makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath—and yet the
officers heard it not. I talked more quickly—more vehemently; but
the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a
high key and with violent gesticulations6; but the noise steadily
increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and
fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observations of
the men—but the noise steadily increased. Oh! what could I do? I
foamed—I raved—I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had
been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose
over all and continually increased. It grew louder—louder—
louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it
possible they heard not?—no, no! They heard!—they suspected!—

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they knew!—they were making a mockery of my horror!—this I
thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony!
Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those
hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!—
and now—again!—hark! louder! louder! louder! louder!—
19 “Villains!” I shrieked, “dissemble7 no more! I admit the deed!—
tear up the planks!—here, here!—it is the beating of his hideous
heart!” ❧

6. gesticulations (jehs tihk yuh LAY shuhnz) n. energetic hand or arm movements.
7. dissemble (dih SEHM buhl) v. conceal one’s true feelings.

IL5 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Tell-Tale Heart

 SHORT STORY

The Man
to Send
Rain Clouds
Leslie Marmon Silko

About the Author

Leslie Marmon Silko was born in New Mexico in
1948, and grew up on the Laguna Pueblo reservation.
After graduating from university, Silko entered law
school, but she soon dropped her legal studies to
pursue a career in writing. Silko’s stories are grounded
in the traditional tales she learned growing up in the
pueblo, and often focus on the struggle of Native
Americans to retain their culture in modern America.

BACKGROUND
When the Spanish began to colonize the American Southwest in
the 1600s, two worlds collided. Spanish Catholic friars set out to
convert the indigenous people known as the Pueblos to Christianity.
Native Americans adopted some Catholic ideas into their own beliefs.
However, this was not considered acceptable to the friars, and the
Spanish were increasingly violent in their missionary work. Following
revolts by the Pueblo people in the 1670s, the friars were more willing
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to allow Native American religious rituals and practices.

T hey found him under a big cottonwood tree. His Levi jacket
and pants were faded light blue so that he had been easy to
find. The big cottonwood tree stood apart from a small grove of
NOTES

winterbare cottonwoods which grew in the wide, sandy arroyo.1

He had been dead for a day or more, and the sheep had wandered
and scattered up and down the arroyo. Leon and his brother-in-
law, Ken, gathered the sheep and left them in the pen at the sheep
camp before they returned to the cottonwood tree. Leon waited
under the tree while Ken drove the truck through the deep sand
to the edge of the arroyo. He squinted up at the sun and unzipped
his jacket—it sure was hot for this time of year. But high and

1. arroyo (uh ROY oh) n. dry gully or hollow in the earth’s surface.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Man to Send Rain Clouds IL6

 northwest the blue mountains were still in snow. Ken came sliding
NOTES down the low, crumbling bank about fifty yards down, and he was
bringing the red blanket.
2 Before they wrapped the old man, Leon took a piece of string
out of his pocket and tied a small gray feather in the old man’s
long white hair. Ken gave him the paint. Across the brown
wrinkled forehead he drew a streak of white and along the high
cheekbones he drew a strip of blue paint. He paused and watched
Ken throw pinches of corn meal and pollen into the wind that
fluttered the small gray feather. Then Leon painted with yellow
under the old man’s broad nose, and finally, when he had painted
green across the chin, he smiled.
3 “Send us rain clouds, Grandfather.” They laid the bundle in the
back of the pickup and covered it with a heavy tarp before they
started back to the pueblo.
4 They turned off the highway onto the sandy pueblo road. Not
long after they passed the store and post office they saw Father
Paul’s car coming toward them. When he recognized their faces
he slowed his car and waved for them to stop. The young priest
rolled down the car window.
5 “Did you find old Teofilo?” he asked loudly.
6 Leon stopped the truck. “Good morning, Father. We were just
out to the sheep camp. Everything is O.K. now.”
7 ‘Thank God for that. Teofilo is a very old man. You really
shouldn’t allow him to stay at the sheep camp alone.”
8 “No, he won’t do that any more now.”
9 ”Well, I’m glad you understand. I hope I’ll be seeing you at
Mass2 this week—we missed you last Sunday. See if you can get
old Teofilo to come with you.” The priest smiled and waved at
them as they drove away.
10 Louise and Teresa were waiting. The table was set for lunch,
and the coffee was boiling on the black iron stove. Leon looked at

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Louise and then at Teresa.
11 “We found him under a cottonwood tree in the big arroyo near
sheep camp. I guess he sat down to rest in the shade and never got
up again.” Leon walked toward the old man’s bed. The red plaid
shawl had been shaken and spread carefully over the bed, and a
new brown flannel shirt and pair of stiff new Levi’s were arranged
neatly beside the pillow. Louise held the screen door open while
Leon and Ken carried in the red blanket. He looked small and
shriveled, and after they dressed him in the new shirt and pants
he seemed more shrunken.

2. Mass n. church service celebrated by Roman Catholics.

IL7 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Man to Send Rain Clouds

 12 It was noontime now because the church bells rang the
Angelus.3 They ate the beans with hot bread, and nobody said NOTES

anything until after Teresa poured the coffee.

13 Ken stood up and put on his jacket. “I’ll see about the
gravediggers. Only the top layer of soil is frozen. I think it can be
ready before dark.”
14 Leon nodded his head and finished his coffee. After Ken had
been gone for a while, the neighbors and clanspeople came quietly
to embrace Teofilo’s family and to leave food on the table because
the gravediggers would come to eat when they were finished.

15 The sky in the west was full of pale yellow light. Louise stood
outside with her hands in the pockets of Leon’s green army jacket
that was too big for her. The funeral was over, and the old men
had taken their candles and medicine bags4 and were gone. She
waited until the body was laid into the pickup before she said
anything to Leon. She touched his arm, and he noticed that her
hands were still dusty from the corn meal that she had sprinkled
around the old man. When she spoke, Leon could not hear her.
16 “What did you say? I didn’t hear you.”
17 “I said that I had been thinking about something.”
18 “About what?”
19 “About the priest sprinkling holy water for Grandpa. So he
won’t be thirsty.”
20 Leon stared at the new moccasins that Teofilo had made for the
ceremonial dances in the summer. They were nearly hidden by the
red blanket. It was getting colder, and the wind pushed gray dust
down the narrow pueblo road. The sun was approaching the long
mesa where it disappeared during the winter. Louise stood there
shivering and watching his face. Then he zipped up his jacket and
opened the truck door. “I’ll see if he’s there.”
21 Ken stopped the pickup at the church, and Leon got out: and
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then Ken drove down the hill to the graveyard where people were
waiting. Leon knocked at the old carved door with its symbols of
the Lamb.5 While he waited he looked up at the twin bells from
the king of Spain with the last sunlight pouring around them in
their tower.
21 The priest opened the door and smiled when he saw who it
was. “Come in! What brings you here this evening?”
23 The priest walked toward the kitchen, and Leon stood with
his cap in his hand, playing with the earflaps and examining the
living room—the brown sofa, the green armchair, and the brass

3. Angelus (AN juh luhs) n. bell rung at morning, noon, and evening to announce a prayer.
4. medicine bags bags containing objects that were thought to have special powers.
5. the Lamb Jesus Christ, as the sacrificial Lamb of God.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Man to Send Rain Clouds IL8

 lamp that hung down from the ceiling by links of chain. The priest
NOTES dragged a chair out of the kitchen and offered it to Leon.
24 “No thank you, Father. I only came to ask you if you would
bring your holy water to the graveyard.”
25 The priest turned away from Leon and looked out the window
at the patio full of shadows and the dining-room windows of the
nuns’ cloister6 across the patio. The curtains were heavy, and the
light from within faintly penetrated; it was impossible to see the
nuns inside eating supper. “Why didn’t you tell me he was dead?
I could have brought the Last Rites7 anyway.”
26 Leon smiled. “It wasn’t necessary, Father.”
27 The priest stared down at his scuffed brown loafers and the
worn hem of his cassock. “For a Christian burial it was necessary.”
28 His voice was distant, and Leon thought that his blue eyes
looked tired.
29 “It’s O.K. Father, we just want him to have plenty of water.”
30   The priest sank down into the green chair and picked up a
glossy missionary magazine. He turned the colored pages full of
lepers and pagans8 without looking at them.
31 “You know I can’t do that, Leon. There should have been the
Last Rites and a funeral Mass at the very least.”
32 Leon put on his green cap and pulled the flaps down over his
ears. “It’s getting late, Father. I’ve got to go.”
33 When Leon opened the door Father Paul stood up and said,
“Wait.” He left the room and came back wearing a long brown
overcoat. He followed Leon out the door and across the dim
churchyard to the adobe steps in front of the church. They both
stooped to fit through the low adobe entrance. And when they
started down the hill to the graveyard only half of the sun was
visible above the mesa.
34 The priest approached the grave slowly, wondering how they
had managed to dig into the frozen ground; and then he

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remembered that this was New Mexico, and saw the pile of cold
loose sand beside the hole. The people stood close to each other
with little clouds of steam puffing from their faces. The priest
looked at them and saw a pile of jackets, gloves, and scarves in the
yellow, dry tumbleweeds that grew in the graveyard. He looked
at the red blanket, not sure that Teofilo was so small, wondering
if it wasn’t some perverse Indian trick—something they did in
March to ensure a good harvest—wondering if maybe old Teofilo
was actually at sheep camp corraling the sheep for the night. But
there he was, facing into a cold dry wind and squinting at the last
sunlight, ready to bury a red wool blanket while the faces of his

6. cloister (KLOYS tuhr) n. place devoted to religious seclusion.

7. Last Rites religious ceremony for a dying person or for someone who has just died.
8. pagans (PAY guhnz) n. people who are not Christians, Muslims, or Jews.

IL9 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Man to Send Rain Clouds

 parishioners were in shadow with the last warmth of the sun on
their backs. NOTES

35 His fingers were stiff, and it took him a long time to twist the
lid off the holy water. Drops of water fell on the red blanket
and soaked into dark icy spots. He sprinkled the grave and the
water disappeared almost before it touched the dim, cold sand; it
reminded him of something—he tried to remember what it was,
because he thought if he could remember he might understand
this. He sprinkled more water; he shook the container until it
was empty, and the water fell through the light from sundown
like August rain that fell while the sun was still shining, almost
evaporating before it touched the wilted squash flowers.
36 The wind pulled at the priest’s brown Franciscan robe9 and
swirled away the corn meal and pollen that had been sprinkled on
the blanket. They lowered the bundle into the ground, and they
didn’t bother to untie the stiff pieces of new rope that were tied
around the ends of the blanket. The sun was gone, and over on
the highway the eastbound lane was full of headlights. The priest
walked away slowly. Leon watched him climb the hill, and when
he had disappeared within the tall, thick walls, Leon turned to
look up at the high blue mountains in the deep snow that reflected
a faint red light from the west. He felt good because it was
finished, and he was happy about the sprinkling of the holy water;
now the old man could send them big thunderclouds for sure. ❧

9. Franciscan robe (fran SIHS kuhn) robe worn by a member of the Franciscan religious
order, founded in 1209 by Saint Francis of Assisi.
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UNIT 6 Independent Learning • The Man to Send Rain Clouds IL10

SHORT STORY

Ambush
Tim O’Brien

About the Author

Tim O’Brien (b. 1946) was drafted into the U.S. Army
in 1968 and fought in the Vietnam War. The war and
its effect on the people who experienced it became
the subject of much of his work. O’Brien’s novel Going
After Cacciato won the National Book Award, The
Things They Carried was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize,
and In the Lake of the Woods was named the best
novel of 1994 by Time magazine.

BACKGROUND
The Vietnam War lasted from 1954 through 1975. The communist
government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam were
at war with the government of South Vietnam, which was principally
supported by the United States. Young American men were drafted to
fight from 1965, and eventually the United States lost 58,000 service
members in the war. The United States withdrew in 1973, and in 1975

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South Vietnam fell.

NOTES
1

W hen she was nine, my daughter Kathleen asked if I had

ever killed anyone. She knew about the war; she knew I’d
been a soldier. “You keep writing these war stories,” she said, “so
I guess you must’ve killed somebody.” It was a difficult moment,
but I did what seemed right, which was to say, “Of course not,”
and then to take her onto my lap and hold her for a while.
Someday, I hope, she’ll ask again.
2 But here I want to pretend she’s a grown-up. I want to tell her
exactly what happened, or what I remember happening, and then
I want to say to her that as a little girl she was absolutely right.
This is why I keep writing war stories:

IL11 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Ambush

 3 He was a short, slender young man of about twenty. I was
afraid of him—afraid of something—and as he passed me on the NOTES

trail I threw a grenade that exploded at his feet and killed him.
4 Or to go back:
5 Shortly after midnight we moved into the ambush1 site outside
My Khe. The whole platoon was there, spread out in the dense
brush along the trail, and for five hours nothing at all happened.
We were working in two-man teams—one man on guard while
the other slept, switching off every two hours—and I remember
it was still dark when Kiowa shook me awake for the final watch.
The night was foggy and hot. For the first few moments I felt lost,
not sure about directions, groping for my helmet and weapon.
I reached out and found three grenades and lined them up in front
of me; the pins had already been straightened for quick throwing.
And then for maybe half an hour I kneeled there and waited. Very
gradually, in tiny slivers, dawn began to break through the fog,
and from my position in the brush I could see ten or fifteen meters
up the trail. The mosquitoes were fierce. I remember slapping at
them, wondering if I should wake up Kiowa and ask for some
repellent, then thinking it was a bad idea, then looking up and
seeing the young man come out of the fog. He wore black clothing
and rubber sandals and a gray ammunition2 belt. His shoulders
were slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side as if listening
for something. He seemed at ease. He carried his weapon in one
hand, muzzle3 down, moving without any hurry up the center of
the trail. There was no sound at all—none that I can remember.
In a way, it seemed, he was part of the morning fog, or my own
imagination, but there was also the reality of what was happening
in my stomach. I had already pulled the pin on a grenade. I had
come up to a crouch. It was entirely automatic. I did not hate
the young man; I did not see him as the enemy; I did not ponder
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issues of morality or politics or military duty. I crouched and kept

my head low. I tried to swallow whatever was rising from my
stomach, which tasted like lemonade, something fruity and sour.
I was terrified. There were no thoughts about killing. The grenade
was to make him go away—just evaporate—and I leaned back and
felt my mind go empty and then felt it fill up again. I had already
thrown the grenade before telling myself to throw it. The brush
was thick and I had to lob it high, not aiming, and I remember
the grenade seeming to freeze above me for an instant, as if a
camera had clicked, and I remember ducking down and holding
my breath and seeing little wisps of fog rise from the earth. The

1. ambush n. lying in wait to attach by surprise.

2. ammunition (am yuh NIHSH uhn) n. anything hurled by a weapon or exploded as a
weapon.
3. muzzle n. front end of a barrel of a gun.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Ambush IL12

 grenade bounced once and rolled across the trail. I did not hear it,
NOTES but there must’ve been a sound, because the young man dropped
his weapon and began to run, just two or three quick steps, then
he hesitated, swiveling to his right, and he glanced down at the
grenade and tried to cover his head but never did. It occurred
to me then that he was about to die. I wanted to warn him. The
grenade made a popping noise—not soft but not loud either—not
what I’d expected—and there was a puff of dust and smoke—a
small white puff—and the young man seemed to jerk upward as
if pulled by invisible wires. He fell on his back. His rubber sandals
had been blown off. There was no wind. He lay at the center of the
trail, his right leg bent beneath him, his one eye shut, his other eye
a huge star-shaped hole.
6 It was not a matter of live or die. There was no real peril.
Almost certainly the young man would have passed by. And it
will always be that way.
7 Later, I remember, Kiowa tried to tell me that the man would’ve
died anyway. He told me that it was a good kill, that I was a
soldier and this was a war, that I should shape up and stop staring
and ask myself what the dead man would’ve done if things were
reversed.
8 None of it mattered. The words seemed far too complicated. All
I could do was gape at the fact of the young man’s body.
9 Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive
myself, other times I don’t. In the ordinary hours of life I try not
to dwell on it, but now and then, when I’m reading a newspaper
or just sitting alone in a room, I’ll look up and see the young man
coming out of the morning fog. I’ll watch him walk toward me,
his shoulders slightly stooped, his head cocked to the side, and
he’ll pass within a few yards of me and suddenly smile at some
secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends
back into the fog. ❧

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IL13 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Ambush

 SHORT STORY

Housepainting
Lan Samantha Chang

About the Author

Lan Samantha Chang (b. 1965) grew up in Appleton,
Wisconsin, learning about China from her Chinese
immigrant parents. She has received many awards,
including a 2008 Guggenheim Fellowship. Chang is
currently the Director of the prestigious Iowa Writers’
Workshop.

BACKGROUND
The concept of face is deeply rooted in Chinese culture and history.
It refers to a person or group’s public image as respectable and
upright. Within all levels of Chinese society, from family to business
relationships, there is a basic social expectation to help others “save
face,” or maintain their pride or dignity. Children can “give face” to
their parents by being obedient or getting good grades. However,
actions such as criticizing others in public or not observing proper
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etiquette can cause people to “lose face.” The concept can be difficult
for American-born children in immigrant families to negotiate.

T he day before my sister brought her boyfriend home, we had

a family conference over fried rice and Campbell’s chicken
noodle.
NOTES

2 “This is the problem,” my mother said. “The thistles are

overpowering our mailbox.” She looked at my father. “Could you
do something about them before Frances and Wei get here?”
3 My father grunted from behind his soup. He drank his
Campbell’s Chinese-style, with the bowl raised to his mouth.
“Frances won’t care about the thistles,” he said. “She thinks only
about coming home.”

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting IL14

 4 “But what about Wei?” my mother said. “This isn’t his home.
NOTES To him it’s just a house that hasn’t been painted in ten years. With
weeds.” She scowled. To her the weeds were a matter of honor.
Although Wei had been dating my sister for four years and had
visited us three times, he was technically a stranger and subject to
the rules of “saving face.”
5 My father slurped. “Frances is a xiaoxun daughter,” he said.
“She wants to see family, not our lawn. Wei is a good xiaoxun boy.
He wants Frances to see her family; he doesn’t care about the
lawn.”
6 Xiaoxun means “filial,” or “dutiful to one’s parents.”
7 I was almost to the bottom of my bowl of rice when I noticed
my parents were looking at me. “Oh,” I said. “Okay, I’ll do it.”
8 “Thank you, Annie,” said my mother.
9 The next afternoon I went to work on the weeds. My father
loved Wei and Frances, but he hated yard work. Whenever I read
about Asian gardeners, I thought my father must have come over
on a different boat.
10 It was a beautiful midwestern afternoon, sunny and dry, with
small white clouds high up against a bright blue sky. I wore
a pair of my father’s old gloves to pull the thistles but kicked
off my sandals, curled my toes around the hot reassuring dirt.
Inside the house, my mother napped with the air conditioner
humming in the window. My father sat in front of the television,
rereading the Chinese newspaper from New York that my parents
always snatched out of the mail as if they were receiving news
of the emperor from a faraway province. I felt an invisible hand
hovering over our shabby blue house, making sure everything
stayed the same.
11 I was hacking at a milky dandelion root when I heard an engine
idling. A small brown car, loaded down with boxes and luggage,
turned laboriously into the driveway. Through the open window

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I heard a scrape as my father pushed aside his footrest. My
mother’s window shade snapped up and she peered outside, one
hand on her tousled hair. I rose to meet the car, conscious of my
dirt-stained feet, sweaty glasses, and muddy gardening gloves.
12 “Annie!” Frances shouted from the rolled-down window. She
half-emerged from the car and shouted my name again.
13 “Wow,” I said. “You guys are early. I thought you wouldn’t get
here until five o’clock.”
14 “That was the plan,” said Wei, “but your sister here was so
excited about getting home that I begged off from call a few hours
early.” He grinned. He was always showing off about how well
he knew my sister. But other than that he had very few defects,
even to my critical thirteen-year-old mind. He was medium-sized

IL15 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting

 and steady, with a broad, cheerful dark face and one gold-rimmed
tooth. NOTES

15 My mother and father rushed out the front door and let it slam.
16 “Hi, Frances!” they said. “Hi, Wei!” I could tell my mother had
stopped to comb her hair and put on lipstick.
17 We stood blinking foolishly in the sunlight as Wei and Frances
got out of the car. My family does not hug. It is one of the few
traditions that both my parents have preserved from China’s pre-
Revolutionary times.
18 Frances came and stood in front of my mother. “Let me look at
you,” my mother said. Her gaze ran over my sister in a way that
made me feel knobby and extraneous.
19 Frances was as beautiful as ever. She did not look like she had
been sitting in a car all day. Her white shorts and her flowered
shirt were fresh, and her long black hair rippled gently when she
moved her head. People were always watching Frances, and Wei
was no exception. Now he stared transfixed, waiting for her to
turn to talk to him, but she did not.
20 Still facing my mother, Frances said, “Wei, could you get the
stuff from the car?“
21 “I’ll help you!” my father said. He walked around the back of
the car and stood awkwardly aside to let Wei open the trunk. “So,
how is medical school?” I heard him ask. They leaned into the
trunk, their conversation muffled by the hood. I looked at their
matching shorts, polo shirts, brown arms and sturdy legs. When
Wei came to visit, my father always acted like a caged animal that
has been let outside to play with another of its kind.
22 Afterward, we sat in the kitchen and drank icy sweet green-
bean porridge from rice bowls. Frances nudged me.
23 “Hey, Annie, I got you something.”
24 She pulled a package wrapped in flowered paper from a
shopping bag. She never came home without presents for
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everyone, and she never left without a bag full of goodies from
home. It was as if she could maintain a strong enough sense
of connection to us only by touching things that had actually
belonged, or would soon belong, to us.
25 I looked at the package: a book. I stifled a groan. Frances never
knew what I wanted.
26 “Well, open it,” my mother said,
27 I tore off the paper. It was a thick volume about the history of
medicine. This was supposed to be of great interest to me, because
of a family notion that I would become a doctor, like Wei. I did not
want to be a doctor.
28 “This is great! Thanks, Frances” I said.
29 “Very nice,” said my mother.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting IL16

 30 “Ma, I left your present in my room,” Frances said. “Let’s go
NOTES get it.” They left the kitchen. My father and Wei began a heated
discussion about Wimbledon.1 After a few minutes, I got bored
and went to find my mother and Frances.
31 From the entrance to the hall I could see that the bedroom door
was closed. I stopped walking and snuck up to the door on the
balls of my feet. I crouched against the door to listen.
32 “I don’t know, Mom,” Frances was saying. She sounded close to
tears.
33 “What is it that you don’t know?” my mother asked her. When
my mother got upset, her sentences became more formal and her
Chinese accent more obvious. “Are you unsure that he really cares
about you, or are you unsure about your feelings for him?”
34 “I know he cares about me,” she said. She had answered my
mother’s question. There followed a pause in the conversation.
35 Then my mother said, “Well, I think he is a very nice boy.
Daddy likes him very much.”
36 “And of course that’s the most important thing,” said my sister,
her anger startling me. I wrapped my arms around my knees.
37 “You know that is not, true.” My mother sounded exasperated.
“Your father enjoys spending time with other men, that is all.
There aren’t very many Chinese men in this area for him to talk to.
He also likes Wei because he is capable of giving you the kind of
life we have always wanted you to have. Is there something . . .”
She paused. “What is wrong with him?”
38 Frances burst into a sob.
39 “There’s nothing wrong with him. There’s nothing wrong with
him. It’s just—oh, I just don’t know—I don’t know.” She was
almost shouting, as if my mother didn’t understand English. “You
and Dad don’t think about me at all!”
40 I imagined my mother’s face, thin and tight, frozen in the light
from the window. “Don’t speak to me that way,” she said stiffly.

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“I am only trying to help you decide. You are very young. You
have never lived through a war. You don’t know about the
hardships of life as much as your father and I do.”
41 “I’m sorry,” my sister said, and sobbed even louder. I got up
and snuck away down the hall.
42 My parents often mentioned the war, especially when I
complained about doing something I didn’t want to do. If I
couldn’t get a ride to the swimming pool, my mother told me
about when she was in seventh grade and had to walk to school
every day past a lot of dead bodies. My mother was a brave
seventh grader who knew how to shoot a gun and speak four
dialects. But what did I know? I’d lived in the Midwest my
1. Wimbledon (WIHM buhl duhn) annual international tennis tournament held in
Wimbledon, a borough near London, England.

IL17 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting

 whole life. I ate Sugar Pops and drank milk from a cow. To me, an
exciting time meant going downtown to the movies without my NOTES

parents.
43 That night Wei and Frances and I went to a movie starring
Kevin Costner and a blond woman whose name I don’t remember.
On the way to the theater the car was very quiet. When we
arrived, I stood in line to get popcorn and then went into the dim,
virtually empty theater to look for Wei and Frances. I saw them
almost immediately. They were quarreling. Wei kept trying to take
Frances’s hand, and she kept snatching it away. As I approached, I
heard him say, “Just tell me what you want from me. What do you
want?”
44 “I don’t know!” Frances said. I approached. She looked up.
“Mmm—popcorn! Sit down, Annie. I have to go to the bathroom.”
Her look said: Don’t you dare say a word.
45 I watched her hurry up the aisle. “What’s wrong with her?”
46 Wei shook his head a minute, trying to dislodge an answer.
“I don’t know.” My first time alone with him. We sat staring
awkwardly at the empty screen. Then he turned to me as if struck
by an important thought.
47 “Annie, what would you think if Francie and I got married?”
48 Despite what I had overheard between Frances and my mother,
my stomach gave a little jump. I thought about what to say.
49 “That would be nice,” I said.
50 “You think so?” Wei said eagerly. “Listen, can you tell her that?
I’ve got to convince her. It’s like she can’t make up her own mind.
Why do you think that is?”
51 “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess she hasn’t had much practice.”
Although I’d never thought about it before, I knew that I was
right. Xiaoxun meant that your parents made up your mind. I
pictured Wei wrapped up in flowered paper, another gift my sister
brought back and forth.
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52 Wei sat sunk in his seat, a speculative look on his face. “Hmm,”
he said. “Hmm.”
53 I began to feel uncomfortable, as if I were sitting next to a mad
scientist. “I can’t wait to see this movie,” I said quickly. “Frances
and I think Kevin Costner is cute.” I stuffed a handful of popcorn
into my mouth. While I was chewing, Frances finally came back
and sat down between us.
54 “How about it, Frances?” Wei said. “Do you think Kevin
Costner is cute?”
55 I looked at Wei’s face and suddenly realized that he could not
look more different from Kevin Costner.
56 “Actually, Frances doesn’t like him,” I blurted out. “I just—”
57 At that moment the screen lit up, and despite myself, I gave an
audible sigh of relief.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting IL18

 58 My father was waiting for us when we got home, under the
NOTES lamp with the Chinese newspaper, in his sagging easy chair.
This habit of waiting had always infuriated Frances, who felt
compelled by guilt to return at a reasonable hour.
59 Wei greeted my father cheerfully. “Hi, Mr. Wang. Waiting up
for us?”
60 “Oh no,” my father said, regarding Wei with pleasure.
61 “I’m glad you’re still up,” Wei said, with a look of heavy male
significance. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”
62 This time I had no desire to listen in on the conversation.
I headed for the bathroom as fast as I could. Frances hurried
behind me.
63 “Aren’t you going to talk with them?” I said.
64 Frances grabbed the doorknob. “Just shut up,” she said. She
closed the door behind us, and we stood for a minute in the
pink-tiled room under the glow of the ceiling light. Frances leaned
against the counter and sighed. I sat down on the toilet seat.
65 “You know,” she muttered, “I really do think Kevin Costner is
cute.”
66 “Me too,” I said. I stared at the tiny speckle pattern on the floor
tiles.
67 From the kitchen we heard a burble of laughter.
68 “Dad really likes Wei,” I said.
69 Frances sighed. “It’s not just Dad. Mom likes him too. She’s just
too diplomatic to show it. Dad is more obvious.” She raised her
eyebrows. “At least I know exactly where I stand with Dad.”
70 Her words frightened me.
71 “I don’t get it,” I burst out in spite of myself. “Why did you go
out with him for four years if you don’t really like him?”
72 Frances ran her hand around a water faucet. “He reminded me
of home,” she said. “Why did you sign up for biology instead of
art class?“ She slid quickly off the counter. “Come on, kiddo, time

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to hit the sack.”
73 The next morning I slept late. Around eleven I was awakened
by a muffled bang near my bedroom window. My mind whirled
like a pinwheel: What on earth—? I jumped out of bed and
pushed up the bottom of the shade.
74 Two male legs, clad in shorts, stood on a ladder to the right of
my window. Then Wei bent down, his smile startling me.
75 He was holding a paintbrush.
76 “What are you doing?” I almost shrieked.
77 “Just giving your father a little help with the house,” he said.
78 I pulled the shade down, grabbed some clothes, and hurried
out of my room to find my mother. As I passed Frances’s room, I
saw her sitting on her bed, fully dressed, with a completely blank
expression on her face.

IL19 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting

 79 My mother was in the kitchen, cutting canned bamboo shoots
into long thin strips. NOTES

80 “Where is Dad?”
81 “Don’t shout, Annie,” she said. “He went to the hardware store
to match some more paint.”
82 “Why is Wei painting the house?”
83 My mother lined up a handful of bamboo shoots and began
cutting them into cubes. “He’s just being helpful.”
84 “Why is Dad letting him be so helpful?“ I couldn’t find the right
question. Wei must have asked my father if he needed help with
the house. Why had my father consented? Why was he accepting
help from an outsider?
85 My mother turned and looked at me. “Because Wei wanted to
help, that’s all. Why don’t you go and wash up? You’re thirteen
years old; I shouldn’t have to remind you to wash your face.”
86 The next few days passed in a blur, marked only by the growing
patch of fresh pale-yellow paint that grew to cover one side of our
blue house and then the back. Wei worked steadily and cheerfully,
with minimal help from my father. My mother went outside now
and then to give him cold drinks and to comment on the evenness
of his job, or something like that. Frances stayed in her room
reading. I reported to her.
87 “Wei’s finished with the back side and now he’s starting on the
garage,” I said.
88 “Leave me alone,” Frances said.
89 I went further into the room and stood in front of her until she
looked up. “I said leave me alone, Annie! I’m warning you—”
90 “Well, why don’t you say something about it?” I demanded.
“Why didn’t you tell him you didn’t want him to do it?”
91 Her face contorted in something between anger and tears. “I
can’t tell him! He won’t listen to me! He says he’s just doing them
a favor!” She bent over her book and flipped her hair angrily in
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front of her, shielding her face. “Go away!”

92 I left the room.
93 With things at home going so well, my parents left the next
morning on a day trip to Chicago. Every now and then they made
the four-hour drive to buy supplies—dried mushrooms, canned
vegetables—from a Chinese grocery there. After they left, we ate
breakfast, with Wei and I making awkward conversation because
Frances wouldn’t talk to us. Then Wei got up and went out to the
front yard. From an open window I watched him pry the lid off a
can of paint and stir with a wooden stick from the hardware store;
Frances went out on the front porch and stood at the top of the
steps looking down at him.
94 “You can stop now, Wei,” I heard her say.
95 He glanced up, puzzled.

UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting IL20

 96 “You don’t have to paint today. Mom and Dad aren’t around to
NOTES see what a dutiful boy you are.”
97 Wei didn’t have a short fuse.2 He shook his head slowly and
looked back down at what he was doing.
98 Frances tried again. “It makes me sick,” she said, “to see you
groveling like this around my parents.”
99 Wei didn’t answer.
100 “What is it with you?” she sneered.
101 Finally his eyes flickered. “My painting the house,” he said, “is
something between me and your parents. If you don’t like it, why
don’t you go pick a fight with them? And why did you wait until
they left to pick a fight with me?”
102 Frances’s upper lip pulled back toward her nose. I thought she
was sneering at him again, but when she turned back to the house,
I realized she was crying. She looked horrible. She slammed the
door, rushed past me, and ran into the garage, where she and Wei
had parked the brown car. Then before Wei and I could stop her,
she drove away down the street.
103 She came back in about an hour. I sat inside pretending to read
a book, but Frances didn’t reenter the house, so I figured she and
Wei were talking out there. I was surprised when he came inside.
“Where’s Frances?” he said.
104 “I thought she was with you.”
105 “Nope. Just finished the front. I’m about to put a second coat on
the south side. Want to take a look?”
106 “Okay.” I put down my book. We walked outside and around
the house.
107 There stood Frances with her hair up in a painter’s cap, busily
putting blue back over Wei’s work, painting fast, as high as she
could reach. Two new cans stood in the grass. She had finished
most of the side and had worked almost up to the corner.
108 Frances turned to look at us. There were splotches of blue paint

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on her hands and clothes. “I liked it better the old way,” she said.
She glared at Wei, waiting for him to get angry, but he stood
perfectly still. I felt cool sweat break out on my neck and forehead.
109 Finally Wei said, “If you wanted it blue again, you just had to
tell me.”
110 Frances threw her brush on the ground and burst into tears.
“Damn you!” she shouted at Wei. “I hate you! You too, Annie! I
hate both of you! I hate everything!” She looked at the house. “I
don’t care what color it is, I just hate everything!”
111 I took a step backward, but Wei walked right up to her and put
his hand on her shoulder. Frances hid her face in her hands and
sobbed. They stood like that for a long time, Frances crying and

2. short fuse idiom meaning “a tendency to lose one’s temper easily.”

IL21 UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting

 mumbling under her breath, and then she began to repeat one
sentence over and over. I leaned forward, straining to make it out. NOTES

112 “Mom and Dad are going to kill me.”

113 Wei looked relieved. “If we all start now, we can probably paint
yellow over it before they get home,” he said.
114 Two days later Wei finished the house. He and my father drove
to the hardware store to buy white paint for the trim. I was sitting
in the family room, listlessly leafing through a Time magazine,
when Frances stopped in the door.
115 “Hey, Annie. Wanna go out and take a look?”
116 “Okay,” I said, surprised by her sudden friendliness.
117 We walked out the front door, crossed the street, and stood
facing the house. The street lamps had just turned on, and the
house glowed gently in the twilight. Our raggedy lawn and messy
garden were hidden in the shadows.
118 We stood for some time, and then Frances said, “I told Wei that
I would marry him.”
119 I looked at her. Her face was expressionless in the glow from
the street lamp. Finally she turned and briefly met my eyes.
120 “It’s not worth the trouble,” she said. “Let’s not talk about it
anymore, okay?”
121 “Okay,” I said. Without talking, we crossed the street and
approached the house. It was a beautiful evening. My mother
stood behind the kitchen window, washing the dishes. Frances
walked smoothly at my side, her long hair flowing back in the
dusk. I glanced up at the roof in a hopeful way, but the imaginary
hand that had hovered over our home had disappeared. I blinked
my eyes a couple of times and looked again, but it was gone.
122 “Come on, Annie,” my sister said, holding the door. “Hurry up,
or the mosquitoes will get in.”
123 I took a deep breath and went inside. ❧
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UNIT 6 Independent Learning • Housepainting IL22