Page 171 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade6_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 2.17
reflecting on marley:
Textual evidence
gusto: hearty enjoyment
bounded: moved by leaping or jumping
despite: in spite of
optimism: the tendency to see the best in all things
my Notes
4 No one ever called him a great dog—or even a good dog. He was as wild as a banshee and as strong as a bull. He crashed joyously through life with a gusto most often associated with natural disasters.
5 He’s the only dog I’ve ever known to get expelled from obedience school.
6 Marley was a chewer of couches, a slasher of screens, a slinger of drool, a tipper
of trash cans. He was so big he could eat off the kitchen table with all four paws planted on the floor—and did so whenever we weren’t looking.
7 Marley shredded more mattresses and dug through more drywall than I care to remember, almost always out of sheer terror brought on by his mortal enemy, thunder.
CUTE BUT DUMB
8 He was a majestic animal, nearly 100 pounds of quivering muscle wrapped in a luxurious fur coat the color of straw. As for brains, let me just say he chased his tail til the day he died, apparently he was on the verge of a major canine breakthrough.
9 That tail could clear a coffee table in one swipe. We lost track of the things
he swallowed, including my wife’s gold necklace, which we eventually recovered, shinier than ever. We took him with us once to a chi-chi outdoor café and tied him to the heavy wrought-iron table. Big mistake. Marley spotted a cute poodle and off he bounded, table in tow.
10 But his heart was pure.
11 When I brought my wife home from the doctor after our first pregnancy ended
in a miscarriage, that wild beast gently rested his blocky head in her lap and just whimpered. And when babies finally arrived, he somehow understood they were something special and let them climb all over him, tugging his ears and pulling out little fistfuls of fur. One day when a stranger tried to hold one of the children, our jolly giant showed a ferocity we never imagined was inside him.
12 As the years passed, Marley mellowed, and sleeping became his favorite pastime. By the end, his hearing was shot, his teeth were gone, his hips so riddled with arthritis he barely could stand. Despite the infirmities, he greeted each day with the mischievous glee that was his hallmark. Just days before his death, I caught him with his head stuck in the garbage pail.
LIFE LESSONS LEARNED
13 A person can learn a lot from a dog, even a loopy one like ours.
14 Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy,
about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things—a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity.
15 Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.
Word CoNNeCTIoNS
Etymology
The word hallmark is built from the words hall and mark. Hall refers to Goldsmiths’ Hall in London, where gold and silver were tested for purity and stamped. Hallmark means “a mark of excellence, quality, or purity.”
144 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 6
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