from Brown Girl Dreaming

Read the sentences from the poem “writing #1.”

When I speak,/ the words come pouring out of me.

The story / wakes up and walks all over the room.

Which idea does the personification in the sentences best express?

• Making up stories often gets the speaker into trouble

• Writing stories is part of the speaker’s family traditions

• Sharing stories with others is enjoyable to the speaker

• Telling made-up stories aloud comes easily to the speaker

What is the most likely reason the author tells her memoir in verse, not prose?

• To reflect the way people often recall memories

• To describe several events from her childhood

• To tell about the events of her life in order

• To emphasize the setting and characters

Read the sentence from “writing #1.”

But as I bend over my composition notebook, / only my name / comes quickly.

How does the sentence contribute to the poem “writing #1”?

• It introduces the speaker.

• It adds imagery.

• It describes the setting.

• It establishes the conflict.

Ms. Moskowitz calls us one by one and says,

Come up to the board and write your name.

When it’s my turn, I walk down the aisle from 

my seat in the back, write Jacqueline Woodson—

the way I’ve done a hundred times, turn back

toward my seat, proud as anything

of my name in white letters on the dusty blackboard.

But Ms. Moskowitz stops me, says,

In cursive too, please. But the q in Jacqueline is too hard

so I write Jackie Woodson for the first time. Struggle

only a little bit with the k.

Is that what you want us to call you?

I want to say, No, my name is Jacqueline

but I am scared of that cursive q, know

I may never be able to connect it to c and u

so I nod even though

I am lying.

In the poem “late autumn,” the speaker changes from feeling —

• fascinated to bored

• frustrated to hopeful

• confident to discouraged

• misunderstood to beloved

In contrast to the poem “the other woodson,” the poem “reading” shows how the speaker —

• struggles in school

• wants to be a writer

• behaves and thinks like her sister

• feels pride in being different from her sister

I’ll think about it, I say.

And maybe all of us know

this is just another one of my stories.

The last three lines of the poem “when i tell my family” show that the speaker —

• is better at writing stories than telling them

• considers becoming a teacher or a lawyer

• plans to be a writer regardless of what others say

• wants to write stories about her school and family

Read the dictionary entry.

fussing \fŭs-ing\ v 1. showing unnecessary concern about something 2. complaining about something unimportant 3. moving around or busying oneself restlessly

4. disturbing or bothering someone

I read:

One day my momma told me,

“You know you’re gonna have

a little friend come stay with you.”

And I said, “Who is it?”

(93) If someone had been fussing with me

to read like my sister, I might have missed

the picture book filled with brown people, more

brown people than I’d ever seen

in a book before.

Which definition best matches the meaning of fussing as it is used in line 93 of the poem

“stevie and me”?

• Definition 1

• Definition 2

• Definition 3

• Definition 4

Select two examples of figurative language from the selection.

• then wait for my brilliance / to light up the classroom

• We are allowed / to take out seven books each.

• Words from books curl around each other

• No one is there to say, Not that book,

The speaker’s frequent comparisons between herself and her sister best emphasize —

• how talented the speaker’s sister is

• how incapable the speaker feels

• how much the speaker has improved as a student

• how much the speaker wants to be like her sister

Mark the answer that matches each quotation from the poems with the mood it conveys.

When I speak, / the words come pouring out of me.

(“writing #1,” lines 2–3)

• Hopeful mood

• Depressing mood