The Marginal World

What is the central idea of “The Marginal World”?

• The most beautiful forms of plant and animal life can be easily found in shore areas.

• The shore is an especially apt place to examine the variability and adaptability of plant and animal life.

• The first forms of life on this planet developed in shore areas and evolved over a period of thousands of years.

• Shore areas provide important clues about problems that humans are likely to face in the future.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What is Carson’s pattern of organization in “The Marginal World”?

• Carson organizes her essay in chronological order, the order in which events occur.

• Carson organizes her essay by describing different places at different times.

• Carson organizes her essay by classifying the different types of life found at the edge of the sea.

• Carson organizes her essay by comparing and contrasting the ebb tide and the flood tide.

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.6.5

CCSS.RI.7.5

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

The information presented in “The Marginal World” would be most useful for an expository essay on which of the following topics?

• Transformation and Continuity in Nature

• Scientific Observation and Environmental Protection

• The Future of the Species

• Adapting to Climatic Change

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Which of the following is an effect of the low tide described in “The Marginal World”?

• Herons are a popular shore bird.

• The author reveals how the past shapes the present.

• Delicate flowers are visible on a cave’s roof.

• The author evaluates the relationship between land and sea life.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What is the pattern of organization in the following passage from “The Marginal World”? "Visibly, it carpets the intertidal rocks; or half hidden, it descends into fissures and crevices, or hides under boulders, or lurks in the wet gloom of sea caves. Invisibly, where the casual observer would say there is no life, it lies deep in the sand, in burrows and tubes and passageways. It tunnels into solid rock and bores into peat and clay. It encrusts weeds or drifting spars or the hard, chitinous shell of a lobster."

• comparison and contrast

• spatial order

• classification

• chronological order

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.6.5

CCSS.RI.7.5

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

What pattern of organization does Carson use in the following passage from “The Marginal World”? "The sequence and meaning of the drift of time were quietly summarized in the existence of hundreds of small snails. . . . Once their ancestors had been sea dwellers, bound to the salt waters by every tie of their life processes. Little by little over the thousands and millions of years the ties had been broke . . . . "

• cause and effect

• chronological order

• order of importance

• comparison and contrast

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.6.5

CCSS.RI.7.5

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5

In “The Marginal World,” what does Carson mean when she says that the shore has a dual nature?

• The shore is an unstable environment.

• The shore at night is very different from the shore during the day.

• The shore has two primary functions.

• On the ebb tide, the shore belongs to the land; on the flood tide, it belongs to the sea.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What point is Carson making about the “blackness of the night” in the following passage from “The Marginal World”? "The blackness of the night possessed water, air, and beach. It was the darkness of an older world, before Man."

• It is very dark.

• It is primeval.

• It is frightening.

• It makes the beach difficult to see.

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RI.8.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What do you think the hydroid Tubularia, “the most delicately beautiful of the shore’s inhabitants,” symbolizes for Carson?

• the fragility of tidal pool life

• the unreal nature of marine life

• the adaptability of marine life

• the beauty, tenacity, and functionality of tidal pool life

Tags

CCSS.RI. 9-10.2

CCSS.RI.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.11-12.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What word or phrase best describes the sense Carson evokes in her description of twilight on the Georgia coast in “The Marginal World”?

• loneliness

• awe

• remoteness

• peacefulness

Tags

CCSS.RI.11-12.5

CCSS.RI.6.5

CCSS.RI.7.5

CCSS.RI.8.5

CCSS.RI.9-10.5