Out of the Dust

Read the excerpt from "The Path of Our Sorrow" from Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and then answer the question that follows.

Then the war ended and before long,
Europe didn’t need our wheat anymore,
they could grow their own.
But we needed Europe’s money
to pay our mortgage,
our rent,
our bills.
We squeezed more cattle,
more sheep,
onto less land,
and they grazed down the stubble
till they reached root.
And the price of wheat kept dropping
so we had to grow more bushels
to make the same amount of money we made before,
to pay for all that equipment, all that land,
and the more sod we plowed up,
the drier things got,
because the water that used to collect there
under the grass,
biding its time,
keeping things alive through the dry spells
wasn’t there anymore.
Without the sod the water vanished,
the soil turned to dust.
Until the wind took it,
lifting it up and carrying it away

What are two causes of the Dust Bowl mentioned in the excerpt that you read about in other texts?

• Europe's money was not as valuable after the war, so it did not cover the cost of rent and bills.

• The price of wheat dropped, so more land had to be plowed for farmers to make the same amount of money.

• The weather became hotter and hotter each year, and there just was not enough rain for the crops.

• Farmers plowed up the native grasses, so the soil held less moisture and easily blew away.

Read the poem from Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and answer the question that follows.

Boxes

In my closet are two boxes,
the gatherings of my life,
papers,
school drawings,
a broken hairpin,
a dress from my baby days,
my first lock of hair,
a tiny basket woven from prairie grass,
a doll with a china head,
a pink ball,
three dozen marbles,
a fan from Baxter’s Funeral Home,
my baby teeth in a glass gar,
a torn map of the world,
two candy wrappers,
a thousand things I haven’t looked at
in years.
I kept promising to go through the boxes
with Ma
and get rid of what I didn’t need,
but I never got to it
and now my hands hurt.
And I haven’t got the heart.
September 1934

_{Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse}

Which two words would you choose to describe the tone of this poem? Explain your choices. Use text evidence to support your answer.

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Think of Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse to answer Questions 1-5.

Read the excerpt from "Beat Wheat," and then answer the following questions.

The piano is some comfort in all this.
I go to it and I forget the dust for hours,
testing my long fingers on wild rhythms,
but Ma slams around in the kitchen when I play
and after a while she sends me to the store.
Joe De La Flor doesn’t see me pass him by;
he rides his fences, dazed by dust.
I wince at the sight of his rib-thin cattle.
But he’s not even seeing them.
I look at Joe and know our future is drying up
and blowing away with the dust.
_{Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse}

Part A

Which statement best describes how the tone of this passage impacts the mood?

Responses

• 
  

• Sad tone

• Angry tone

• Friendly tone

• Surprised tone

Read the poem from Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and then answer the question that follows.

Hope in a Drizzle

Quarter inch of rain
is nothing to complain about.
It’ll help the plants above ground,
and start the new seeds growing.

That quarter inch of rain did wonders for Ma, too,
who is ripe as a melon these days.
She has nothing to say to anyone anymore,
except how she aches for rain,
at breakfast,
at dinner,
all day,
all night,
she aches for rain.

Today, she stood out in the drizzle
hidden from the road,
and from Daddy,
and she thought from me,
but I could see her from the barn,
she was bare as a pear,
raindrops
sliding down her skin,
leaving traces of mud on her face and her long back,
trickling dark and light paths,
slow tracks of wet dust down the bulge of her belly.
My dazzling ma, round and ripe and striped
like a melon.

July 1934

_{Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse}

How does the author’s use of imagery help to communicate a theme of the poem? 

• 
  

• The description of raindrops falling emphasizes how much the plants need the rain.

• The description of Ma complaining emphasizes the family’s misery during the drought.

• The description of Ma hiding from her family emphasizes how the weather has negatively affected her.

• The description of the rain trickling down Ma’s belly emphasizes how water is needed for life.

Question: How does Daddy react to the hardships of his environment?

Drag each term to the sentence that provides the best example of it: a claim, a reason, a piece of evidence, or an explanation in a written response.

• Explanation

• Daddy’s response to the dust storms and drought is to work the way he has always worked, only harder.

• Claim

• When Ma suggests he plant other things, he tells her, “No. It has to be wheat. I’ve grown it before. I’ll grow it again.”

• Evidence

• He responds in this way because he has always been a wheat farmer, and he doesn’t know any other kind of life.

• Reason

• Daddy’s statement tells us that he is not willing to try something new, that he believes the wheat crop will eventually be successful.