Reading Resources for E.O.C. Reading SOL Paired Passages New SOL Question Formats Reading and Thinking Resources Inference Comprehension Resources Literature Resources State Testing Resources Developed by High School Reading Specialists Loudoun County Public Schools March 2013 Page 1 of 245 Pur pose This booklet is designed for LCPS Hi gh School English Teachers and Reading Specialists to use during classroom instruction as we prepare our 11th grade students for the upcoming spring E.O.C. Reading SOL. The Virginia Department of Education has changed the format and content of the E.O.C. Reading SOL test. The new test will contain paired passages and newly formatted questions. Students will be expected to read and to compare nonfiction, fiction, or a poem focused on the same topic. Students will answer questions about the paired passages and will be expected to answer questions comparing the content, style, theme, purpose, and intended audience for both passages. The paired passages in this booklet a re literature selections from various state released E.O.C. Reading tests. The LCPS High School Reading Specialists wrote test questions for these passages using the new released VA DOE question formats. In addition, the High School Reading Specialists contributed helpful reading and literature tips that can be used during classroom instruction to prepare our students. High School Rea ding Specialists Loudoun County Public Schools Page 2 of 245 These Loudoun County Public High School Reading Specialists put forth time and effort to create this resource booklet for teachers and students. Dr. Dianne Kinkead, LCPS Reading Supervisor K-12 Jane Haugh, Ph.D. Kristin Sheetz Woodgrove High School John Champe High School Tonya Dagstani Penny Hagerty Loudoun County High School Loudoun Valley High School Valerie Rife Marilyn Clerkin Freedom High School Briar Woods High School Joanne Casares Sally Carlo Broad Run High School Stone Bridge High School Jennifer Reynolds Carol J. Crawford Broad Run High School Stone Bridge High School Meghan O’Rourke Gretchen Swierczynski Dominion High School Douglas High School Karen Banks, Ph.D. John Bradford Park View High School Park View High School Monique Howe-Freeman Stacy Walter Potomac Falls High School Tuscarora High School Joelle Good Heritage High School Special thanks to: Dr. Dianne Kinkead, LCPS Reading Supervisor, for providing her support and encouragement. Mr. Keith Hicks, Woodgrove Technology Resource Teacher, for his technical assistance with Loudoun VISION. Page 3 of 245 E.O.C. SOL Reading Resources Contents Paired Passage Sets pp. 5-128 • 11 Sets of Paired Passages with Questions and Answers Skill Drill Practice Activities pp. 129-158 • Identifying Organizational Text Structure • Conveying the Author’s Intent • Identifying the Author’s Purpose NEW SOL Question Formats pp. 159-169 • Sample Question formats and examples from VA DOE Reading and Thinking About Text pp. 170-179 • Transactional Strategy Instruction – Overview • Transactional Strategy Instruction Graphic Organizer • Thinking Strategies: Before, During, and After Reading – Foldable Handout • THINK SHEET – Paired Passages • 8 Types of Text Structure - Handout Inference Comprehension Resources pp. 180-217 • Inference Thinking – Poster • Examples of Inference Comprehension • Reading Inferences in Everyday Situations • Inference Activities • Drawing Conclusions and Making Inferences – Instructional Activity • Using Synonyms and Antonyms to Figure out Unknown Words • SOL Test-taking Activities and Tips • Information Literacy Warm-up Activity Literature Resources pp. 218-241 • Poetry and Prose Graphic Organizer • Reoccurring Subjects in Literature (Thematic Topics) • Major Themes in American Literature • Tone and Mood Descriptors • Figurative Language Terms • Characteristics of a Memoir • List of Character Traits • A Glossary of Literary Terms • Poetry Terms State Testing Resources pp. 242-245 • Virginia Department of Education – RESOURCES • E.O.C. Released Reading Tests from New York, Massachusetts, California, Texas, Florida Page 4 of 245 Paired Passages with Questions and Answers Note: During a fall literacy institute, VA state representatives advised teachers to prepare students for the spring test changes by having students read paired passages on the same topic. Students would be expected to answer questions comparing the content, style, theme, purpose, and intended audience for both passages. A student THINK SHEET is included to help students compare passages (see page 176). Paired Passage Sets Titles of Passages Set 1 Great Depression and Economic Crisis Grapes of Wrath - Excerpt pp. 6-15 Questions and Answers Set 2 Help on the Hoof The Guide Horse Training Process pp. 16-24 Questions and Answers Set 3 There’s More to the Forests than Trees The Leaf and the Tree - Poem pp. 25-35 Questions and Answers Set 4 Blowin’ in the Wind – Song Lyrics Antiwar Movement pp. 36-43 Questions and Answers Set 5 Colors of the Mountain - Memoir At the San Francisco Airport – Poem pp. 44-51 Questions and Answers Set 6 Fifth Chinese Daughter – Excerpt from a Biography Gathering Leaves in Grade School – Poem pp. 52-61 Questions and Answers Set 7 Breakfast in Virginia – Short Story Crystal Night - Memoir pp. 62-76 Questions and Answers Set 8 Chicago History Chicago – Poem pp. 77-93 Questions and Answers Set 9 Fog – Poem Fog – NOAA Technical Summary – Types of Fog pp. 94-103 Questions and Answers Set 10 Lieutenant Robert Maynard and Blackbeard, the Pirate Pirates Run Aground - Poem pp. 104-112 Questions and Answers Set 11 from Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln The Death of Lincoln pp. 113-128 Questions and Answers Page 5 of 245 “The Great Depression Brings Economic Crisis” Paired Passage Set # 1a The Great Depression Brings Economic Crisis Crisis and Response The Stock Market Crash of October 29, 1929, sent the United States into the longest and darkest economic depression of its history. Between 1929 and 1933, the country's wealth plummeted wildly. The gross national product (GNP), the total of all goods and services produced each year, fell from more than $100 billion in 1929 to about $74 billion in 1933. Industrial production declined 51 percent before it rose slightly in 1932. Yet the unemployment statistics most clearly reveal the Great Depression's impact on average Americans. In 1929, the Labor Department reported that there were 1,499,000 jobless persons in the country-3.1 percent of all employable people. After the crash, official unemployment figures soared to a high of 12,634,000 in 1933-more than one of every four people in the labor force. Estimates by other experts were that as many as sixteen million were jobless. By 1933, the annual national income had shrunk from nearly $88 billion to $40 billion. Farmers suffered the most: Their income declined from about $12 billion to $5.3 billion. For the first two years of the Depression-which had quickly spread throughout the world-President Herbert Hoover relied on the voluntary cooperation of business and labor to keep up payrolls and production. After the crisis worsened, however, he took positive steps to try to stop the economic collapse. Hoover's most important achievement was the creation of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), a loan agency designed to help large businesses such as banks, railroads, and insurance companies. The RFC became even more important during President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal program. Hoover also obtained new funds from Congress to help farmers who were about to lose their farms because they were unable to pay their bank loans. The Home Loan Bank Act helped to prevent the foreclosure of home mortgages. The president and Congress fought a battle for months over the issue of relief-direct money and food to people who were suffering. While the Democrats wanted the federal government to take responsibility for direct relief and to invest in public works programs that would provide work for the needy, Hoover insisted that unemployment Page 6 of 245 “The Great Depression Brings Economic Crisis” Paired Passage Set # 1a relief was a problem that should be dealt with in local communities. At first, he merely appointed two committees to encourage public and private agencies to provide relief. In the end, however, Hoover signed a relief bill unlike any previous law in American history. The Emergency Relief and Construction Act provided $3 million for local relief loans and $1.5 billion for public works projects. Despite these efforts, the Depression only worsened. By the time Hoover's term in office expired, the nation's banking system had almost collapsed. Tired and haggard, Hoover left office with the reputation of a do-nothing president. This judgment was unfair: He had done much; it was simply not enough. Poverty and Pessimism What happened to the U.S. economy after 1929 left most Americans baffled and bewildered. Banks, factories, and shops stood just where they had stood before; there had been no war or natural disaster to destroy them. People wanted to go to work, but plants stood dark and idle. The jobless sold apples on street corners and waited in breadlines and outside soup kitchens. Many lived in what came to be called Hoovervilles-shanty towns on the outskirts of large cities. Thousands of unemployed people, both young and old, took to the road in search of work, and gasoline stations became meeting places for people "on the bum." In 1932, a crowd of fifty people fought over a barrel of garbage outside the back door of a Chicago restaurant. In northern Alabama, poor families exchanged a dozen eggs, which they needed badly, for a box of matches. In spite of this great suffering, there was little violence. The angriest Americans were those in the rural areas, where cotton was bringing only five cents a pound and wheat thirty-five cents a bushel. In August, 1932, Iowa farmers began dumping milk that was supposed to be transported to Sioux City. To make the nation aware of their plight, Milo Reno, former President of the Iowa Farmers Union, organized a farm strike on the northern plains; no agricultural products were shipped out of this area into the cities until prices rose. During the same summer, twenty-five thousand World War I veterans, led by former sergeant Walter W. Waters, staged the Bonus March on Washington to demand immediate payment of a bonus due them in 1945. They stood quietly on the Capitol steps while Congress voted down their request. Later there was a riot, however, and Hoover ordered the U.S. Army to remove the veterans from their shanty town. Page 7 of 245 “The Great Depression Brings Economic Crisis” Paired Passage Set # 1a The Great Depression brought a crisis in American attitudes. Many people believed that the country had conquered all of its frontiers and that the future would hold only limited opportunity. This pessimism was reflected in the slowing of marriage and birth rates. Many schemes were put forward as solutions to the Depression. Large numbers of intellectuals began to think that perhaps the Soviet Union's Communist Party offered a good alternative to capitalism. In his radio speeches from Royal Oak, Michigan, Charles E. Coughlin advocated that banks, utilities, and natural resources be taken over by the national government. Huey P. Long, Governor of Louisiana, led a movement that called for money to be taken from the rich and given to the poor. Francis E. Townsend, a retired California physician, came up with the Townsend Plan, under which a monthly pension would be paid to everyone over the age of sixty-five. Consequences With Roosevelt's New Deal, Americans gradually regained their sense of optimism, the old faith that the nation could meet any challenge and control its destiny. Even many intellectuals who had sharply criticized American life in the 1920's began to change their opinions. By early 1937, there were signs that the economy was recovering strength. The New Deal had eased much of the worst distress, although around 7.5 million people still remained unemployed. Suddenly, however, the economy went into a sharp recession that was almost as bad as the crash of 1929. Although conditions had improved again by the middle of 1938, the Depression did not finally end until the country entered World War II and the government began to spend vast amounts of money on defense. Work Cited “The Great Depression Brings Economic Crisis.” Great Events. 259. US: Salem Press, 1999. History Reference Center. Web 25 Jan. 2013. Page 8 of 245 “The Grapes of Wrath” Paired Passage Set # 1b Excerpt from “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck The man took off his dark, stained hat and stood with a curious humility in front of the screen. “Could you see your way to sell us a loaf of bread, ma’am?” Mae said, “This ain’t a grocery store. We got bread to make san’widges.” “I know, ma’am.” His humility was insistent. “We need bread and there ain’t nothin’ for quite a piece, they say.” “‘If we sell bread we gonna run out.” Mae’s tone was faltering. “We’re hungry,” the man said. “Whyn’t you buy a san’widge? We got nice san’widges, hamburgs.” “We’d sure admire to do that, ma’am. But we can’t. We got to make a dime do all of us.” And he said embarrassedly, “We ain’t got but a little.” Mae said, “You can’t get no loaf a bread for a dime. We only got fifteen-cent loafs.” From behind her Al growled, “God Almighty, Mae, give ‘em bread.” “We’ll run out ‘fore the bread truck comes.” “Run out then,” said Al. He looked sullenly down at the potato salad he was mixing. Mae shrugged her plump shoulders and looked to the truck drivers to show them what she was up against. She held the screen door open and the man came in, bringing a smell of sweat with him. The boys edged behind him and they went immediately to the candy case and stared in—not with craving or with hope or even with desire, but just with a kind of wonder that such things could be. They were alike in size and their faces were alike. One scratched his dusty ankle with the toe nails of his other foot. The other whispered some soft message and then they straightened their arms so that their clenched fists in the overall pockets showed through the thin blue cloth. Mae opened a drawer and took out a long waxpaper-wrapped loaf. “This here is a fifteen-cent loaf.” The man put his hat back on his head. He answered with inflexible humility, “Won’t you—can’t you see your way to cut off ten cents’ worth?” Al said snarlingly, “Damn it, Mae. Give ‘em the loaf.” Page 9 of 245 “The Grapes of Wrath” Paired Passage Set # 1b The man turned toward Al. “No, we want ta buy ten cents’ worth of it. We got it figgered awful close, mister, to get to California.” Mae said resignedly, “You can have this for ten cents.” “That’d be robbin’ you, ma’am.” “Go ahead—Al says to take it.” She pushed the waxpapered loaf across the counter. The man took a deep leather pouch from his rear pocket, untied the strings, and spread it open. It was heavy with silver and with greasy bills. “May soun’ funny to be so tight,” he apologized. “We got a thousan’ miles to go, an’ we don’ know if we’ll make it.” He dug in the pouch with a forefinger, located a dime, and pinched in for it. When he put it down on the counter he had a penny with it. He was about to drop the penny back into the pouch when his eye fell on the boys frozen before the candy counter. He moved slowly down to them. He pointed in the case at big long sticks of striped peppermint. “Is them penny candy, ma’am?” Mae moved down and looked in. “Which ones?” “There, them stripy ones.” The little boys raised their eyes to her face and they stopped breathing; their mouths were partly opened, their halfnaked bodies were rigid. “Oh—them. Well, no—them’s two for a penny.” “Well, gimme two then, ma’am.” He placed the copper cent carefully on the counter. The boys expelled their held breath softly. Mae held the big sticks out. Steinbeck, J. (1939). The Grapes of Wrath. New York, NY: Viking. Page 10 of 245