"Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros Review

Why is Rachel so excited about THIS particular day?

• It is her birthday.

• It is Friday and it is the last day of school.

• She gets to eat cake for an after-school snack.

• She has had lots of fun with her friends today.

Rachal is angry with her friend, Sylvia Saldivar, because she...

• borrowed her sweater without permission

• told the teacher that she really loved the red sweater in the lost-and-found.

• told the teacher that the sweater belonged to Rachal.

• she giggled at a a silly joke and Rachal thought she was talking about her.

Rachal keeps saying that she is eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four,

three, two, and one. The author uses these words to explain....

• how many birthdays Rachel has had.

• why Rachel does not like the sweater.

• why at times Rachel is more mature, or less mature.

• to explain what Rachel wants to do after school is out.

Rachel's teacher places the sweater on her desk. Rachel responds by.....

• throwing up because the sweater smells.

• pushing the sweater closer and closer to the edge of her desk.

• spreading cottage cheese on the sweater so she won't have to wear it.

• dusting off the sweater and playing jump rope with it.

Which of the following quotes show that Rachel is a clever girl?

• "Stupid Sylvia Saldivar told the teacher that the sweater was mine!!"

• "My teacher is talking like she is getting mad at me!"

• " I was thinking about how long it was until recess when I planned to throw the sweater over the fence."

• "I have been holding everything in since this morning."

Mrs. Price, the teacher, seems rather....

• Silly and old

• grumpy and irritated with Rachel's behavior

• happy to be invited to her birthday party.

• Busy with lots of papers to grade.

Which of the following events did NOT occur?

• Rachel is frustrated with a couple of her classmates and calls them "stupid."

• Rachel cries in the lunchroom and all her friends are just sitting there looking at her.

• Rachel cannot hold her tears in any longer and sobs while wearing the red sweater.

• Rachel plans several ways to get rid of the red sweater, probably when the teacher is not looking.

Rachel continues to mention that she wishes "she was 102 years old."

Why does she continually mention this?

• She cannot wait to be old like her teacher.

• She cannot wait to be old enough to be able to make her own decisions.

• She cannot wait to get out of school.

• She feels that by being older, she would have known what to say to the teacher.

Which of the following statements about the narrator is best supported by the following passage (paragraph 3)?

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

• She feels young even though it is her eleventh birthday.

• She believes people are a product of all their past ages.

• She knows that each year she becomes more mature.

• She thinks people exhibit characteristics of familiar objects.

Which of the following sentences best summarizes this short story?

• An encounter with an unkind teacher makes one schoolgirl realize she does not like red sweaters.

• A classroom of students refuse to listen to their teacher’s request to identify the owner of a certain sweater.

• An experience at school causes a girl to feel unsure of herself, leading her to consider what it means to be one year older.

• A teacher embarrasses a student on her birthday in front of other students, which causes three of the girls to argue.