Reader Connections in We've Got a Job Answers

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.Though Connor was commissioner of public safety, blacks knew that it wasn't their health and safety he intended to protect. And he certainly didn't put out their fires. Between the late 1940s and early 1960s, more than fifty black homes and churches in Birmingham were bombed. One neighborhood was hit so often, it was called "Dynamite Hill." No one was ever prosecuted, even when the police could identify the bombers.What is the tone of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.Wash remembers the police as "the ultimate terror . . . You saw the police, you ran. It was automatic." Why were the police so frightening? "It was a rare weekend passed," Wash said, "that one or two folk . . . didn't get killed by the police . . . This is what they'd do to you: They'd call you and make you stick your head in the window [of the police car] . . . and then they would roll the window up . . . And then they'd hit you on your head . . . They'd beat people to death." As a result, he said, parents could scare unruly children into minding them by threatening, "The police gonna get you."What is the tone of the excerpt?

Which of these student responses to We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March is an example of a text-to-self connection?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March."We boiled water, poured [it] into the tub, and then put cold water in the tub. And that's what we took a bath in, because there was no such thing as hot water in the house." On cold mornings, "my mom would get up . . . and make the fire in the coal stove and get back in bed until the room got warm."What is the tone of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.During his second term as commissioner, Connor wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt that revealed his views on race: he warned the liberal-leaning president that in cities where "the doctrine of white supremacy" fails, "Negroes become impudent, unruly, arrogant, law breaking, violent and insolent." Several years later, a grand jury described Connor as "explosive, vindictive … dictatorial … autocratic and [someone who] uses no persuasion, logic, or reason, if any he has.”If a student compares this excerpt to the power of dictators, which type of connection is made?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.By the time Wash was in seventh grade, he’d skip school for weeks at a time. "My friends and I would go into the woods and build a campfire [or] walk down the railroad tracks,” he said. Sometimes he’d go to the colored library, sit in the back room, and read. "It was all an adventure,” according to Wash. He liked wearing a Davy Crockett coonskin cap on his adventures.What is the tone of the excerpt?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.Almost everyone knew that, card-carrying members or not, the Klan literally got away with murder, with the tacit permission and sometimes encouragement of Connor. And there were lots of Klansmen in town to carry out these despicable crimes: most of the 11,000 members of the KKK in Alabama lived in the Birmingham area.How does this excerpt help readers make a connection to world events?

Which of these student responses to We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March is an example of a text-to-text connection?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March."It was a rare weekend passed," Wash said, "that one or two folk... didn't get killed by the police . . . This is what they'd do to you: They'd call you and make you stick your head in the window [of the police car] . . . and then they would roll the window up . . . And then they'd hit you on your head . . . They'd beat people to death." As a result, he said, parents could scare unruly children into minding them by threatening, "The police gonna get you."If a student compares this excerpt to the cruelty of Nazi leaders, which type of connection is made?

Read this excerpt from We’ve Got a Job: The 1963 Children’s March.Although life was better in the projects than in the tenement house, Wash began to glimpse more of the other world and realize what he was missing. "You'd walk by the Alabama Theatre, and the door would open, and you'd feel that cool air." He also noticed white people eating at the counter at J. J. Newberry's Department Store. "More than anything," he said, "I wanted a banana split behind that counter . . . But you couldn't go back there." Instead Wash and other blacks had to eat in the basement standing up.How does this excerpt best help readers make a connection to world events?