Selection: K-43

K-43

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2281 words

Author: Kate Scoville

Synopsis: The hibakusha describe the bomb's aftermath, while communicating their hopes for a more peaceful world.

Excerpt: "Boys who remained in the middle of the playground shouted, 'Look, a B-29!' pointing at the sky. (Around that time, U.S. B-29 bombers often flew over the city. Whenever they came, an air-raid alert siren sounded; so a B-29 was a familiar sight to children.)

"I looked up and saw the silver-shining B-29 plane flying high in the blue sky, drawing a white arc with its vapor trail. 'That's pretty,' I thought.

Question: Read these two excerpts from the selection. For which two reasons can they be considered ironic?

1. They show war eventually became a normal fixture in Japanese children's lives.
2. They illustrate children's interest in a machine that would seconds later destroy their city.
3. They show Japanese children spent most of the school day outside.
4. They highlight the lack of preparation for war by the Japanese government.
5. They reveal Japanese children lived in constant fear during this time of war.

Selection: K-32

K-32

Grade level: 11

Word count: 2322 words

Author: Henry David Thoreau

Synopsis: Thoreau lived in solitude, but he was not alone. The natural world provided companionship, entertainment, and life lessons.

Excerpt: When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunchtime and pick up the crumbs at my feet.

A phoebe bird soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine which grew against the house. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood.

On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other's embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out.

In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had dispatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it.

Once I was surprised to see a cat walking along the stony shore of the pond, for they rarely wander so far from home. Nevertheless the most domestic cat, which has sling on a rug all her days, appears quite at home in the woods, and, by her sly and stealthy behavior, proves herself more native there than the regular inhabitants.

Question: The animals described by Thoreau share a common trait. What is it?

1. They are exhibiting survival instincts.
2. They are threatened by Thoreau.
3. They succumb to natural disaster or threat.
4. They are overwhelmed by nature.