Introduction to Making a Difference: It's Our World, Too! Answers

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference.In his small Idaho school, football meant everything to Ernesto ("Neto”) Villareal, sixteen, the team’s star running back. And yet when he heard fans screaming racial insults at him and his Hispanic-American teammates, he wondered how he could keep playing for fans who felt that way. The insults also bothered Andy Percifield, a white student leader. When Neto and Andy teamed up, each using his own special power, fans began to feel heat they had never felt before.

Events that make a conflict more difficult are called

Which idea best indicates that one of the purposes of the author of It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference is to persuade?

What were the author’s purposes in writing It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference? Check all that apply

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference.At halftime, as homecoming floats circled the field, Allison Gibbons, a member of the student council, entered the press box, stood before the microphone, and asked for everyone's attention. The crowd grew silent as she began to read the letter."I was watching the crowd while Allison read it," Andy said. "When she finished, there was silence, and then almost everyone stood up and cheered. All the students stood up. And the football players were all clapping. It was a wonderful feeling to know that we had people behind us."

Events that set up the conflict in the beginning of the story are called

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference.The players sat down together on the benches in the locker room. Jesse and Neto repeated the words they had heard and said it hurt too badly for them to play in the next game."Yeah, I've heard those things, too," said one player. "Sure it's terrible, but you can't quit! If you guys leave, it will destroy our team.""Look," Neto said, "if we don't take a stand now, those fans will say those things forever. Even after we graduate, they'll keep putting Hispanic players down. We have a chance to stop it now."Finally there was no more to say. The question came: "Who votes not to play the next game?" Every player raised his hand.

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference.Now Jesse Paz was proposing to take away the thing Neto loved most, to turn him into just another big kid at school and maybe even ruin his chance for a college scholarship, all because a few jerks had said things that turned Jesse off. Neto didn't answer for a while. Finally he said, "I've never heard anyone say those things, Jesse," and walked away.But Jesse's words stayed with Neto. What if it were true? Could he really perform before people who felt that way about him? Could he represent a school that would let it happen?

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference."Look," Neto said, "if we don't take a stand now, those fans will say those things forever. Even after we graduate, they'll keep putting Hispanic players down. We have a chance to stop it now.Finally there was no more to say. The question came: "Who votes not to play the next game?" Every player raised his hand.That night, Neto, Jesse, and another teammate walked into the coach's office and handed him their uniforms and pads. They explained why they were leaving and expected him to understand, but they were disappointed. "The coach said, 'Quitting will just make it worse,'" Neto remembers. "He said the fans would call us losers and quitters instead of respecting us. Nothing could convince him. After a while we just walked out." Now there was no turning back.

Read the excerpt from It's Our World, Too!: Young People Who Are Making a Difference.Neto decided to ask Andy Percifield for help. Percifield was the student council president, a tall, red-haired senior who always read the morning announcements over the P.A. system. Neto didn't know him, but people who did said Percifield was smart and fair. Maybe he would know what to do.Neto was waiting by Andy's locker the next morning. "He had tears in his eyes," Andy remembers. "He said that adult fans were swearing at the Mexican players and that it wasn't fair. He was really hurting. He said, 'Is there any way you can help?' I told him I'd try."