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perfume, the last present my father gave her had known me all my life, touching my 1
before he disappeared into memory. Because I shoulder, cupping her hand under my chin. She CLOSE READING chapter 1
Section 1 page-turner? But the way the author tells the story and the ideas the story explores trimmed with thin lines of black and white my mother tells her that we live at 1227 New Section 1 / Elements of Fiction This is a good place to use a Says-Does-How
hen someone asks us about a short story, novel, or play, we usually describe it
cannot smell it, I have only her word that the
is enveloped in a perfume that I only know is
Wby retelling the plot in our own words. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a good
not gardenia. When, in answer to her question,
perfume is there. I am also wearing yellow socks
activity. Ask students to fold a sheet of
are often just as important as what happens in it. In these stories, events may occur
around the tops. My shoes are my greatest joy,
Jersey Avenue, the woman first seems to be
paper to form three columns: Column 1 will
because of internal conflicts within a character or external conflicts between characters
black patent-leather miracles, and when one is
picturing in her head where we live. Then she
contain the sentence “My shoes are my
or between a character and other forces, such as those found in nature. Particular
nicked at the toe later that morning in class, my
shakes her head and says that we are at the
greatest joy, black patent-leather miracles,
settings also influence both events and conflicts in different ways. As readers, we pick
Walker-Jones.
I am carrying a pencil, a pencil sharpener,
up on all of these details to help us understand characters’ relationships with each
that morning in class, my heart will break”
and a small ten-cent tablet with a black-and-
My mother shakes her head vigorously.
other and with the environment around them. We also experience the story’s characters, heart will break. wrong school, that we should be at 5 and when one is nicked at the toe later
from the end of the first paragraph on p. 3.
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
setting, and plot through a narrator’s point of view, and both the narrator and the white speckled cover. My mother does not “I want her to go here,” my mother says. “If I’da Column 2 is where they will write infor-
characters within the story have their own perspectives and understanding of the world believe that a girl in kindergarten needs such wanted her someplace else, I’da took her there.” mation about the daughter based on the
around them. things, so I am taking them only because of my The woman continues to act as if she has known details from this sentence, and column 3
insistent whining and because they are me all my life, but she tells my mother that we is where they will interpret and explain
presents from our neighbors, Mary Keith and live beyond the area that Seaton serves. My what the information in the second column
Elements of Fiction Blondelle Harris. Miss Mary and Miss Blondelle mother is not convinced and for several more reveals about the daughter. Once students
are watching my two younger sisters until my minutes she questions the woman about why I have completed the graphic organizer,
By studying how these literary elements work individually and together, we begin to mother returns. The women are as precious to cannot attend Seaton. For as many Sundays as I have them share their work with a partner.
understand how they shape readers’ interpretations of a story’s meaning. To explore me as my mother and sisters. Out playing one can remember, perhaps even Sundays when I Then engage the class in a whole-group
these elements, let’s take a look at the short story “The First Day” by Edward P. Jones. day, I have overheard an older child, speaking was in her womb, my mother has pointed across discussion of their findings.
As you read, notice the ways the characters respond to the changes in the setting, think to another child, call Miss Mary and Miss I Street to Seaton as we come and go to Mt. TRM Graphic Organizer
about how the plot introduces and resolves the conflicts characters experience, and Blondelle a word that is brand new to me. This Carmel. “You gonna go there and learn about
consider the narrator’s role in the story. is my mother: When I say the word in fun to the whole world.” But one of the guardians of A graphic organizer for this activity can be
one of my sisters, my mother slaps me across that place is saying no, and no again. I am found in the Teacher’s Resource Materials.
the mouth and the word is lost for years and learning this about my mother: The higher up
years. on the scale of respectability a person is — and
The First Day All the way down New Jersey Avenue, the teachers are rather high up in her eyes — the less
sidewalks are teeming with children. In my she is liable to let them push her around. But
Edward P. Jones
neighborhood, I have many friends, but I see finally, I see in her eyes the closing gate, and she
On an otherwise unremarkable September now and I will reach for it time and time again none of them as my mother and I walk. We cross takes my hand and we leave the building. On the
morning, long before I learned to be ashamed of before the morning ends. All the plaits, each New York Avenue, we cross Pierce Street, and we steps, she stops as people move past us on either
my mother, she takes my hand and we set off with a blue barrette near the tip and each cross L and K, and still I see no one who knows side.
down New Jersey Avenue to begin my very first twisted into an uncommon sturdiness, will last my name. At I Street, between New Jersey “Mama, I can’t go to school?”
day of school. I am wearing a checkeredlike until I go to bed that night, something that has Avenue and Third Street, we enter Seaton She says nothing at first, then takes my hand BUILDING CONTEXT
blue-and-green cotton dress, and scattered never happened before. My stomach is full of Elementary School, a timeworn, sad-faced again and we are down the steps quickly and
about these colors are bits of yellow and white milk and oatmeal sweetened with brown sugar. building across the street from my mother’s nearing New Jersey Avenue before I can blink. It may be helpful to ensure that students
and brown. My mother has uncharacteristically Like everything else I have on, my pale green church, Mt. Carmel Baptist. This is my mother: She says, “One monkey don’t can visualize what Jones is referencing
spent nearly an hour on my hair that morning, slip and underwear are new, the underwear Just inside the front door, women out of the stop no show.” when the narrator mentions Ebony
plaiting and replaiting so that now my scalp having come three to a plastic package with a advertisements in Ebony are greeting other Walker-Jones is a larger, newer school and I magazine in paragraphs 4 and 19. You
tingles. Whenever I turn my head quickly, my little girl on the front who appears to be dancing. parents and children. The woman who greets immediately like it because of that. But it is not might want to ask students to search online
nose fills with the faint smell of Dixie Peach hair Behind my ears, my mother, to stop my whining, us has pearls thick as jumbo marbles that come across the street from my mother’s church, her for Ebony magazine advertisements from
grease. The smell is somehow a soothing one has dabbed the stingiest bit of her gardenia down almost to her navel, and she acts as if she rock, one of her connections to God, and I sense the 1950s and 1960s (when the story takes
place) and, in small groups, discuss what
these ads convey that might be so alluring
2 3
to this child.
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CLOSE READING
In small groups, ask students to consider
how the daughter’s point of view about the
characterization of her mother can be found
in the syntactical structure of the following
lines — “This is my mother:” (pars. 2, 7, and
20) and “I am learning this about my mother:”
(par. 5). Ask student representatives from
each small group to share their observations
with the whole class.

chapter 1 / Elements of Fiction 3

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