My Hometown

– Bruce Springsteen

Questions

• What roots does the singer have?• What does the father mean when he

tells the son “This is your hometown”?

• What happens in the hometown when the boy is a teenager?

• Why does the foreman refer to the town as “your” hometown?

• Why does the father take the boy around the “hometown”?

• Does a hometown depend on its people?

Response Journal

Home Street

– Gary Hylan

Questions

• Complete a poetry appreciation:– Technical:– Summary:– Theme:

Question

• What does the author mean when he says, “I still guage distance from boulevards especially when I fear the man I have become strayed too far from the boy who tremled there?”

• How could the author stray too far from the “boy who tremled there”?

• What metaphor is he using throughout the poem?

• If you were to write a metaphorical poem describing your hometown as you might view it through adult eyes, what would you say?

Response Journal

Memories

– Ann Wallace

The author, as an adult, bites into a mango which causes her to flashback

to her childhood – eating mangoes, running barefoot, catching crayfish,

riding bareback.She is amazed as how vivid the

memory is; it is as if she is there.

Questions

Response Journal

June Bug-

- Pat Jasper

Notes:

As the mother is fixing lunch, her son runs in looking for a box in which to put the frog he

just caught.

This makes her remember to when she was a child of eight living in Oklahoma. She

remembers catching all sorts of animals, lizards and

fireflies.

Catching creatures is a peculiar habit of eight year olds.

This makes her want her boy to remain eight years old forever – he is so innocent and wonderful.

Questions

1. What does Pat Jasper mean in the 2nd stanza?

2. What figures of speech are found in this poem? (2)

3. Why don’t adults have the same imagination as a child? Why do adults “clamp memories into boxes. Screw them insides jars and forget to punch holes in the top”?

Adjo Means Goodbye

- Carrie A. Young

Questions

1. Why did Marget and the author become friends?

2. Where is the first hint that there may be a problem between Marget and the author?

3. Why did the author include the incident with the man and the flowers?

4. Explain why Marget was the narrator’s “first love and first hurt”?

5. What does the author mean when she says of Marget, “I wonder is she ever thinks of me … and I wonder if she has become a queen by now, instead of a pawn”?

Response Journal

(I Remember) Back Home

- Clifton Joseph

Instructions

1. Read poem silently.2. As you read the poem,

make a list of the sources of happiness and the sources of oppression expressed by the poet.

3. Is Joseph’s remembrance of childhood accurate?

Response Journal

“Beyond My Father’s Shadow”

- Gordon Chambers

Instructions1. Silently read the selection.2. Individually select a quotation, passage or

line from the reading that you find significant or meaningful and, using the chart that follows, record the quotation on column 1

3. Then, write personal thoughts, feelings and reactions about the selected quotation in column 2.

4. Exchange sheets with your partner. In column 4, respond to the writing of your partner.

5. Return the journal to your partner. In column 4, respond to the comments that your partner wrote in column 3.

6. Discuss your comments and experience with your partner. How has the activity helped you gain insight to the selection?

“Remember, Mum, When I Mocked You”

- Irshad Manji

Instructions1. Silently read the selection.2. Individually select a quotation, passage or

line from the reading that you find significant or meaningful and, using the chart that follows, record the quotation on column 1

3. Then, write personal thoughts, feelings and reactions about the selected quotation in column 2.

4. Exchange sheets with your partner. In column 4, respond to the writing of your partner.

5. Return the journal to your partner. In column 4, respond to the comments that your partner wrote in column 3.

6. Discuss your comments and experience with your partner. How has the activity helped you gain insight to the selection?

Back to Wolf Willow

- Wallace Stegner

Questions

1. What are some of Stegner’s impressions that have been altered by time?

2. What does the smell of wolf willow symbolize to Stegner?

3. What feelings did Stegner have about his “hometown”?

4. What feelings does Stegner have about his brother, grandmother, mother and father?

Response Journal