Page 122 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade8_Flipbook

aCTIvITy 1.17
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• Paraphrases and embedded quotations conveying important details and examples
• Transitions to show your understanding of the content by showing the connections among ideas
Evaluating and Revising Body Paragraphs
7. Read the following body paragraph and evaluate its effectiveness. Look at the transitions, the details and examples, and the commentary, as well as the skill with which paraphrases and embedded quotations are handled.
Heroism is trying your hardest, no matter the obstacles, to go beyond the needs of yourself to help others. A son writes about how his mother, Ana, has an obstacle, but does all that she can to fight it, and does not complain. He says that she fights cancer with a smile and “hasn’t let it slow her down, either” (Gandara). This shows that even though she could complain and give up fighting the disease, she tries her hardest, which inspires her loved ones. In addition, in the movie Mulan, the main character wants to help her father by enlisting in the army, which is impossible according to Chinese law because she is a girl. Instead of giving up on this, Mulan decides to pretend to be a man and goes to extremes to keep up her charade. This is heroic because her father, being the only male in his family, had to enlist in the army, yet he was too sick to fight and would have undoubtedly died in the conflict. Facing illness or danger with courage for the sake of another is inspiring and heroic.
Check Your Understanding
Return to the texts you have read and studied in this unit. Begin to think about which ones you can use to help support your definition of heroism. Make a list of the texts, the heroes, and the events you may be able to use in your essay. Begin to categorize them as you think of each definition strategy: function, example, and negation.
my Notes
Unit 1 • The Challenge of Heroism 95
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