Read the excerpt from Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.”The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to advocating violence. It is expressed in the various black nationalist groups that are springing up across the nation.Why does the author include these sentences?
Read the excerpt from the song, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”They used to tell me I was building a dream, And so I followed the mob—When there was earth to plow, or guns to bear I was always there—right on the job. They used to tell me I was building a dream With peace and glory ahead— Based on this excerpt and your knowledge of American history, why did the stock market crash make Americans lose confidence in business?
Read the following scene from Trifles.COUNTY ATTORNEY (preoccupied). Is there a cat? (Mrs. Hale glances in a quick covert way at Mrs. Peters.)MRS. PETERS. Well, not now. They’re superstitious, you know. They leave. COUNTY ATTORNEY (to Sheriff Peters, continuing an interrupted conversation.) No sign at all of anyone having come from the outside. Their own rope. Now let’s go up again and go over it piece by piece. (They start upstairs.) It would have to have been someone who knew just the— (Mrs. Peters sits down. The two women sit there not looking at one another, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding back. When they talk now, it is the manner of feeling their way over strange ground, as if afraid of what they are saying, but as if they cannot help saying it.) How would an audio recording most likely convey the characters’ actions during this scene?
Read the excerpt from Leslie Marmon Silko’s story "The Man to Send Rain Clouds."They found him [Teofilo] under a big cottonwood tree. His Levi jacket and pants were faded light blue so that he had been easy to find. . . . He had been dead for a day or more, and the sheep had wandered and scattered up and down the arroyo. . . . . Ken came sliding down the low, crumbling bank about fifty yards down, and he was bringing the red blanket. . . . ."Send us rain clouds, Grandfather." They laid the bundle in the back of the pickup and covered it with a heavy tarp before they started back to the pueblo.They turned off the highway onto the sandy pueblo road. Not long after they passed the store and post office they saw Father Paul's car coming toward them. When he recognized their faces he slowed his car and waved for them to stop. The young priest rolled down the car window."Did you find old Teofilo?" he asked loudly.Leon stopped the truck. "Good morning, Father. We were just out to the sheep camp. Everything is O.K. now.""Thank God for that. Teofilo is a very old man. You really shouldn't allow him to stay at the sheep camp alone.""No, he won't do that any more now.""Well, I'm glad you understand. I hope I'll be seeing you at Mass this week—we missed you last Sunday. See if you can get old Teofilo to come with you." The priest smiled and waved at them as they drove away.What does this dialogue reveal about the priest’s standing within the community?
Read the excerpt from Ernest Hemingway’s “Soldier's Home.”A distaste for everything that had happened to him in the war set in because of the lies he had told. All of the times that had been able to make him feel cool and clear inside himself when he thought of them; the times so long back when he had done the one thing, the only thing for a man to do, easily and naturally, when he might have done something else, now lost their cool, valuable quality and then were lost themselves.What does the excerpt reveal about Krebs?
Read the excerpt from Richard Wright’s Black Boy.“Mama, I’m hungry,” I complained one afternoon.“Jump up and catch a kungry,” she said, trying to make me laugh and forget.“What’s a kungry?”“It’s what little boys eat when they get hungry,” she said.“What does it taste like?”“I don’t know.”“Then why do you tell me to catch one?”“Because you said that you were hungry,” she said, smiling.Which best describes how Wright effectively conveys his personal experience?
Read the excerpt from Richard Wright’s Black Boy.Hunger stole upon me so slowly that at first I was not aware of what hunger really meant. Hunger had always been more or less at my elbow when I played, but now I began to wake up at night to find hunger standing at my bedside, staring at me gauntly. The hunger I had known before this had been no grim, hostile stranger; it had been a normal hunger that had made me beg constantly for bread, and when I ate a crust or two I was satisfied. But this new hunger baffled me, scared me, and made me angry and insistent. Whenever I begged for food now my mother would pour me a cup of tea which would still the clamor in my stomach for a moment or two; but a little later I would feel hunger nudging my ribs, twisting my empty guts till they ached. I would grow dizzy and my vision would dim. I became less active in my play, and for the first time in my life I had to pause and think of what was happening to me.Which best describes why Wright includes this anecdote?
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