Without Title for my Father who lived without ceremony

How does the setting illustrate the conflict in the poem?

• The setting of the city illustrates how the father’s life is in conflict with his culture, which is rooted in the natural world.

• The setting alternates between the city and the hunting grounds, illustrating how the father never adapted to either environment.

• The setting moves from the hunting grounds to the city, illustrating how difficult the change has been for the father.

• The setting of the hunting grounds illustrates how the father lost his spiritual connection to the buffalo after their extinction.

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

What idea is developed by the imagery in the lines “in the night I heard / his buffalo grunts like a snore”?

• The father cannot sleep peacefully in the city.

• The father’s true self is with his native culture.

• The man’s family is disturbed by his refusal to let go of the past.

• The man can only escape his ordinary life in his dreams.

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which phrase from the poem is an example of how the poet uses imagery to reflect the father’s history?

• in the stockyards (line 5)

• All his life (line 6)

• horns and hides (line 11)

• snow and mud (line 15)

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Line 2 and line 9 are connected by references to —

• ancient hunting practices

• a loss of psychic powers

• the extinction of the buffalo

• native spiritual traditions

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

What do lines 5–13 reveal about the father?

• His day-to-day life has been stripped of cultural significance.

• He enjoys city life but wishes he had made different choices.

• He worries that he is unable to provide for his family.  

• He adopts a life that is simple but fulfilling.

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.3

From lines 11–13, readers can infer that the speaker’s mother —

•       doesn’t like meat

• often argues with the speaker’s father

• moved to the city as a young woman

• doesn’t appreciate the father’s traditional culture

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

The most likely reason the poet wrote this poem is to —

• describe her father and how he lives

• inform people about Native traditions

• honor her father and his traditions

• ensure Native traditions are preserved

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Reread line 18.

I remember the silence of his lost power,

This line suggests that the speaker —

• thinks her father is weak

• understands the depth of her father’s loss

• lacks respect for her father

• remembers her father as not speaking much

Tags

CCSS.L.9-10.5

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.RL.9-10.4

Which line from the poem illustrates the poem’s subtitle?

• but my father went out each day to hunt (line 3)

•       He worked in the stockyards. (line 5)

• All his life he brought us meat. (line 6)

• Without a vision he had migrated to the city (line 9)

Tags

CCSS.RL.9-10.1

CCSS.W.9-10.9

Which item is a symbol of the father’s traditional culture?

• Stockyards

• Packing house

• Animal tracks

• Car aerial