Page 181 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade6_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 2.19
continued
Synthesizing Temple’s Story
savant: someone that knows an extensive amount about a subject
dorm: a building where students live and sleep
my Notes
she would go berserk. She would rear, and constantly jump around and prance; you had to hold her back with the bridle or she’d bolt to the barn.
10 Then there was Beauty. You could ride Beauty, but he had very nasty habits like kicking and biting while you were in the saddle. He would swing his foot up and kick you in the leg or foot, or turn his head around and bite your knee. You had to watch out. Whenever you tried to mount Beauty he kicked and bit—you had both ends coming at you at the same time....
11 All the horses at the school had been abused. Beauty had been kept locked in a dairy stanchion all day long. I don’t know why. These were badly abused animals; they were very, very messed up.
12 But I had no understanding of this as a girl. I was never mean to the horses at the school (the other kids were sometimes), but I wasn’t any horse-whispering autistic savant, either. I just loved the horses. I was so wrapped up in them that I spent every spare moment working the barns. I was dedicated to keeping the barn clean, making sure the horses were groomed. One of the high points of my high school career was the day my mom bought me a really nice English bridle and saddle. ...
13 Boy did I take care of that saddle. I loved it so much I didn’t even leave it in the tack room where it belonged. I brought it up to my dorm every day and kept it with me. I bought special saddle soap and leather conditioner from the saddle shop, and I spent hours washing and polishing it. ...
14 Animals kept me going. I spent every waking minute that I didn’t have to be studying or going to school with those horses. I even rode Lady at a show. It’s hard to imagine today, a school keeping a stable of emotionally disturbed and dangerous horses for its underaged students to ride. These days you can’t even play dodgeball in gym class because somebody might get hurt. But that’s the way it was. A lot of us got nipped or stepped on or thrown at that school, but no one was ever seriously hurt, at least not while I was there. So it worked out.
15 I wish more kids could ride horses today. People and animals are supposed to be together. We spent quite a long time evolving together, and we used to be partners. Now people are cut off from animals unless they have a dog or a cat.
Second Read
• Reread the excerpt to answer these text-dependent comprehension questions.
• Write any additional questions you have about the text in your Reader/Writer Notebook.
1. Craft and Structure: How does paragraph 2 contribute to the development of the text?
2. Key Ideas and Details: How does Grandin change as a result of her new school? How is this change explained in the text?
154 SpringBoard® English Language Arts Grade 6
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