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her doubts as she absently rubs her thumb over The woman still seems not to understand. has learned that money is the beginning and be back to pick you up at twelve o’clock. I don’t 1
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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 end of everything in this world, and when the want you to go nowhere. You just wait right
crowded auditorium where gray metal chairs are write, and I’m askin you to help me.” My mother woman finishes, my mother offers her fifty cents, here. And listen to every word she say.” I touch CLOSE READING chapter 1
set up in the middle of the room. Along the wall looks at me, then looks away. I know almost all and the woman accepts it without hesitation. My her lips and press them together. It is an old,
to the left are tables and other chairs. Every chair of her looks, but this one is brand new to me. mother and I are just about the last parent and old game between us. She puts my hand down There is an unspoken language between
mother and daughter. Help students trace
seems occupied by a child or adult. Somewhere “Would you help me, then?” child in the room. at my side, which is not part of the game. She the instances where they communicate via
in the room a child is crying, a cry that rises The woman says Why sure, and suddenly My mother presents the form to a woman stands and looks a second at the teacher, then Section 1 / Elements of Fiction looks or gestures. Yet, there is a breakdown
above the buzz-talk of so many people. Strewn she appears happier, so much more satisfied sitting in front of the stage, and the woman looks she turns and walks away. I see where she has in communication during this scene. Ask
about the floor are dozens and dozens of pieces with everything. She finishes the form for her at it and writes something on a white card, darned one of her socks the night before. Her students to consider the significance of this
of white paper, and people are walking over daughter and my mother and I step aside to wait which she gives to my mother. Before long, the shoes make loud sounds in the hall. She passes new “look” (par. 22).
Analyzing Short Fiction
them without any thought of picking them up. for her. We find two chairs nearby and sit. My woman who has taken the girl with the drooping through the doors and I can still hear the loud
And seeing this lack of concern, I am all of a mother is now diseased, according to the girl’s curls appears from behind us, speaks to the sounds of her shoes. And even when the
© Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Do not distribute.
sudden afraid. eyes, and until the moment her mother takes her sitting woman, and introduces herself to my teacher turns me toward the classrooms and I
“Is this where they register for school?” my and the form to the front of the auditorium, the mother and me. She’s to be my teacher, she tells hear what must be the singing and talking of all DIFFERENTIATION
mother asks a woman at one of the tables. girl never stops looking at my mother. I stare my mother. My mother stares. the children in the world, I can still hear my Connections to Self
The woman looks up slowly as if she has 10 back at her. “Don’t stare,” my mother says to me. We go into the hall, where my mother mother’s footsteps above it all.
heard this question once too often. She nods. “You know better than that.” kneels down to me. Her lips are quivering. “I’ll 1992 Ask students to brainstorm as a class
She is tiny, almost as small as the girl standing Another woman out of the Ebony ads takes about the meaning and importance of
beside her. The woman’s hair is set in a mass of the woman’s child away. Now, the woman says shoes. For example, many students may
curlers and all of those curlers are made of upon returning, let’s see what we can do for you purchase new shoes for the first day of
paper money, here a dollar bill, there a two. Character school, a dance, etc. Ask students to write
five-dollar bill. The girl’s hair is arrayed in curls, My mother answers the questions the 20 Characters are key to shaping a narrative. In a story with an external conflict, the main a brief journal entry in which they identify
but some of them are beginning to droop and woman reads off the form. They start with my character is usually the protagonist, who is in conflict with another person, called their favorite pair of shoes, the event to
this makes me happy. On the table beside the last name, and then on to the first and middle the antagonist. A conflict may also be internal, such as those in which a character which they wore them, and memories
woman’s pocketbook is a large notebook, names. This is school, I think. This is going to struggles with temptation or tries to reconcile two incompatible values or beliefs. The associated with those shoes. Suggest that
worthy of someone in high school, and looking school. My mother slowly enunciates each word main character in a literary work also usually grows or changes over the course of they share their stories. Then, ask students
at me looking at the notebook, the girl places of my name. This is my mother: As the questions the story; in fact, that change often structures the narrative. The clearest example of in a whole-group setting to discuss the
her hand possessively on it. In her other hand go on, she takes from her pocketbook document character change structuring a narrative happens in a coming-of-age story, also called implication of the phrase “walking in
she holds several pencils with thick crowns of after document, as if they will support my right a bildungsroman, which chronicles how a young character transitions from a state of someone else’s shoes.” In what way
additional erasers. to attend school, as if she has been saving them innocence to one of experience. Sometimes the change is gradual and sometimes it is does the contrast between the nick in the
“These the forms you gotta use?” my mother up for just this moment. Indeed, she takes out daughter’s new shoes and the loudness of
asks the woman, picking up a few pieces of the more papers than I have ever seen her do in sudden, as with an epiphany, a term Irish author James Joyce used to describe when a her mother’s old shoes (combined with the
character suddenly realizes something significant about life. Regardless of how quickly
paper from the table. “Is this what you have to other places: my birth certificate, my baptismal a character changes, the growth must be believable, and it must be clearly motivated darned sock) help convey the daughter’s
fill out?” record, a doctor’s letter concerning my bout by the circumstances of the story. attitude toward her mother’s “first day”
The woman tells her yes, but that she need with chicken pox, rent receipts, records of experience vs. her own?
fill out only one. immunization, a letter about our public Authors reveal character through descriptions and through characters’ dialogue
“I see,” my mother says, looking about the assistance payments, even her marriage and behavior. Considering how and why certain details are included in a story is key
room. Then: “Would you help me with this license — every single paper that has anything to interpreting who the characters are, what they believe, and what motivates them. DIFFERENTIATION
form? That is, if you don’t mind.” even remotely to do with my five-year-old life. Let’s take a look at the main characters of “The First Day”: the mother and the
The woman asks my mother what she Few of the papers are needed here, but it does daughter. The daughter, who tells us this story, serves as the protagonist, and we can Scaffolding
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means. not matter and my mother continues to pull out learn about her by paying attention to what she chooses to share with us. For AP Teaching Tip. You may wish to ask
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“This form. Would you mind helpin me fill 15 the documents with the purposefulness of a example, she describes in great detail the clothing she is wearing on her first day of students to now explore the 2013 AP
it out?” magician pulling out a long string of scarves. She school. Why are these details important? What do they communicate about the Literature Prose Passage prompt. The
prompt, student essays, and scoring
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commentary can be found at AP Central.
4 5
The 2013 prompt includes an excerpt from
the beginning of The Known World, a novel
by Edward P. Jones. Review the prompt,
retrofit it using the new stable wording
02_SheaLitComp3e_28114_ch01_xl_053.indd 4 27/10/21 9:05 PM 02_SheaLitComp3e_28114_ch01_xl_053.indd 5 27/10/21 9:05 PM found on p. 138 in the Course and Exam
DIFFERENTIATION Description, and rescore essays using
the 6-point rubric. Then, in small groups,
Connections to World ask students to select a 500–700-word
The narrator shares that through her sustained passage from “The First Day”
observations of her mother interacting with (similar to The Known World prompt), and
other characters, she realizes that “money is then adapt the language of the stable
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the beginning and end of everything in this prompt to create an AP -style prompt for
world” (par. 20). Ask students to individually “The First Day.” Ask students to share their
list the values associated with money found passage and their retrofitted prompt with
in this section. Then, ask them to extend the the whole group.
significance of money to the world around
them, their own songs, etc. What are the
values associated with money?

chapter 1 / Elements of Fiction 5

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