Page 135 - ELA_CA_HighSchool_Sampler_Flipbook

Preview
In this activity, you will use the Cultural Criticism lens to read, analyze, discuss, and write about a poem.
Setting a Purpose for Reading
• As you read the poem, underline words and phrases that convey the writer’s culture and the relationships between the people in the poem.
• Circle unknown words and phrases. Try to determine the meaning of the words by using context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.
Poetry Hands
Speaking with
by Luis J. Rodriguez
There were no markets in Watts. There were these small corner stores we called marketas
who charged more money
5 for cheaper goods than what existed in other parts of town.
The owners were often thieves in white coats who talked to you like animals,
who knew you had no options;
10 who knew Watts was the preferred landfill of the city.
One time, Mama started an argument at the cash register.
In her broken English,
My Notes
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
An award-winning poet, journalist, and critic, Luis J. Rodriguez was born
in 1954 in El Paso, Texas, but grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. As a teenager, he joined a gang, but he later found belonging in the Chicano movement and in literature. In prose works like Always Running:
La Vida Loca, Gang Days in L.A., and poetry collections like The Concrete River, Rodriguez deals with the struggle to survive in a chaotic urban setting.
Unit 1 • Perception Is Everything 55
ACTIVITY 1.16
continued
ACTIVITY 1.16 continued
5 Read the Preview and the Setting a Purpose for Reading sections with your students. Help them understand what to annotate by providing an example or two from the first stanza.
6 Have students read the About the Author box. Then discuss Rodriguez’s life and career. Have students consider how his background might have shaped his writing and perspective.
7 FIRST READ: Based on the complexity of the passage and your knowledge of your students, you may choose to conduct the first reading in a variety of ways:
• independent reading • paired reading
• small group reading • choral reading
• read aloud
8 As students are reading, monitor their progress. Be sure they are engaged with the text and annotating words and phrases that convey elements of culture and relationships between people in the poem. Evaluate whether the selected reading mode is effective.
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SCAFFOLDING THE TEXT-DEPENDENT QUESTIONS
1. Craft and Structure (RL.11–12.4) What idea does the author convey by using the phrase “preferred landfill of the city” to describe
the neighborhood? What is a synonym for the word landfill? What do people normally do at a landfill or dump? What does a landfill look like? What can you infer from the author’s choice to use this comparison?
2. Key Ideas and Details (RL.11–12.1) In
stanza 3, why does the speaker’s mother “start an argument at the cash register”? Use details from the text to make inferences about what she wants. Reread the first and third stanzas. Which lines tell you about the goods found in the marketas? Who does Mama fight with and what line tells you what she is fighting about?
Unit 1 • Perception Is Everything 55
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.