1-11 Reading Skills
Author’s Purpose
In learning new reading skills, you will use special academic
vocabulary. Knowing the right words will help you to
demonstrate your understanding.

while reading your anchor book

Academic Vocabulary
Word

Meaning

Example Sentence

convince v.
Related words: convinced,
convincing

to cause someone to
agree

Lawyers convince the jury by providing
relevant facts.

establish v.
Related words:
established, establishing

to create or prove



technical language

word choice

sentence structure

imagery

characters

imagery

setting

word choice

theme

genre


Directions Read the following e-mail. Underline clues in the text that
tell you what the author’s purpose is. Note whether the purpose is to
inform, entertain, persuade, or reflect. Then answer the questions.

Cezar’s b’day

Link



3

Evaluate An e-mail is an informal way of communicating.
What aspects of the e-mail identify it as informal? Which
aspects are culture-specific?

Author’s Purpose

63


in business. Guiding Question: Does the author of this
memo express a truth that one cannot argue against?
Background The following memo was written by an employee of a
business. Read this memo closely to determine the author’s purpose.
Link

MEMO
March 23
To: Todd Barker, Director of Facilities Management

while reading your anchor book

From: Maria Furtado, Human Resources
RE: Changing from polyfoam products to paper in
the company cafeteria
I am an employee of this company in the human resources
department. I am writing with regard to the polyfoam that is
currently being used as trays, bowls, and plates in the cafeteria.


Identify What text features are part of a memo?

4

Interpret Rewrite the memo in the format of an e-mail, making
sure to convey a friendly tone. Remember to include a greeting
and closing.

while reading your anchor book

1

Write Answer the following questions in your Reader’s Journal.

5

Does the author of this memo express a truth
that one cannot argue against? Explain two different ways
of responding to this memo.

6

Apply With a partner, write a memo from the perspective
of a character in your Anchor Book to a character with
whom he or she is in conflict.

Your teacher may ask you if you would like to
Ready for a
Free-Choice Book? choose another book to read on your own.

Land I Lost by Huynh Quang Nhuong

I was born on the central highlands of Vietnam in a small hamlet on a
riverbank that had a deep jungle on one side and a chain of high mountains
on the other. Across the river, rice fields stretched to the slopes of another
chain of mountains.
There were fifty houses in our hamlet, scattered along the river or propped
against the mountainsides. The houses were made of bamboo and covered
with coconut leaves, and each was surrounded by a deep trench to protect
it from wild animals or thieves. The only way to enter a house was to walk
across a “monkey bridge”—a single bamboo stick that spanned the trench. At
night we pulled the bridges into our houses and were safe.
There were no shops or marketplaces in our hamlet. If we needed
supplies—medicine, cloth, soaps, or candles—we had to cross over the
mountains and travel to a town nearby. We used the river mainly for traveling
to distant hamlets, but it also provided us with plenty of fish.

66

Lesson 1-12

About the Author
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Web Code: exe-8107


Describe Look back at the details you underlined. Briefly
describe the setting of the passage.

2


5

Describe On a separate sheet of paper, use the images from
your chart to write a brief description of the setting you have
imagined. Revise your description to make the setting and
mood more vivid by substituting specific nouns and verbs.
Setting and Mood

67


understand the setting and mood. Guiding Question: What
does this story express that is true for everyone?

from

The Day It Rained

Cockroaches
while reading your anchor book

by Paul Zindel

Background Paul Zindel was born in New York City, but he
moved to many different places during his childhood. The Day It
Rained Cockroaches tells of an event that left a lasting impression
on him during one of these moves.

Vocabulary Builder

t Te
T xt
Setting and Mood
As you read, underline key
words and phrases that describe
the setting and mood. In the
margin, make notes about how
the author is trying to help you
visualize the place and feeling of
the events that take place.

Vocabulary Builder
kerchiefs
(ku
ur´chifs) n.
Meaning


Marking
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Vocabulary Builder
aghast
( gast´) adj.
Meaning

while reading your anchor book


old, soiled shades to let the sunlight crash in. We ran upstairs
and downstairs, all over the place like wild ponies. The only
unpleasant thing, from my point of view, was that we weren’t
the only ones running around. There were a lot of cockroaches
scurrying from our invading footfalls and the shafts of light.
“Yes, the house has a few roaches,” Mother confessed. “We’ll
get rid of them in no time!”
“How?” Betty asked raising an eyebrow.
“I bought eight Gulf Insect Bombs!”
“Where are they?” I asked.
Mother dashed out to the car and came back with one of the
suitcases. From it she spilled the bombs, which looked like big
silver hand grenades.
“We just put one in each room and turn them on!” Mother
explained.

Setting and Mood

69


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᭣

Critical Viewing
Does this picture



1

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Vocabulary Builder
emblazoned
(em bla¯´z nd) v.
Meaning

while reading your anchor book

We hadn’t been in the house ten minutes before we were
driving off again!
I suppose you might as well know now that my mother really
loved Lassie movies. The only thing she enjoyed more were
movies in which romantic couples got killed at the end by tidal
waves, volcanos, or other natural disasters. Anyway, I was glad
we were gassing the roaches, because they are the one insect I
despise. Tarantulas I like. Scorpions I can live with. But ever since
I was three years old and my mother took me to a World’s Fair, I
have had nightmares about cockroaches. Most people remember
an exciting water ride this fair had called the Shoot-the-Chutes,
but emblazoned on my brain is the display the fair featured
of giant, live African cockroaches, which look like American
cockroaches except they’re six inches long, have furry legs, and

noticed a closed closet door and reached out to turn its knob.
bevy
y (bev´ e¯ ) a large number.

ting and Mood

71


“It says here we should’ve opened all the closet doors before
setting off the bombs, so roaches can’t hide.” Betty moaned, her
clue to me that Mom had messed up again.
I had already started to open the door. My mind knew what
was going to happen, but it was too late to tell my hand to stop
pulling on the door. It sprang open, and suddenly 5,000 very
angry, living cockroaches rained down on me from the ceiling of
the closet.
“Eeehhhhhh!” I screamed, leaping around the room, bathed in
bugs, slapping at the roaches crawling all over me and down my
neck! “Eeehhhhhh! Eeehh! Ehhh! Ehh!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get more bombs,” Mother said comfortingly
as she grabbed an old dishrag to knock the fluttering roaches off
my back. Betty calmly reached out her foot to crunch as many as
dared run by her.

while reading your anchor book

Vocabulary Builder

72



Thinking About the Selection
The Day It Rained Cockroaches

2

Interpret How do the narrator’s sister and mother respond
to the narrator’s fear of cockroaches? What do their responses
reveal about their attitude toward the narrator?

3

Respond At what point in the story did you know something
was going to go wrong with the insect bombs? Explain your
response.

4

Determine What is the author’s purpose for writing
this story?

About the Author
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: exe-8108

while reading your anchor book

1


about life or an observation about people. Often a work’s theme is
implied—not stated directly in the text—so you will need to think
deeply about your reading to identify the theme.
Read the table below to see how a student marked the text to
identify theme.
Student Model: Marking the Text

The Ant and the Dove by Leo Tolstoy
An Ant went to the bank of a river to quench its thirst, and
being carried away by the rush of the stream, was on the point
of drowning. A Dove sittingg on a tree overhanging
g g the water
pplucked a leaf and let it fall into the stream close to her. The
Ant climbed onto it and floated safelyy into the bank. Shortly
afterward a birdcatcher came and stood underneath the tree,,

Dove saves
Ant’s life.
Dove will
be trapped.

and laid his lime-twigs
g for the Dove,, which sat in the branches.
The Ant,, perceiving
p
g his design,
g , stungg him in the foot. In pain
p
the birdcatcher threw down the twigs,
g , and the noise made the


kindled

preserves

As you read, draw a box around unfamiliar words you could
add to your vocabulary. Use context clues to unlock their
meaning.
It was enough for Catherine that Dolly understood her:
they were always together and everything they had to say
they said to each other: bending my ear to an attic beam I
could hear the tantalizing
g tremor of their voices flowing
like sapsyrup through the old wood.
To reach the attic, you climbed a ladder in the linen
closet, the ceiling of which was a trapdoor. One day, as I
started up, I saw that the trapdoor was swung open and,
listening, heard above me an idle sweet humming, like

Theme
As you read, underline
details that will help you to
determine the theme. Write
the theme at the end.

while reading your anchor book

g
p
p

for a coral castle; and sack of pearl pebbles, all colors. I think
Catherine will like that, a bowl of goldfish, don’t you? For her
birthday. We used to have a bowl of tropical fish—devils, they
were: ate each other up. But I remember when we bought them;
we went all the way to Brewton, sixty miles. I never went sixty
miles before, and I don’t know that I ever will again. Ah see, here
it is, the castle.” Soon afterwards I found the pebbles; they were
like kernels of corn or candy, and: “Have a piece of candy,” I said,
offering the sack. “Oh thank you,” she said, “I love a piece of
candy, even when it tastes like a pebble.”
We were friends, Dolly and Catherine and me. I was eleven,
then I was sixteen. Though no honors came my way, those were
the lovely years.
I never brought anyone home with me, and I never wanted to.
Once I took a girl to a picture show, and on the way home she
asked couldn’t she come in for a drink of water. If I’d thought she
was really thirsty I would’ve said all right; but I knew she was
faking just so she could see inside the house the way people were
always wanting to, and so I told her she better wait until she got
home. She said: “All the world knows Dolly Talbo’s gone, and
you’re gone too.” I liked that girl well enough, but I gave her a
shove anyway, and she said her brother would fix my wagon,
which he did: right here at the corner of my mouth. I’ve still got a
scar where he hit me with a soda bottle.
I know: Dolly, they said, was Verena’s cross, and said, too, that
more went on in the house on Talbo Lane than a body cared to
think about. Maybe so. But those were the lovely years.
On winter afternoons, as soon as I came in from school
Catherine hustled open a jar of preserves, while Dolly put a
foot-high pot of coffee on the stove and pushed a pan of biscuits


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Vocabulary Builder
After you read, review the words you decided to add to your
vocabulary. Write the meaning of words you have learned in
context. Look up the other words in a dictionary, glossary,
thesaurus, or electronic resource.

after reading your anchor book

᭣ Critical Viewing

The collage on the
left is an artist’s
interpretation of the
story. What details
from the text support
the artist’s choices?

Theme

77


Now that you’ve read an excerpt from The Grass Harp,
read this excerpt from Child of the Owl and compare the

As you read, draw a box around unfamiliar words you could
add to your vocabulary. Use context clues to unlock their
meaning.

It was like we’d gone through an invisible wall into another world.
There was a different kind of air here, lighter and brighter. I mean,
on the north side there were a series of small broken down stores;
on the west, the mansions and hotels of Nob Hill; and on the
other two sides were the tall skyscrapers where insurance men or
lawyers spent the day. And they were pushing all the sunshine and
all the buildings of Chinatown together like someone had taken
several square miles of buildings and squeezed it until people and
homes were compressed into a tiny little half of a square mile.
I didn’t know what to make of the buildings either. They were
mostly three- or four-story stone buildings but some had fancy
78

Lesson 1-13

Theme
As you read, underline details
that will help you to determine
the theme. Write the theme at
the end.


Marking
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colored a honey kind of tan like some of the people outside. I took
my hand off the handle and stared at it.
“What’s the matter now?” Phil asked. We’d gotten caught in
a momentary
y traffic snarl. I turned to see that Phil’s face was
brown as my hand. Phil adjusted his tie uneasily and growled,
“What’re you looking at?”
I looked ahead, keeping my eyes on the glove compartment.
Barney and me had never talked much about stuff like this. I knew
more about race horses than I knew about myself—I mean myself
as a Chinese. I looked at my hands again, thinking they couldn’t be

79


while reading your anchor book
80

my hands, and then I closed my eyes and felt their outline, noticing
the tiny fold of flesh at the corners. Maybe it was because I thought
of myself as an American and all Americans were supposed to be
white like on TV or in books or in movies, but now I felt like some
mad scientist had switched bodies on me like in all those monster
movies, so that I had woken up in the wrong one.
Suddenly I felt like I was lost. Like I was going on this trip to
this place I had always heard about and I was on the only road
to that place but the signs kept telling me I was going to some
other place. When I looked in the glove compartment to check my
maps, I found I’d brought the wrong set of maps. And the road
was too narrow to turn around in and there was too much traffic

just one buzz like any normal person, or even just three bursts.
It’s got to be nine buzzes in that way or she doesn’t open the door.
She says her friends know what she means.”
So did I. It was Morse code for SOS. The buzzer on the door
sounded like an angry bee. Phil the Pill opened the door, putting

Lesson 1-13

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Vocabulary Builder
swanky
(swa[ng]‘ ke¯) adj.
Meaning


Critical Viewing
Why does the
sound of music
make the narrator
think she is at the
wrong door?

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black slacks, and a pair of open-hee
“Paw-Paw?” I asked.
“Hello. Hello.” She opened up her
arms and gave me a big hug, almost
crushing me. It was funny, but even
though it was like I said—Barney
and me never went in much for that
sentimental stuff like hugging and
kissing—I suddenly found myself
holding on to her. Underneath all

᭤

81


while reading your anchor book
82

the soft layers of clothing I could feel how hard and tough she was.
She patted me on the back three times and then left me for a moment
to turn down her radio. It really was her old, white, beat-up radio
playing rock music.
“Hey, how about a hand?” Phil puffed as he finally got to the
landing.
Paw-Paw shuffled out to the landing in her slippered feet and
made shooing motions. “You can go home now. We can do all
right by ourselves.”
Phil heaved his shoulders up and down in a great sigh and set
the bag down. “Now, Momma—”

Finally Paw-Paw tilted up her glasses and wiped her eyes.
“Philip always did have too much dignity for one person. Ah.”
She leaned back against the railing on the landing before the
stairwell, twisting her head to look at me. “You’ll go far.” she
nodded. “Yes, you will. Your eyebrows are beautifully curved like
silkworms. That means you’ll be clever. And your ears are small
Lesson 1-13

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while reading your anchor book

and close to your head and shaped a certain way. That means
you’re adventurous and win much honor.”
“Really?”
She nodded solemnly. “Didn’t you know? The face is the map
of the soul.” Then she leaned forward and raised her glasses and
pointed to the corners of her eyes where there were two small
hollows, just shadows, really. “You see those marks under my eyes?”
“Yes.” I added after a moment, “Paw-Paw.”
“Those marks, they mean I have a temper.”

Next to the photos were the statues. One was about eight
inches high in white porcelain of a pretty lady holding a flower
and with the most patient, peaceful expression on her face. To her
left was a statue of a man with a giant-sized, bald head. And then
there were eight little statues, each only about two inches high.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Statues of some holy people,” Paw-Paw said reluctantly.

Theme

83


while reading your anchor book
84

There was something familiar about the last statue on PawPaw’s bureau. It was of a fat, balding god with large ears, who
had little children crawling over his lap and climbing up his
shoulders. “Hey,” I said. “Is that the happy god?”
Paw-Paw looked puzzled. “He’s not the god of happiness.”
“But they call him the happy god. See?” I pulled Barney’s little
plastic charm out of my pocket and pointed to the letters on the back.
Paw-Paw didn’t even try to read the lettering. Maybe Barney
had already shown it to her long ago. “He’s not the god of
happiness. He just looks happy. He’s the Buddha—the Buddha
who will come in the future. He’s smiling because everyone will
be saved by that time and he can take a vacation. The children are
holy people who become like children again.”
“What about the others, Paw-Paw?”
“I don’t have the words to explain,” Paw-Paw said curtly, like

taking the top card off and putting it down in the middle. Whenever
a jack appeared, the first one to put her hand over the pile of cards
Lesson 1-13

Buddhism was founded in the
fifth century B.C.E. by Siddartha
Gautama, who became known
as the Buddha.

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while reading your anchor book

got it. She then mixed the new cards with all the cards she still had in
front of her. The first one to get all the cards won the game. It would
sound like the advantage was with the person who was putting out
the card at that time, but she was supposed to turn up the card away
from her so she couldn’t see it before the other player.
Paw-Paw had played a lot of card games, since she lived by
herself, so she seemed to know when the jacks were going to come
up. For a while all you could hear was the slap-slap-slapping of

I fiddled with the dial some more until I got hold of Gunsmoke.
It’d gone off the air three years ago but some station was playing
reruns. Paw-Paw liked that, especially the deep voice of the
marshal. It was good to sit there in the darkening little room,
listening to Marshal Dillon inside your head and picturing him
as big and tall and striding down the dusty streets of Dodge City.
And I got us some other programs too, shows that Paw-Paw had
never been able to listen to before.

Theme

85


᭣ Good to Know!

Physicists were developing
innovative ideas for radio
technology as early as the
1860s. It was not until the
1920s that commercial
radio appeared.

while reading your anchor book

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