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ACTIVITY 1.3
continued
Second Read
• Reread the personal essay to answer these text-dependent questions.
• Write any additional questions you have about the text in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
10.Key Ideas and Details: What does the metaphorical title suggest about Williams’s cultural identity?
The title suggests that Williams has a mixture of ethnicities. She uses food to show how a variety of influences from her cultural heritage have helped shape but not define her cultural inheritance. RI.9–10.2
11.Craft and Structure: What do you think the term mulatta means, based on the way the author uses it in paragraph 3?
In the previous paragraph the author listed the ethnicities of some of her ancestors, which included West African, Scottish, Cherokee, and French- Canadian. She makes her mixed ethnicity explicit at the start of this paragraph when she refers to “that proposed ‘interracial’ box on the census form.” The fact that she says she could “serve myself up” as “Tragic Mulatta Souffle” suggests that mulatta means “of mixed ethnicity.” RI.9–10.4
12.Craft and Structure: How does the author use food to develop her ideas about ethnicity?
As the author tries to answer her own question, “Do I even have an ethnicity,” she shows that people can’t be categorized by regional food, such as when she describes her black mother’s New England cuisine, or her Senegalese friend’s pastries “that look, well, totally French.” She also melds surprising regional foods, as when she talks about “my favorite kosher sushi spot.” When she says “Everyone I know has at least three different kinds of cheese in their fondue,” it becomes clear that she is using food as a metaphor for ethnicity: everyone she knows has ancestors from at least three different places. Since that is
so, the idea of categorizing people by race becomes “virtually meaningless.” She brings it all together in her “recipe for the Twenty-first Century,” which mixes foods and spices from all over the world. Once we stop trying to keep “Spanish,” “black,” and “Thai” in separate categories, life will be better for everyone: “Watch those taxis screech to a halt!” RI.9–10.5
My Notes
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Unit 1 • Cultural Conversations 15
10/6/15 11:56 PM
ACTIVITY 1.3 continued
16 Based on the observations
you made during the first reading, you may want to adjust the reading mode. For example, you may decide for the second reading to read aloud certain complex passages, or you may group students differently.
17 SECOND READ: During the second reading, students will be returning to the text to answer the text-dependent comprehension questions. You may choose to have students reread and work on the questions in a variety of ways:
• independently
• in pairs
• in small groups
• together as a class
18 Have students answer the text- dependent questions. If they have difficulty, scaffold the questions by rephrasing them or breaking them down into smaller parts. See the Scaffolding the Text-Dependent Questions boxes for suggestions.
Unit 1 • Cultural Conversations 15
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.
© 2017 College Board. All rights reserved.