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her doubts as she absently rubs her thumb over The woman still seems not to understand.
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the back of her hand. We find our way to the “I can’t read it. I don’t know how to read or
CLOSE READING crowded auditorium where gray metal chairs are write, and I’m askin you to help me.” My mother
set up in the middle of the room. Along the wall looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all
Ask students to individually develop a to the left are tables and other chairs. Every chair of her looks, but this one is brand new to me.
paragraph that includes a claim that Analyzing Short Fiction seems occupied by a child or adult. Somewhere “Would you help me, then?”
requires defense with evidence from the in the room a child is crying, a cry that rises The woman says Why sure, and suddenly
text as it relates to the narrator’s shift in above the buzz-talk of so many people. Strewn she appears happier, so much more satisfied
attitude from “I sense her doubts as she about the floor are dozens and dozens of pieces with everything. She finishes the form for her
absently rubs her thumb over the back of white paper, and people are walking over daughter and my mother and I step aside to wait
of her hand” to “And seeing this lack of them without any thought of picking them up. for her. We find two chairs nearby and sit. My
concern, I am all of a sudden afraid” in And seeing this lack of concern, I am all of a mother is now diseased, according to the girl’s
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
paragraph 8. Ask students to consider the sudden afraid. eyes, and until the moment her mother takes her
mother’s actions amidst the general chaos “Is this where they register for school?” my and the form to the front of the auditorium, the
in the room as they determine the reason mother asks a woman at one of the tables. girl never stops looking at my mother. I stare
for the fear and to individually share out in The woman looks up slowly as if she has 10 back at her. “Don’t stare,” my mother says to me.
small groups.
heard this question once too often. She nods. “You know better than that.”
She is tiny, almost as small as the girl standing Another woman out of the Ebony ads takes
beside her. The woman’s hair is set in a mass of the woman’s child away. Now, the woman says
DIFFERENTIATION curlers and all of those curlers are made of upon returning, let’s see what we can do for you
paper money, here a dollar bill, there a two.
Mode of Expression
five-dollar bill. The girl’s hair is arrayed in curls, My mother answers the questions the 20
Students are familiar with film and but some of them are beginning to droop and woman reads off the form. They start with my
cinematography, and visual learners in this makes me happy. On the table beside the last name, and then on to the first and middle
particular may benefit when they analyze woman’s pocketbook is a large notebook, names. This is school, I think. This is going to
this tense scene. Ask students to consider worthy of someone in high school, and looking school. My mother slowly enunciates each word
the function of dialogue by storyboarding, at me looking at the notebook, the girl places of my name. This is my mother: As the questions
and then acting out, the scene from “Is this her hand possessively on it. In her other hand go on, she takes from her pocketbook document
where they register for school?” (par. 9) she holds several pencils with thick crowns of after document, as if they will support my right
to “You know better than that” (par. 18). additional erasers. to attend school, as if she has been saving them
Pay close attention to an interpretation “These the forms you gotta use?” my mother up for just this moment. Indeed, she takes out
of attitude using facial expressions of asks the woman, picking up a few pieces of the more papers than I have ever seen her do in
characters, facial expressions, camera paper from the table. “Is this what you have to other places: my birth certificate, my baptismal
angles (close, medium, long), editing fill out?” record, a doctor’s letter concerning my bout
cuts, costumes, hair, makeup, and sound. The woman tells her yes, but that she need with chicken pox, rent receipts, records of
Students may wish to use Storyboard fill out only one. immunization, a letter about our public
That (online) or print out storyboards. Ask “I see,” my mother says, looking about the assistance payments, even her marriage
students to focus on assumptions about room. Then: “Would you help me with this license — every single paper that has anything
the education level or worthiness of the form? That is, if you don’t mind.” even remotely to do with my five-year-old life.
mother through the eyes of the children in The woman asks my mother what she Few of the papers are needed here, but it does
particular.
means. not matter and my mother continues to pull out
“This form. Would you mind helpin me fill 15 the documents with the purposefulness of a
it out?” magician pulling out a long string of scarves. She

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CLOSE READING
The narrator shares that her mother pulls
out records with “the purposefulness of a
magician pulling out a long string of scarves”
(par. 20). Ask students to individually create
a two-column chart. Ask them to include the
metaphor in column 1, then the comparison
(and the significance of that comparison)
in column 2. Ask students to consider this
question: How might the metaphor function
to convey the narrator’s attitude toward her
mother?
TRM Graphic Organizer
A graphic organizer for this activity can be
found in the Teacher’s Resource Materials.

4 chapter 1 / Analyzing Short Fiction

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