Page 28 - SpringBoard_ELD_Grade6_Flipbook

interpret the text Using Close reading
Learning Targets
• Apply understanding of how personal narratives are structured to comprehending the text.
• Read closely and annotate the text to find the language resources an author uses to establish character, setting, and incident.
Read and Annotate
Read “The Jacket” and annotate the text as you read.
■ Use the My Notes area to write questions or ideas you have about the story. ■ Underline words and phrases that tell about the characters and setting.
■ Put a star next to the central incident.
■ Put exclamation marks next to the narrator’s responses to the incident.
■ Circle unknown words and phrases.
ive
The Jacket by Gary Soto
1 My clothes have failed me. I remember the green coat that I wore in fifth and sixth grades when you either danced like a champ or pressed yourself against a greasy wall, bitter as a penny toward the happy couples.
2 When I needed a new jacket and my mother asked what kind I wanted, I described something like bikers wear: black leather and silver studs, with enough belts to hold down a small town. We were in the kitchen, steam on the windows from her cooking. She listened so long while stirring dinner that I thought she understood for sure the kind I wanted. The next day when I got home from school, I discovered draped on my bedpost a jacket the color of day-old guacamole. I threw my books on the bed and approached the jacket slowly, as if it were a stranger whose hand I had to shake. I touched the vinyl sleeve, the collar, and peeked at the mustard-colored lining.
3 From the kitchen mother yelled that my jacket was in the closet. I closed the door to her voice and pulled at the rack of clothes in the closet, hoping the jacket on the bedpost wasn’t for me but my mean brother. No luck. I gave up. From my bed, I stared at the jacket. I wanted to cry because it was so ugly and so big that I knew I’d have to wear it a long time. I was a small kid, thin as a young tree, and it would be years before I’d have a new one. I stared at the jacket, like an enemy, thinking bad things before I took off my old jacket, whose sleeves climbed halfway to my elbow.
4 I put the big jacket on. I zipped it up and down several times, and rolled the cuffs up so they didn’t cover my hands. I put my hands in the pockets and flapped the jacket like a bird’s wings. I stood in front of the mirror, full face, then profile, and then looked over my shoulder as if someone had called me. I sat on the bed, stood against the bed, and combed my hair to see what I would look like doing something natural. I looked ugly. I threw it on my brother’s bed and looked at it for a long time before I slipped it on and went out to the backyard, smiling a “thank
aCtiVitY 1.3
My notes
Personal narrat
Why did his mom buy him an ugly jacket?
Unit 1 • Stories of Change • Part 1: The Jacket 5
vinyl: a plastic material
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