R/W U1 L16

True/False

Details are events or ideas that support the key idea in a text.

• True

• False

Read the following paragraph from the text “Hello, My Name Is.”

To understand how I got my name, you’ll need to know the name of everyone else in my family. When my father came to the United States from China, he chose the name Nelson for reasons he can no longer remember. I like to think it’s after Nelson Mandela or even Willie Nelson, but it’s more likely that it’s because his Chinese name, Neng-Yin, also begins and ends with an N. When my parents had their first child, they wanted his name to start with that same letter. They also wanted something unique. (page 23)

What is an interesting detail in the paragraph?

• To understand how I got my name, you’ll need to know the name of everyone else in my family.

• When my father came to the United States from China, he chose the name Nelson for reasons he can no longer remember.

• I like to think it’s after Nelson Mandela or even Willie Nelson …

• When my parents had their first child, they wanted his name …

Read the following paragraph from the text “Hello, My Name Is.”

To understand how I got my name, you’ll need to know the name of everyone else in my family. When my father came to the United States from China, he chose the name Nelson for reasons he can no longer remember. I like to think it’s after Nelson Mandela or even Willie Nelson, but it’s more likely that it’s because his Chinese name, Neng-Yin, also begins and ends with an N. When my parents had their first child, they wanted his name to start with that same letter. They also wanted something unique. (page 23)

The details in the paragraph support the key idea that the author —

• 1. wants us to think that she got her name after her grandfather

• 1. wants us to know how she and her family got their names 

• 1. tells us that their family names needed to have a Chinese character

• 1. tell us her brother was named after international well-known people

Part A

Important details are relevant when the reader needs to find the key idea of a text because they—

• 1. provide opinions

• 1. are useful and focused

• 1. provide WOW facts

• 1. are unnecessary

Part B

Read the following paragraphs from the text “Hello, My Name Is.”

    So my full name is Jennifer Lou. No middle name. Nothing. Everyone else in my family has their Chinese name as their English middle name. It’s on official documents, passports, licenses, and in my brother’s case, his birth certificate. The middle name field on my birth certificate? Blank. A parental oversight because they hadn’t made the time to select a Chinese name. 

     Having no middle name is even more significant when you grow 

up in white, middle-class Connecticut where everyone has one. 

It was a rough childhood. Not only did I have to learn how to ski, how to play tennis, and how to tie sweaters around my neck, I also had to navigate Puritan New England middle name–less. “You’re incomplete!” friends would say.  (page 27)

An important detail in the text is—

• So my full name is Jennifer Lou. No middle name. Nothing. Everyone else in my family has their Chinese name as their English middle name.

• It’s on official documents, passports, licenses, and in my brother’s case, his birth certificate.

• The middle name field on my birth certificate? Blank. A parental oversight because they hadn’t made the time to select a Chinese name.

• Not only did I have to learn how to ski, how to play tennis, and how to tie sweaters around my neck, I also had to navigate Puritan New England

Read the following paragraph from the text “Hello, My Name Is.”

I took matters into my own hands. When I started seventh grade at Sage Park Middle School, I enrolled as Jennifer Elizabeth Lou. I picked Elizabeth because it was the whitest name I could think of. And, my God, I wanted to be white because in Windsor, Connecticut, where less than one percent of the population was Chinese, white, to me, meant belonging. (page 27)

What key idea do the details in the paragraph support?

• The author wants to do well in school

• The author wants to fit in and belong

• The author Is afraid of middle school

• The author dislikes being Chinese