Read the excerpt from George Orwell’s essay “Shooting an Elephant.” They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hand I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I would have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. What is the most likely reason that Orwell includes this reflection in the middle of narrating the event?

Which sentence best describes the theme of the essay “Shooting an Elephant”?

Why did George Orwell write 'Shooting an Elephant'?

Read the following “Lindo Jong: Double Face” (an excerpt from The Joy Luck Club) and answer the questions that follow:

1 My daughter wanted to go to China for her second honeymoon, but now she

is afraid.

2 “What if I blend in so well they think I’m one of them?” Waverly asked me. “What

if they don’t let me come back to the United States?”

3 “When you go to China,” I told her, “you don’t even need to open your mouth.

They already know you are an outsider.”

4 “What are you talking about?” she asked. My daughter likes to speak back. She likes

to question what I say.

5 “Aii-ya,” I said. “Even if you put on their clothes, even if you take off your makeup

and hide your fancy jewelry, they know. They know just watching the way you walk, the

way you carry your face. They know you do not belong.”

6 My daughter did not look pleased when I told her this, that she didn’t look Chinese.

She had a sour American look on her face. Oh, maybe ten years ago, she would have

clapped her hands—hurray!—as if this were good news. But now she wants to be

Chinese, it is so fashionable. And I know it is too late. All those years I tried to teach

her! She followed my Chinese ways only until she learned how to walk out the door by

herself and go to school. So now the only Chinese words she can say are shsh, houche,

chr fan, and gwan deng shweijyau. How can she talk to people in China with these

words? Pee-pee, choo-choo train, eat, close light sleep.

7 How can she think she can blend in? Only her skin and her hair are Chinese.

Inside—she is all American-made.

8 It’s my fault she is this way. I wanted my children to have the best combination:

American circumstances and Chinese character. How could I know these two things

do not mix?

9 I taught her how American circumstances work. If you are born poor here, it’s no

lasting shame. You are first in line for a scholarship. If the roof crashes on your head,

no need to cry over this bad luck. You can sue anybody, make the landlord fi x it. You

do not have to sit like a Buddha under a tree letting pigeons drop their dirty business

on your head. You can buy an umbrella. Or go inside a Catholic church. In America,

nobody says you have to keep the circumstances somebody else gives you.

10 She learned these things, but I couldn’t teach her about Chinese character. How

to obey parents and listen to your mother’s mind. How not to show your own

thoughts, to put your feelings behind your face so you can take advantage of hidden

opportunities. Why easy things are not worth pursuing. How to know your own worth

and polish it, never flashing it around like a cheap ring. Why Chinese thinking is best.

11 No, this kind of thinking didn’t stick to her: She was too busy chewing gum,

blowing bubbles bigger than her cheeks. Only that kind of thinking stuck.

12 “Finish your coffee,” I told her yesterday. “Don’t throw your blessings away.”

13 “Don’t be so old-fashioned, Ma,” she told me, finishing her coffee down the sink.

“I’m my own person.”

14 And I think, How can she be her own person? When did I give her up?

Which lines from Amy Tan’s “Lindo Jong: Double Face” from The Joy Luck Club develop the idea of “the stranger in the village”?

6. Which sentence best summarizes the narrator’s point of view about her daughter in Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club?

6. Read the excerpt from Ralph Ellison’s prologue to Invisible Man. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. The author’s use of the underlined sentence fragment calls attention to

Read the following from: The Americanizing of Pau Tsu from Mrs. Spring Fragrance by Sui Sin Far

Pau Tsu came with the spring, and Wan Lin Fo was one of the happiest and proudest of bridegrooms. The tiny bride was really very pretty—even to American eyes. In her peach and plum colored robes, her little arms and hands sparkling with jewels, and her shiny black head decorated with wonderful combs and pins, she appeared a bit of Eastern coloring amidst the Western lights and shades.

The Misses Raymond called upon her soon after arrival, and she smiled and looked pleased. She shyly presented each girl with a Chinese cup and saucer, also a couple of antique vases, covered with whimsical pictures, which Lin Fo tried his best to explain.

Wan Lin Fo was a true son of the Middle Kingdom and secretly pitied all those who were born far away from its influences; but there was much about the Americans that he admired. He also entertained sentiments of respect for a motto which hung in his room which bore the legend: “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

“What is best for men is also best for women in this country,” he told Pau Tsu when she wept over his suggestion that she should take some lessons in English from a white woman.

“It may be best for a man who goes out in the street,” she sobbed, “to learn the new language, but of what importance is it to a woman who lives only within the house and her husband’s heart?”

It was seldom, however, that she protested against the wishes of Lin Fo. As her mother-in-law had said, she was a docile, happy little creature. Moreover, she loved her husband. But as the days and weeks went by the girl bride whose life hitherto had been spent in the quiet retirement of a Chinese home in the performance of filial duties, in embroidery work and lute playing, in sipping tea and chatting with gentle girl companions, felt very much bewildered by the novelty and stir of the new world into which she had been suddenly thrown. She could not understand, for all Lin Fo’s explanations, why it was required of her to learn the strangers’ language and adopt their ways. Her husband’s tongue was the same as her own. So also her little maid’s. It puzzled her to be always seeing this, and hearing that—sights and sounds which as yet had no meaning for her. Why also was it necessary to receive visitors nearly every evening?—visitors who could neither understand nor make themselves understood by her, for all their curious smiles and stares, which she bore like a second Vashti—or rather, Esther. And why, oh! Why should she be constrained to eat her food with clumsy, murderous looking American implements instead of with her own elegant and easily manipulated ivory chopsticks?

Adah Raymond, who at Lin Fo’s request was a frequent visitor to the house, could not fail to observe that Pau Tsu’s small face grew daily smaller and thinner, and that the smile with which she invariably greeted her, though sweet, was tinged with melancholy.

If Lin Fo happened to come in before Adah Raymond left he would engage the visitor in bright and animated conversation. They had so much of common interest to discuss, as is always the way with young people who have lived any length of time in a growing city of the West. But to Pau Tsu, pouring tea and dispensing sweetmeats, it was all Greek, or rather, all American.

“Look, my pearl, what I have brought you,” said Lin Fo one afternoon as he entered his wife’s apartments, followed by a messenger boy, who deposited in the middle of the room a large cardboard box.

With murmurs of wonder Pau Tsu drew near, and the messenger-boy having withdrawn Lin Fo cut the string, and drew forth a beautiful lace evening dress and dark blue walking costume, both made in American style.

For a moment there was silence in the room. Lin Fo looked at his wife in surprise. Her face was pale and her little body was trembling, while her hands were drawn up into her sleeves.

“Why, Pau Tsu!” he exclaimed, “I thought to make you glad.”

At these words the girl bent over the dress of filmy lace, and gathering the flounce in her hand smoothed it over her knee; then lifting a smiling face to her husband, replied: “Oh, you are too good, too kind to your unworthy Pau Tsu. My speech is slow, because I am overcome with happiness.”

Then with exclamations of delight and admiration she lifted the dresses out of the box and laid them carefully over the couch.

“I wish you to dress like an American woman when we go out or receive,” said her husband. “It is the proper thing in America to do as the Americans do. You will notice, light of my eyes, that it is only on New Year and our national holidays that I wear the costume of our country and attach a queue. The wife should follow the husband in all things.”

A ripple of laughter escaped Pau Tsu’s lips.

“When I wear that dress,” said she, touching the walking costume, “I will look like your friend, Miss Raymond.” She struck her hands together gleefully, but when her husband had gone to his business she bowed upon the floor and wept pitifully .Use the following sentence to help answer question 8.

Adah Raymond, who at Lin Fo’s request was a frequent visitor to the house, could not fail to observe that Pau Tsu’s small face grew daily smaller and thinner, and that the smile with which she invariably greeted her, though sweet, was tinged with melancholy - Which choice best explains what the word “melancholy” means in this excerpt?

Which statement best describes what the act of giving Pau Tsu American dresses reveals about Lin Fo’s character?

Which detail from the passage best supports the answer to Question #9?

"The Americanizing of Pau Tsu" explains that Pau Tsu is reluctant to adapt to her new surroundings. Read the following sentences from the story on the next page and look for ones that support the theme "resistance to change."

“What is best for men is also best for women in this country,” he told Pau Tsu when she wept over his suggestion that she should take some lessons in English from a white woman.

“It may be best for a man who goes out in the street,” she sobbed, “to learn the new language, but of what importance is it to a woman who lives only within the house and her husband’s heart?”

It was seldom, however, that she protested against the wishes of Lin Fo. As her mother-in-law had said, she was a docile, happy little creature. Moreover, she loved her husband. But as the days and weeks went by the girl bride whose life hitherto had been spent in the quiet retirement of a Chinese home in the performance of filial duties, in embroidery work and lute playing, in sipping tea and chatting with gentle girl companions, felt very much bewildered by the novelty and stir of the new world into which she had been suddenly thrown. She could not understand, for all Lin Fo’s explanations, why it was required of her to learn the strangers’ language and adopt their ways. Her husband’s tongue was the same as her own. So also her little maid’s. It puzzled her to be always seeing this, and hearing that—sights and sounds which as yet had no meaning for her. Why also was it necessary to receive visitors nearly every evening?—visitors who could neither understand nor make themselves understood by her, for all their curious smiles and stares, which she bore like a second Vashti—or rather, Esther. Which sentence from the excerpt best support the idea that Pau Tsu conceals her true feelings from her husband?

Which choice best describes the meaning of the phrase “called upon her” as it used in the excerpt.

Read “Four Skinny Trees” by Sandra Cisneros:

“Four Skinny Trees”

They are the only ones who understand me. I am the only one who understands them. Four skinny trees with skinny necks and pointy elbows like mine. Four who do not belong here but are here. Four raggedy excuses planted by the city. From our room we can hear them, but Nenny just sleeps and doesn’t appreciate these things.

Their strength is their secret. They send ferocious roots beneath the ground. They grow up and they grow down and grab the earth between their hairy toes and bite the sky with violent teeth and never quit their anger. This is how they keep.

Let one forget his reason for being, they’d all droop like tulips in a glass, each with their arms around the other. Keep, keep, keep, trees say when I sleep. They teach.

When I am too sad and too skinny to keep keeping, when I am a tiny thing against so many bricks, then it is I look at trees. When there is nothing left to look at on this street. Four who grew despite concrete. Four who reach and do not forget to reach. Four whose only reason is to be and be.

Which line from this selection best describes the trees as tenacious and persevering?

Using context clues, what does the word raggedy most likely mean?

What does the author’s use of the words “ferocious,” “bite,” “violent,” and “anger” in paragraph 2 suggest about the trees and the narrator’s character?

What can you predict about the narrator’s future, based on this selection?

Read the excerpt from Florence Kelley’s speech “To the National American Woman Suffrage Association.” Florence Kelley (1859-1932) was a United States social worker and reformer who fought successfully for child labor laws and improved conditions for working women. She delivered the following speech before the convention of the National American Woman Suffrage Association in Philadelphia on July 22, 1905.

We have, in this country, two million children under the age of sixteen years who are earning their bread. They vary in age from six and seven years (in the cotton mills of Georgia) and eight, nine and ten years (in the coal-breakers of Pennsylvania), to fourteen, fifteen and sixteen years in more enlightened states. No other portion of the wage earning class increased so rapidly from decade to decade as the young girls from fourteen to twenty years.

Tonight while we sleep, several thousand little girls will be working in textile mills, all the night through, in the deafening noise of the spindles and the looms spinning and weaving cotton and wool, silks and ribbons for us to buy.

In Alabama the law provides that a child under sixteen years of age shall not work in a cotton mill at night longer than eight hours, and Alabama does better in this respect than any other southern state. North and South Carolina and Georgia place no restriction upon the work of children at night; and while we sleep little white girls will be working tonight in the mills in those states, working eleven hours at night.

In Georgia there is no restriction whatever! A girl of six or seven years, just tall enough to reach the bobbins, may work eleven hours by day or by night. And they will do so tonight, while we sleep.

Nor is it only in the South that these things occur. Alabama does better than New Jersey. For Alabama limits the children’s work at night to eight hours, while New Jersey permits it all night long. Last year, New Jersey took a long backward step. A good law was repealed which had required women and [children] to stop work at six in the evening and at noon on Friday. Now, therefore, in New Jersey, boys and girls, after their 14th birthday, enjoy the pitiful privilege of working all night long. Which lines from the speech best support the claim that an epidemic of child labor is growing in the United States?

Using context clues, what does the word “repealed” as used in the above excerpt from the speech, most likely mean?

Read the excerpt from the speech. If the mothers and the teachers in Georgia could vote, would the Georgia Legislature have refused at every session for the last three years to stop the work in the mills of children under twelve years of age?

Would the New Jersey Legislature have passed that shameful repeal bill enabling girls of fourteen years to work all night, if the mothers in New Jersey were enfranchised? Until the mothers in the great industrial states are enfranchised, we shall none of us be able to free our consciences from participation in this great evil.No one in this room tonight can feel free from such participation. (enfranchised means allowed to vote) In this excerpt, Florence Kelley argues that:

Read this excerpt from the speech: The children make our shoes in the shoe factories; they knit our stockings, our knitted underwear in the knitting factories. They spin and weave our cotton underwear in the cotton mills. Children braid straw for our hats, they spin and weave the silk and velvet wherewith we trim our hats. They stamp buckles and metal ornaments of all kinds, as well as pins and hat-pins. Under the sweating system, tiny children make artificial flowers and neckwear for us to buy. They carry bundles of garments from the factories to the tenements, little beasts of burden, robbed of school life that they may work for us. Why does Ms. Kelley include these details in her speech?

Read the excerpt from the speech: What can we do to free our consciences? There is one line of action by which we can do much. We can enlist the workingmen on behalf of our enfranchisement just in proportion as we strive with them to free the children. No labor organization in this country ever fails to respond to an appeal for help in the freeing of the children. For the sake of the children, for the Republic in which these children will vote after we are dead, and for the sake of our cause, we should enlist the workingmen voters, with us, in this task of freeing the children from toil! This part (end) of the speech could best be characterized as the:

Read this excerpt from “On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid: I did not know then that the statement "Draw a map of England" was something far worse than a declaration of war, for in fact a flat-out declaration of war would have put me on alert, and again in fact, there was no need for war—I had long ago been conquered. Which of the following excerpts from the essay show how Kincaid and her family were “conquered” by England?

Read the excerpt from “On Seeing England for the First Time” by Jamaica Kincaid: My father, who might have sat next to me at breakfast, was a carpenter and a cabinet maker. The shoes he wore to work would have been made in England, as were his khaki shirt and trousers, his underpants and undershirt, his socks and brown felt hat. Felt was not the proper material, from which a hat that was expected to provide shade from the hot sun should be made, but my father must have seen and admired a picture of an Englishmen wearing such a hat in England, and this picture that he saw must have been so compelling that it caused him to wear the wrong hat for a hot climate most of his long life. And this hat—a brown felt hat—became so central to his character that it was the first thing he put on in the morning as he stepped out of bed and the last thing he took off before he stepped back into bed at night .As we sat at breakfast a car might go by. The car, a Hillman or a Zephyr, was made in England. The very idea of the meal itself, breakfast, and its substantial quality and quantity was an idea from England; we somehow knew that in England they began the day with this meal called breakfast and a proper breakfast was a big breakfast. No one I knew liked eating so much food so early in the day; it made us feel sleepy, tired. But this breakfast business was Made in England like almost everything else that surrounded us, the exceptions being the sea, the sky, and the air we breathed.

In “On Seeing England for the First Time,” the author's reference to felt as "not the proper material" for her father's hat chiefly serves to emphasize her point about the...

The word "substantial" as used in the excerpt most nearly means:

Look at the picture of the speaker/presenter accepting an award. Why would the presenter of the photo essay include this picture of himself in his photo essay? Which visual rhetorical appeal would describe the use of this visual in a photo essay? (Which visual rhetorical appeal is he using?)

Look at the photograph of the girl. This a picture from Rhodes Manufacturing Company. It is captioned, “Spinner. A moment’s glimpse of the outer world. Said she was 10 years old. Been working over a year. Location: Lincolnton, North Carolina.” Which sentence best describes how the photographer uses a rhetorical appeal in this photograph?

Read the excerpt from Baldwin’s “Stranger in the Village” The black man insists, by whatever means he finds at his disposal, that the white man cease to regard him as an exotic rarity and recognize him as a human being. This is a very charged and difficult moment, for there is a great deal of willpower involved in the white man’s naivete. Most people are not naturally reflective anymore than they are naturally malicious, and the white man prefers to keep the black man at a certain human remove because it is easier for him thus to preserve his simplicity and avoid being called to account for crimes committed by his forefather, or his neighbors.

Which statement best interprets Baldwin’s use of the word “naivete” in the excerpt?

In his essay, “Stranger in the Village”, how does James Baldwin develop his different experiences of racism in America and in Europe?

Providing background information on the events that occurred during the time that James Baldwin was living and writing the essay “Stranger in the Village” is essential to better understanding of the piece and indicates employing which critical lens (which critical perspective)?

This literary criticism deals with recurring images, universal symbols, motifs, patterns, etc.

This criticism focuses on a reader’s active engagement with a text including the reader’s own experiences, social ethics, moral values and general views of the world.

This criticism assumes that texts both influence and are influenced by the times in which they are created and recognizes the significance of considering past events in interpreting literature.

This criticism asserts that economics provides the foundation for all social, political, and ideological reality: the basic struggle in human society is between the haves and the have-nots.

This criticism asserts that differing religious beliefs, ethnicities, class identifications, political beliefs, and individual viewpoints affect how texts are created and interpreted.

This criticism focuses on relationships between genders. It examines the patterns of thought, behavior, values, enfranchisement, and power in relations between and within the sexes.