SGM #1: Pre/Post-Assessment: Crafting Comprehensive Responses

1. Which of the following quotations best supports the narrator’s feelings of isolation in the week before Christmas?

• “accustomed to communist activities”
• “with a vengeance”
• “the power and gas were disconnected”
• “I felt more and more isolated”

2. Which of the following details reveals the emotions the author experiences due to her family’s poverty?

• “I was hungry that year, hungry when I got up, hungry when I went to sleep”
• “I felt a deep abiding hunger for more than food”
• “Something hit me like a physical blow”
• "The week before Christmas, the power and the gas were disconnected."

3. Which of the following quotes shows that the speaker feels like she needs to budget her money carefully?

• “Since then I’ve crafted a life of joy and independence, if not financial security”
• “were, as usual, counting our pennies to see if we’d have enough”
• “I gave him some of our Christmas luxury money—folded into a small square”
• “You’ve taken what belongs to your family and spent it on a frivolous romantic impulse”

4. Which of the following quotes highlights the similarity between the author’s situation as a child and the young man’s situation?

• “milk, butter, bread, cheese and Christmas oranges”
• "I was hungry"
• “women struggling up the driveway”
• “west-coast winter”

5. Which of the following quotes best supports the tone in the last paragraph?

• “a dark and hungry December”
• “charity cannot be treated as a bank deposit”
• “come most truly…from an open and nonjudgmental heart”
• “continue to give me wonderful gifts”

6. How did the author’s family’s financial struggles impact her sense of isolation and hunger?

7. What motivated the author to give money to the young man she encountered on the street, despite her initial hesitation?

8. In what ways did the two incidents involving strangers offering help to the author’s family and the author helping the young man with the sleeping bag demonstrate the theme of charity and its impact on the author’s life?

9. How does the author's childhood experience of hunger and poverty shape her perspective on giving and charity as an adult?

10. What message or lesson does the author convey about the nature of charity and giving in the story, and how does it relate to the concept of an "open and non-judgmental heart"?