American Literature Worksheets
Table of contents
The All-American Slurp by Lensey Namioka.
Lame Deer Remembers by John Fire/Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes.
Prisoner of My Country by Yoshiko Uchida.
The Jacket by Gary Soto.
A Day’s Wait by Ernest Hemingway.
The Circuit by Francisco Jimenez.
Thank You, M’am by Langston Hughes.
The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane.
The Ballad of John Henry anonymous.
Harriet Tubman by Eloise Greenfield.
O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman.
River Man by Teresa Pijoan de Van Etten.
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
The Call of the Wild Jack London.
The Sky Is Low by Emily Dickinson.
in Just- by e.e. cummings.
Birdfoot’s Grampa by Joseph Bruchac.
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost.
Little Things Are Big by Jesus Colon.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass.
Amigo Brothers by Piri Thomas.
Ambush by Tim O’Brien.
Childtimes by Eloise Greenfield and Lessie Jones Little.
The Medicine Bag by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve.
Mother to Son by Langston Hughes.
Lament by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet.
Housecleaning by Nikki Giovanni.
Escape! by James W. C. Pennington.
At Last I Kill a Buffalo by Luther Standing Bear.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber.
The Invalid’s Story by Mark Twain.
The All-American Slurp
by Lensey Namioka
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a memoir?
2. If you were to write your own memoir, what would you write about?
3. Why do you think the author chooses the tittle “The All-American Slurp” for the story?
4. What embarrassing incidents happen to the Lins when they visit the Gleasons for dinner?
5. What happens at the Lakeview restaurant that is embarrassing to the author? Why would the author be embarrassed?
6. What happens when the Gleasons visit the Lins for dinner? Do you think the Gleasons are embarrassed like the Lins? Why or why not?
7. How would you describe the tone of this writing? Give examples to support your view.
8. What do you think of Meg’s statement at the end of the story: “Sure. All Americans slurp.”?
9. What do you think the author discover about herself at the end of the story?
10. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Lame Deer Remembers
by John Fire/Lame Deer
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. Locate the state of South Dakota of the United States on a map, and name the states to the north and south of South Dakota.
2. Why do you think Native Americans (American Indians) live on reservations?
3. What Indian words do Lame Deer and his people prefer to be called rather than Sioux or Dakota? What do they mean in English?
4. In Indian culture, as in Vietnamese culture, children are very close to their grandparents. Why do you think that is so?
5. What is the “Nonge Pahloka” ceremony? What is the significance of this ceremony?
6. Do you think the “vision quest” is as significant to an Indian male as the “Nonge Pahloka” to an Indian female? What is the purpose of a “vision quest”?
7. Does Lame Deer really know why he pierced his little sister’s ears? What reasons does Lame Deer give for piercing her ears?
8. Lame Deer’s father doesn’t punish him by physical violence such as whipping, because that is not his way. What does that tell you about Lame Deer’s father? Do you think that maybe indicative of the way the Indian people used to raise their children?
9. How did Lame Deer’s father punish him for piercing his little sister’s ears? Why do you think he chose that as a form of punishment?
10. Why do you think Lame Deer’s father gave him a new horse?
11. What did you learn about Native American people, such as the Sioux, by reading this story?
12. What is the Civil Rights movement in the United States? Why do you think that happened?
13. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Prisoner of My Country
by Yoshiko Uchida
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. Why does the woman who stopped by one day “smiled an embarrassed smile” when she asked if she could have some gladiolas?
2. What is Camp Bundle? Does it mean they are going to a camp that is named Camp Bundle?
3. Is the narrator’s family going camping? Why are they taking so many things with them? Do they know how long they are going to be there?
4. Why does the author mention that the neighbors who invited them to dinner the night before leaving for camp as the “Swiss neighbors” instead of our neighbors the Harpainters? What do you think of the Swiss neighbors’ gesture (inviting the narrator’s family over for dinner)?
5. What is the Civil Control Station?
6. What does the narrator realize when she saw the guards (soldiers) with their bayonets ready and guarding “all around the church”?
7. What do you think would happen to the Japanese-Americans’ houses and belongings such as furniture and cars when they go away to camp? What does the narrator mean by “The First Congregational Church had been good to us”?
8. What is the Tanforan Racetrack Assembly Center?
9. Why would there be high fence with barbed wire, guards, and gates at the racetrack?
10. Mama was wearing her “Sunday clothes.” What is Sunday clothes? What does that tell you about Mama?
11. What is Barrack 16, Apartment 40? Describe it.
12. What does it tell you when the narrator describes the walls of her apartment as: “Tiny bodies of spiders and bugs had been painted onto the walls by army painters?
13. What did the narrator’s family have for dinner their first night at camp? Did the narrator have a nice hot meal as she expected?
14. What does the narrator mean by her civil rights was taken away?
15. What is the United States Constitution?
16. What does the narrator mean by “No one knew about the pride for one’s own people.”?
17. Why do you think all Japanese-Americans were forced to be relocated to internment camps?
18. Were the German-Americans also forced to be relocated to internment camps? Why or why not?
19. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is figurative language?
2. Give examples of figurative language in the story.
3. What is symbolism?
4. What does the jacket symbolize in this story?
5. The narrator wants a leather jacket, instead he got a green jacket with vinyl sleeves. How does he feel about his new jacket? Give examples from the story to support your view.
6. The narrator thinks he looked “ugly” in his new jacket. Why would he also blame the jacket when he got a D on the math quiz?
7. The author compares the tape peeling off like a scab. What does that reveal about his feelings?
8. The narrator drank powdered milk and ate beans with tortilla for dinner. Does that tell you anything about their family’s ethnic background and income level?
9. At what grade did the narrator receive the green jacket? How long did he wear that jacket?
10. What does the last sentence in the story reveal about the narrator’s discovery about himself: “Soon, I put on my jacket, that green ugly brother that breathed over my shoulder – that day and ever since.”?
11. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
A Day’s Wait
by Ernest Hemingway
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a dialogue?
2. What do you think about the dialogue that is used in this story? How does it make you feel as you read the story?
3. What is the boy’s name? How old is he?
4. What is the relationship between the boy and the narrator?
5. What is the boy’s temperature in Fahrenheit when the doctor came to examine him?
6. What is physically wrong with the boy?
7. Why do you think the boy isn’t interested in listening to Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates as the narrator read aloud to him?
8. At what time does the narrator go “out for a while” for quail hunting? What season do you think it is at that time of the year?
9. What is the boy’s temperature when the father came back to take his temperature? Why do you think the father says “Something like a hundred” instead of his real body temperature?
10. Why doesn’t the boy want anyone to come into his room?
11. What do you think is the internal conflict that the boy is feeling?
12. What do you think about the last paragraph: “But his gaze at the foot of the bed relaxed slowly. The hold over himself relaxed too, finally, and the next day it was very slack and he cried very easily at little things that were of no importance.”?
13. Why does the boy seem to be relaxed and cried easily “at little things that were of no importance” at the end of the story?
14. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Circuit
by Francisco Jimenez
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is irony?
2. What do you find that is ironic in this story?
3. What is a rising action?
4. Give an example of a rising action in this story?
5. What are migrant workers?
6. What is the nationality of the majority of the migrant workers in the United States today? Why do you think they would come to the United States to work as migrant workers?
7. Do most of these migrant workers come to the United States legally? Why does the United States government allow these workers to come and live in the United States illegally?
8. Why do you think these migrant workers are being exploited: such as low wages, long working hours, no benefits, poor working and living condition?
9. What crop does the narrator’s family pick from June through August in this story?
10. How many hours does the narrator work a day, how many days a week? How long is the lunch break?
11. Why is the thought of moving to Fresno bring tears to the narrator’s eyes?
12. What is the name of Papa’s car in Spanish?
13. Why is the car so important to this family of migrant workers?
14. What does Mama call her pot in Spanish?
15. What kind of food does the pot contain for their trip to find work on another farm?
16. On whose farm does the narrator’s family find work? What fruit do they pick? How long (from what month to what month) do they pick this fruit?
17. What is the name of the narrator? What is the name of the narrator’s older brother?
18. What is the temperature on the first day of work at nine o’clock in the morning? Convert that to Celsius.
19. Why do you think the narrator and his brother have to hide from the school bus?
20. “Quince” means fifteen in English. How much money does the family make for the whole day of work picking grapes?
21. The narrator is able to go to school at the end of the grape picking season. What month does the narrator start school? What grade is he in? Who is his teacher?
22. Do you think the narrator is a good student? Why
23. Do you think Mr. Lema is a nice teacher? Why
24. What musical instrument does Mr. Lema want to teach the narrator to play? Why do you think the sound of that instrument sounds familiar to the narrator?
25. What do you think about the ending of the story?
26. Why do you think the title of this story is “The Circuit”?
27. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Thank You, M’am
by Langston Hughes
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. Who are the characters in this story?
2. What is a theme in a story, novel, play, or poem?
3. What is the theme of this story?
4. What is the dialect in this story? Give examples?
5. What do you think about the first line in this story: “She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but hammer and nails.”? What do you think the author is trying to tell us about the woman?
6. The author writes “[She] kicked him right square on his blue-jeaned sitter.” Where did the woman kick the boy?
7. What is the name of the woman?
8. What is the name of the boy? How old is he?
9. Why do you think she doesn’t let the boy go?
10. What do you think the author is implying by this sentence: “Roger looked at the door-looked at the woman-looked at the door-and went to the sink” (page 158)?
11. Why does the boy snatch the woman’s purse?
12. Why do you think she is so kind to Roger?
13. If Mrs. Jones were white, do you think she would have treated Roger the same way? Why or Why not?
14. What does the author mean by “He did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now.” (page 159)?
15. What does Mrs. Jones mean by “shoes come by devilish like that will burn your feet.” (page 160)?
16. What kind of food does Mrs. Jones offer the boy?
17. How much money does Mrs. Jones give the boy to buy the suede shoes?
18. What affects do you think Mrs. Jones would have on this boy by her acts of kindness?
19. What did you learn about the author Langston Hughes?
20. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Red Badge of Courage
by Stephen Crane
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is the setting of this story?
2. What is an idiom?
3. Give an example of an idiom in this story.
4. The American Civil War (1861-1865) was fought between the northern states and the southern states. The northern states were part of the Union, and the southern states were part of the Confederate. Who was the president during the Civil War? Why did they fight? Which side won?
5. Who are the characters in this story? Which one is the main character?
6. What is the color of the uniform of the Union soldiers? What is the color of the uniform of the Confederate (Rebel) soldiers?
7. Describe the Union flag.
8. Describe the Confederate flag.
9. Which side is Henry fighting for?
10. Henry is carrying the flag. Why do you think this is important to the story?
11. Describe the battle scene.
12. Why is the fence important to the battle scene.
13. Which side is victorious?
14. What happens to the Rebel carrying to Rebel flag? What does it imply?
15. Why do you think Henry ran away from the first battle?
16. Why do you think Henry didn’t run away from this battle? Do you think he is brave?
17. What does the narrator mean by “There was no need for him to feel too guilty nor too proud. He need not be loud or boastful. He was but a man, after all.”
18. What does the narrator mean by the last sentence “Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the dark rain clouds.”?
19. What did you learn about the author Stephen Crane?
20. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Ballad of John Henry
by anonymous
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a dialect?
2. What is a ballad?
3. What is the dialect of this ballad?
4. What are tall tales?
5. Is this ballad a tall tale? Why or why not?
6. A stanza is a group of lines in a poem with a similar idea, as in a paragraph. What is the main idea of the first stanza?
7. Repetition is the repeating words or lines in a poem. Repetition is used to create a mood or feeling. What words are repeated in the first stanza? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the first stanza with the repeating words?
8. What is the main idea of the second stanza?
9. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the second stanza?
10. What is the main idea of the third stanza?
11. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the third stanza?
12. What is the main idea of the fourth stanza?
13. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the fourth stanza?
14. What is the main idea of the fifth stanza?
15. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the fifth stanza?
16. What is the main idea of the sixth stanza?
17. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the sixth stanza?
18. What is the main idea of the seventh stanza?
19. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the seventh stanza?
20. What is the main idea of the eighth stanza?
21. What words are repeated? What mood or feeling is being conveyed in the eighth stanza?
22. Who is the author of this ballad?
23. Write an essay to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Harriet Tubman
by Eloise Greenfield
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is rhythm in poetry?
2. What is repetition in poetry?
3. What words or sentences are repeated in this poem?
4. What mood or feeling is created by the repetition in this poem?
5. Write a paragraph to explain what you know about Harriet Tubman.
6. A dialect is a regional way of talking. For example there are Northern, Central, and Southern dialects in Vietnam. A dialect is also a way of talking by an ethnic group in the United States. The dialect of this poem is African-American. Paraphrase line 1 “Harriet Tubman didn’t take no stuff”.
7. Paraphrase line 2 “Wasn’t scared of nothing neither”.
8. Paraphrase line 3 “Didn’t come in this world to be no slave”.
9. Paraphrase line 4 “And wasn’t going to stay one either”.
10. What is the meaning of the first stanza?
11. Paraphrase line 5 ” ‘Farewell!’ she sang to her friends one night”.
12. Paraphrase line 6 “She was mighty sad to leave ‘em”.
13. Paraphrase line 7 “But she ran away that dark, hot night”.
14. Paraphrase line 8 “Ran looking for her freedom”.
15. What is the meaning of the second stanza?
16. Paraphrase line 9 “She ran to the woods and she ran through the woods”.
17. Paraphrase line 10 “With the slave catchers right behind her”.
18. Paraphrase line 11 “And she kept on going till she got to the North”.
19. Paraphrase line 12 “Where those mean men couldn’t find her”.
20. What is the meaning of the third stanza?
21. Paraphrase line 13 “Nineteen times she went back South”.
22. Paraphrase line 14 “To get three hundred others”.
23. Paraphrase line 15 “She ran for her freedom nineteen times”.
24. Paraphrase line 16 “To save black sisters and brothers”.
25. What is the meaning of the fourth stanza?
26. What is the difference between the first and the fifth stanza?
27. What did you learn about the author of this poem?
28. Write an essay to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the character, the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
O Captain! My Captain!
by Walt Whitman
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is symbolism?
2. What does the ship symbolize in this poem?
3. What does the captain of the ship symbolize in this poem?
4. How many stanzas does this poem have?
5. What does the “prize” in line 2 of the poem stand for?
6. What does the line 9 “O the bleeding drops of red” reveal about the death of the captain?
7. What is the meaning of the first stanza?
8. Why does the narrator refer to the captain as his “father” in line 20?
9. What does line 21 “This arm beneath your head!” reveal about the narrator’s feeling toward the captain?
10. What does line 22 “It is some dream that on the deck,”
and line 23 “You’ve fallen cold and dead” reveal about the feeling of the narrator?
11. What is the meaning of the second stanza?
12. What is the meaning of the third stanza?
13. What is the mood or feeling of this poem?
14. What line is repeated to create this mood or feeling?
15. Write one paragraph to explain what this poem is about?
16. How do you feel about this poem?
17. What did you learn about the poet Walt Whitman?
River Man
by Teresa Pijoan de Van Etten
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is fiction? How is it different than non-fiction?
2. What is a fable?
3. What is a myth?
4. Can you think of a Vietnamese story that is both a fable and a myth? Write that story in English.
5. What happens to the people when they stop drinking water from the river?
6. What mischievous things does the river man do?
7. How would you describe the character traits of the river man?
8. What does the river man take from the “little girl” and the “young man” in the story?
9. Why does the young man take only “a little of his money” back? What does the author imply by this young man’s action?
10. What do you think the story is trying to teach us?
11. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
A Visit to the Clerk of the Weather
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What does this myth explain?
2. Why does the old woman take the narrator to the Clerk of the Weather?
3. Who are the people on Earth that the Clerk of the Weather complained about?
4. What is the name of the “icy dwarf”?
5. What does Mr. Frost have to get to substitute for a lap-dog for his wife?
6. What is the conflict between Jack Frost and Spring?
7. Do you think Spring will come early this year? Why?
8. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Call of the Wild
by Jack London
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. Where does Buck live before he was captured?
2. How does Buck see himself in comparison to the other dogs: Toots,Ysabel, and the fox terriers?
3. Who stole Buck? Why?
4. What is Buck’s pedigree?
5. Why is the breed such as Buck is in demand at that time?
6. How would you describe Buck’s temperament when he was captured? Give examples to support your view.
7. Do you think Buck is afraid of the man who Manuel sold him to, or the four men on the train? Why or why not?
8. Do you think Buck is afraid of the man in the red sweater? Why or why not?
9. What does the author mean when he writes that: “[Buck] was beaten-he knew that; but he was not broken”?
10. This is the first chapter of the novel The Call of the Wild by Jack London. What do you think will happen in the following chapters?
11. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters,
the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Sky Is Low
by Emily Dickenson
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is personification?
2. What is a quatrain?
3. How does Emily Dickinson use personification in this poem? Give examples.
4. What season is the poet writing about? Give examples.
5. How does the poet describe the weather in this poem?
6. What does the author mean by:
“Nature, like Us, is sometimes caught”
“Without her Diadem.”
7. What images do you see when you read this poem?
8. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Extra Assignment:
A haiku is a Japanese poem that is about nature. This type of poetry is rooted in Zen Buddhism, which tries to capture a state of mind through concise description of nature.
A haiku poem has three lines with a total of seventeen syllables. The first line has five syllables followed by a comma. The second line has seven syllables followed by a comma. The third line has five syllables followed by a period. However, a haiku poem doesn’t always have to follow this convention, as long as it has the essence of a haiku poem: concise description of nature that reveals a state of mind.
The following is a haiku poem written by the instructor.
Dark clouds
approaching
songbirds still sing
What type of weather is in this poem, and what state of mind is the instructor writing about?
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What are coined words?
2. From which words did the poet coin the new word “mud-luscious”?
3. Coin a new word in English!
4. Why do you think the poet named the poem “in Just-”?
5. What does the word “eddieandbill” stand for?
6. What does the word “bettyandisbel” stand for?
7. What season is this poem about? Give examples to support to view.
8. What does the word “wee” mean in this poem?
9. Why do you think the children are running toward the balloonman? What does this action imply?
10. What do you think this poem is about?
11. What did you learn about the poet e.e. cummings?
12. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Birdfoot’s Grampa
by Joseph Bruchac
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is the tone of this poem?
2. What is free verse in poetry?
3. Who is Birdfoot?
4. Who is the old man?
5. Why does the old man stop the car about two dozen times?
6. Would you have gotten out of the car while it’s raining to do what
the old man did?
7. What clues do you get from this poem that the old man is Native American?
8. Why do you think the old man helped the toads to get across the road?
9. What would happen to the toads if drivers from other cars didn’t stop to help the toads like the old man did?
10. What do you learn about Native American culture in this poem?
11. Do you see any similarity between Native American culture and Vietnamese culture?
12. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
The following is a poem written in free verse by the instructor.
Earthworms
i saw
an earthworm
crawling
next to my feet
carefully
i picked it up
and placed it
in a flowerpot
so i wouldn’t step on it
then i saw
another
i placed it
in the same flowerpot
so the other
won’t be lonely
1. How would you describe the tone of the “Earthworms” poem written by the instructor?
2. Write your own free verse poem below:
The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is the meter in a poem?
2. What is another word that is a synonym of the word meter?
3. What is symbolism?
4. What is the meaning of the first stanza?
5. What is the season in this poem? How could you tell?
6. Which stanza does the poet describe the second road?
7. Describe the first and the second road.
8. What does the poet mean by “In leaves no step had trodden black”?
9. Which road did the poet choose?
10. What does the poet mean by “Yet knowing how way leads on to way,”?
11. What does the poet mean by “I took the one less traveled by,”
“And that has made all the difference.”?
12. What do you think this poem is about?
13. What did you learn about the poet Robert Frost?
14. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Little Things Are Big
by Jesus Colon
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a paradox?
2. What is paradoxical about this story?
3. What is an internal conflict?
4. What internal conflict is the author feeling in this story?
5. Is this story a fiction or nonfiction?
6. Define the word courtesy.
7. Define the word prejudiced.
8. Define the word racism.
9. What is the difference between prejudiced and racism?
10. Memorial Day in the USA is on the last Monday of May. It’s the day of remembering soldiers who died in battles. What does the woman have with her when the author saw her in the subway on the night before Memorial Day?
11. What is the race of the woman? What is the race of the author? What country is he from?
12. Do you think the author is a racist for not helping the woman? Why? Why not.
13. Why do you think the author decided not to help the woman?
14. What does the author mean by: “This is what racism and prejudice can do to people and to a nation! This is what happens when these false walls keep us apart from each other.”?
15. Whom does the author say he has failed?
16. Who do you think the author has really failed?
17. What does the author mean by: “Then I will have my courtesy with me again.”?
18. Why do you think the title of this story is “Little Things Are Big”?
19. What did you learn about the author Jesus Colon?
20. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
by Frederick Douglass
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is an analogy?
2. What external conflict does the narrator experience in this narrative?
3. What is the name of Frederick Douglass’s master?
4. What is the name of the master’s father-in-law?
5. Why did Frederick Douglass let the master’s horse run away to the father-in-law’s farm?
6. Why did Frederick Douglass’s master loan him to Edward Covey?
7. What was Edward Covey’s means of livelihood?
8. Edward Covey was also a professor of what subject?
9. About how old was Frederick Douglass when he was loaned to Edward Covey?
10. How did Edward Covey break Frederick Douglass’s will?
11. Why do you think Frederick Douglass uses an analogy of a ship? What is the comparison?
12. What does the narrator mean by: “You have seen how a man was made a slave. You shall see how a slave was made a man”? (page 309).
13. What did Edward Covey do to Frederick Douglass when he was sick and unable to work?
14. What is the name of a slave who helped Frederick Douglass when he ran away?
15. What did his friend advise him to do?
16. Why do you think Edward Covey “caught hold of [Frederick Douglass’s] legs and began tying [him] up” when he was half out of the loft?
17. How long was the fight? Who won the fight?
18. What does Frederick Douglass mean by “This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave”? (page 313)
19. There were poor people and also criminals who came to the United States (a new colony of England at the time) from England to work as indenture servants. Why do you think those people were not enslaved like the black people from Africa?
20. Did the French plantation owners whip the Vietnamese workers during the time when Vietnam was a colony of France? What is the parallel between colonization and slavery?
21. What did you learn about the author Frederick Douglass?
22. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is colloquial language?
2. Give an example of a colloquial language from this story?
3. What is an omniscient point of view in writing?
4. Who are the characters in this story? How old are they?
5. Describe the physical characteristics of the two characters.
6. Can you tell each character’s ethnicity from this story?
7. Describe the relationship between the two characters.
8. What external conflict are the main characters going to have, “Both boys had a dream. Each wanted to be the lightweight champion of the world.” (page 321)
9. What internal conflict does each character have?
10. How does each character resolve his internal conflict?
11. How many rounds did the two characters fight?
12. Describe the first round.
13. Who do you think won the first round?
14. Describe the second round.
15. Who do you think won the second round?
16. Describe the third round.
17. Who do you think won the third round?
18. Do you think the announcer would have announced a winner? Who do you think the winner would have been?
19. What happened at the end of the story?
20. What do you think about the ending?
21. Why do you think the author uses colloquial language in this story?
22. Why do you think the author uses the omniscient point of view rather than the first-person point of view when writing this story?
23. What did you learn about the author Piri Thomas?
24. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What are sensory details in a story?
2. Why do you think sensory details are important to this story?
3. What is realism in writing?
4. Do you think realism in writing is similar to realism in painting?
5. Why do you think realism is an effective style of writing for this story?
6. People in the US would label this war as the Vietnam War, whereas the people in Vietnam would call it the American War. Write a paragraph to tell me what you know about the American War.
7. Who is Kathleen in this story? How old is she?
8. What does Kathleen want to know?
9. Did the narrator tell Kathleen the truth?
10. Would you have told Kathleen the truth? Why or why not?
11. Who is the “short, slender young man of about twenty” wearing “black clothing and rubber sandals and a gray ammunition belt” (page 333)?
12. What happens to the “short, slender young man of about twenty”?
13. On page 333, the narrator is saying “I was afraid of him-afraid of something-and as he passed me on the trail I threw a grenade that exploded at this feet and killed him.” And on page 334, the narrator is saying “It was not a matter of live or die. There was no real peril. Almost certainly the young man would have passed by. And it will always be that way.” What conflict is the narrator feeling?
14. What does the narrator mean by “Even now I haven’t finished sorting it out. Sometimes I forgive myself, other times I don’t.” (page 335)?
15. What does the narrator mean by “and he’ll pass within a few yards of me and suddenly smile at some secret thought and then continue up the trail to where it bends back into the fog” (page 335) at the end of the story?
16. What did you learn about the author Tim O’Brien?
17. What do you think about this story?
18. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Childtimes
by Eloise Greenfield
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a memoir?
2. If you were to write your own memoir, what would you write about?
3. Why do you think the author chooses the tittle “Childtimes” for the story?
4. Who is Marcus Garvey? Why do you think there is a movement for African Americans to return to Africa during the grandfather’s lifetime?
5. What is the grandfather’s profession? Why does he need to have other “little business” on the side?
6. What is the dialect of the grandfather is this story? Is this dialect related to his race, his time, and his profession? How?
7. What is the relationship between Pa and the author? What does Pa do to prevent the author from leaving?
8. Is Pa a good storyteller? Give examples to support your view.
9. How would you describe the writing style in the “Family” part of the story? Why would the author change her writing style for this part? What are some of the activities in this part?
10. Without looking at the author’s picture, and the illustrations of the story, could you tell the author’s race? How?
11. What does the author mean by: “A childtime is a mighty thing.”?
12. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Medicine Bag
by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is the name of the narrator in this story?
2. How do you think Grandpa got his name Joe Iron Shell? Is he really Martin’s Grandfather?
3. Who are Grandpa’s descendants?
4. Why do you think Martin was embarrassed when Grandpa first came to visit?
5. Did Grandpa know that Martin was embarrassed? Give examples from the story to back up your view.
6. Do you get the impression that Grandpa is a brave man? Why?
7. What is a vision quest?
8. What is the purpose of a medicine bag? What is in Grandpa’s medicine bag?
9. Why did Grandpa come to visit?
10. What did you learn about Native Americans (American Indians) from this story?
11. How did the story make you feel?
12. Why did the narrator’s mother “went to hug Grandpa, then stopped herself”? What does this reveal about the narrator’s mother?
13. Do you see any similarities between Vietnamese culture and Native American culture?
14. Do you think the narrator has finally accepted the medicine bag? Give examples from the story to support your view.
15. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
Mother to Son
by Langston Hughes
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is rhythm?
2. What is rhyme?
3. What is stanza?
4. What is metaphor?
5. What is dialect?
6. What is the dialect of this poem? Do you find it more difficult to understand because of this dialect? Why or why not?
7. Can you think of a dialect in Vietnamese that is difficult for you to understand? Why or why not?
8. Who is the speaker in this poem, the mother or the son?
9. What metaphor is the poet using in this poem? Do you think it is an effective metaphor? Why or why not?
10. What does the speaker mean by “Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.”?
11. What kind of stair does the speaker compare her life to?
12. The speaker compares the difficulties in her life metaphorically. Does that also reveal why she experienced such difficulties in her life? What is she trying to tell her son?
13. What is the main idea the speaker is trying to tell her son in this poem?
14. What repeating lines do you find in this poem? Do you think this repetition makes the poem more effective in conveying the main idea of this poem? How?
15. How does this poem make you feel?
16. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Lament
by Edna St. Vincent Millay
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is repetition?
2. What is a lament?
3. What line is repeated in this poem?
4. Is this repeating line effective in creating a mood or feeling for this poem? What is that mood or feeling?
5. What is this lament about? Why do you think the poet wrote this lament?
6. Who do you think the poet wrote this lament for: her children or herself?
7. Why do you think the last line of this poem is so sad: “I forget just why.”?
8. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Extra Assignment:
The following is another lament poem written by Walt Whitman about President Abraham Lincoln.
O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN!
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths — for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You’ve fallen cold and dead.
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
1. What is the metaphor in this poem?
2. Do you think the repeating line in this poem is effective in expressing the grief the poet is feeling? How?
3. What do you think about this poem in comparison to the “Lament” poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay?
To My Dear and Loving Husband
by Anne Bradstreet
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is rhyme?
2. List all the words that rhyme in this poem.
3. What is rhythm?
4. Did you find the rhythm in this poem when you read it aloud? How did you notice the rhythm?
5. How does the speaker in the poem feel about her husband? Give examples.
6. Do you get any ideas of why the speaker loves her husband? Give examples.
7. Why would the speaker use the word “persevere” to describe love?
8. What does the speaker mean by the last line in the poem: “That when we live no more, we may live ever.”?
9. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
Housecleaning
by Nikki Giovanni
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a slang?
2. Why would a poet use slang in a poem?
3. Why would a poet use letters that are not capitalized, or no punctuation at all, in a poem?
4. What does the phrase “i dug straightening” mean?
5. Does this poem have rhyme or rhythm?
6. How would you categorize a poem that doesn’t have a regular pattern and words that don’t rhyme?
7. How does the narrator feel about the person in her life?
8. Why does the narrator compare the person in her life to housecleaning?
9. What is the feeling that is expressed by the narrator in this poem?
10. Write a paragraph to summarize the poem. Your summary should have the following: the setting, and the main idea of the poem.
The following is a free verse poem written by the instructor:
For No One
like a sail boat
in a vast blue sea
without a compass
or a star
to point the way
then you appear
bright as the northern star
radiant and lovely
with that far-away look
in your eyes
and lips so moist
as the morning dew
and suddenly
i am no longer lost
as i steer
by the light
of the northern star
1. What are the similarities between the “For No One” poem and the “Housecleaning” poem?
2. What is the feeling that is expressed by the instructor in the “For No One” poem
3. Write your own free verse poem in an informal style below:
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is an autobiography?
2. What is a narrative?
3. What is atmosphere in literature?
4. What is the atmosphere of this narrative? Give examples.
5. Why do escaped slaves follow the North Star? Where are they trying to go?
6. What is the Mason-Dixon Line?
7. What is the significance of the Mason-Dixon Line in this story?
8. Why do you think the narrator “stepped into the slave quarter”? What did he take?
9. Why do you think “the young man with a load of hay” told the narrator where to go for help? (page 429)
10. Do you think the young man knew the narrator is a runaway slave? How
11. Did the narrator tell the four men who captured him by the potato lot that he is a runaway slave?
12. What did the narrator tell the four men in order for them to let him go?
13. Why do you think the narrator escaped again rather than going to Risterstown?
14. The old woman at the tollgate told the narrator to go to W.W., a Quaker, for help? Why do you think the Quakers were interested in helping run-away slaves?
15. The Quakers were also interested in helping the Americans who didn’t want to fight during the Vietnam War (American War). Why do you think they did that?
16. In the last sentence of the narrative, the narrator writes “I had never before received such treatment at the hands of any white man.” (page 437). What does the narrator mean by that?
17. What did you learn about the author James Pennington?
18. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
At Last I Kill a Buffalo
by Luther Standing Bear
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a theme in literature?
2. What is the theme of this autobiography?
3. What is an internal conflict?
4. What internal conflict is the narrator feeling in this memoir?
5. What are tipis?
6. What does the father teach the boy to prepare him for his first buffalo hunt?
7. What Indian tribe does the boy belong to?
8. How old is the narrator in this story?
9. What does “I-ni-la” mean?
10. What does “A-a-ah” mean?
11. What is the name of the boy?
12. How many arrows did the boy shoot at the buffalo?
13. What does the boy want to lie about?
14. Why doesn’t the boy want to lie to his father?
15. Why doesn’t the boy want to brag?
16. Why does the boy’s father give away a fine horse?
17. What does the writer mean by: “That ended my first and last buffalo hunt. It lives only in my memory, for the days of the buffalo are over.”?
18. What did you learn about Native Americans such as the Sioux tribe in this story?
19. What did you learn about the author Luther Standing Bear?
20. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
by James Thurber
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a simile?
2. What is onomatopoeia?
3. If someone is calling you a “Walter Mitty,” what does that person mean?
4. What is the difference between similes and metaphors?
5. What does Walter Mitty first daydream about?
6. What does Mrs. Walter Mitty say to Mr. Walter Mitty that snapped him out of his reverie?
7. What does she want him to buy while she is having her hair done?
8. What is Walter Mitty’s second daydream?
9. How does Walter Mitty come out of his second daydream?
10. What is Walter Mitty’s third daydream?
11. How does Walter Mitty come out of his third reverie?
12. What is Walter Mitty’s fourth daydream?
13. How does he come out of his fourth daydream?
14. What does his wife think is wrong with him?
15. What does Walter daydream about at the end of the story?
16. What do you think about this story?
17. What is the tone of this story?
18. What did you learn about the author James Thurber?
19. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
The Invalid’s Story
by Mark Twain
Discuss the following questions in a small group, then write your own answer to each question. This assignment is due on Friday.
1. What is a setting in a story?
2. What is the setting of this story?
3. What is a narrative hook in a story?
4. What narrative hook is the author using in this story?
5. Why do you think Limburger cheese is very important to this story?
6. Why do you think the setting is so important to this story?
7. Why do you think the author writes “I look like I am sixty years old and married. But that is because of my condition and sufferings. I am really unmarried and only forty-one years old.”? (page 471)
8. What box does the narrator have to take with him to Wisconsin?
9. What box does he actually take with him?
10. What is the name of his departed friend?
11. What is the name of the expressman?
12. What does the author mean by “He’s pretty ripe, ain’t he!”? (page 474)
13. Why do you think Thompson “broke a window pane and stretched his nose out for a moment or two”? (page 475)
14. Why do you think the expressman said “Two or three years, you mean.”? (page 476)
15. Why do you think Thompson “started calling my poor friend by different titles”? (page 476)
16. What military tittles does Thompson give to the narrator’s friend, in progressive order?
17. Why does Thompson spray acid everywhere on and around the box?
18. What happens when the acid doesn’t work?
19. Why do you think Thompson refers to the narrator’s friend as the Governor?
20. What do you think the narrator means by “Imagination had done its work. My health was gone for good.”? (page 480)
21. What is the tone of this story?
22. How did you feel as you read this story? Give examples from the story to support your feeling
23. What did you learn about the author Mark Twain?
24. Write an essay to summarize the story. Your summary should have the following: the characters, the setting, and the main idea of the story.
