Page 54 - SpringBoard_ELD_Grade7_Flipbook

Interpreting the Text using Close Reading
Learning Targets
• Read closely and annotate a text to find language resources an author uses to tell a story.
• Read closely to make inferences and draw conclusions.
• Use knowledge of morphology, context, reference materials, and visual cues to
determine the meaning of words.
• Apply understanding of how personal narratives are structured to comprehend a text.
Read and annotate
Read “Arachne” and annotate the text as you read.
■ Use the My Notes area to write questions or ideas you have about the story. ■ Underline descriptions of the characters in the story.
■ Put a star next to the climax of the story.
■ Put exclamation marks next to the resolution.
■ Circle unknown words and phrases.
by Olivia E. Coolidge
1 Arachne was a maiden who became famous throughout Greece, though she was neither wellborn nor beautiful and came from no great city. She lived in an obscure little village, and her father was a humble dyer of wool. In this he was very skillful, producing many varied shades, while above all he was famous for the clear, bright scarlet which is made from shellfish, and which was the most glorious of all the colors used in ancient Greece. Even more skillful than her father was Arachne. It was her task to spin the fleecy wool into a fine, soft thread and to weave it into cloth on the high, standing loom within the cottage. Arachne was small and pale from much working. Her eyes were light and her hair was a dusty brown, yet she was quick and graceful, and her fingers, roughened as they were, went so fast that it was hard to follow their flickering movements. So soft and even was her thread, so fine her cloth, so gorgeous her embroidery, that soon her products were known all over Greece. No one had ever seen the like of them before.
2 At last Arachne’s fame became so great that people used to come from far and wide to watch her working. Even the graceful nymphs would steal in from stream or forest and peep shyly through the dark doorway, watching in wonder the white arms of Arachne as she stood at the loom and threw the shuttle from hand to hand between the hanging threads, or drew out the long wool, fine as a hair, from the distaff as she sat spinning. “Surely Athene herself must have taught her,” people would murmur to one another. “Who else could know the secret of such marvelous skill?”
ACTIVITY 3.3
Myth
My Notes
Unit 1 • The Choices We Make • Part 3: Arachne 31
obscure: little known, unimportant
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