Texas Assessment
of Knowledge and Skills
READING
Grade 9
2010 Released Items
Copyright © 2010, Texas Education Agency. All rights reserved. Reproduction of all or portions of this work is prohibited
without express written permission from the Texas Education Agency.
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Literary Selection
2010 Released Items
A Handful
by Angela Johnson
1
I got this long scar across my stomach. Had it most of
my life. I got it when my stomach scraped the cement on
the bridge abutment that I almost fell over. My grandma
patched me up and I don’t remember any of it, and Dad
says that’s probably a good thing because it was one of the
worst days in his life, so he figures if I remember it . . .
2
In a way I do. Not the actual day or anything. It’s just,
for the longest time I’d start screaming if my parents drove
across bridges. They had to find other ways to go places or
make sure I was asleep when the trip started.
3
The only person who could calm me down was the
person who saved me from falling off the bridge in the first
place—my brother, Kevin. He’d tell me my favorite story. I
must have heard it a thousand times. The flying boy would
climb to the top of his house and take off. He’d fly to the
store for ice cream and candy when nobody would walk him
there. He’d fly away to the carnival even after everyone
else had gone home and the midway was quiet and the
Ferris wheel was still. The flying boy knew how to get it
started again.
4
He’d fly to the top of the big wheel, catching a seat with
his hands, and go around and around all night long. Then
he’d fly back to his bedroom only as the sun was coming up.
Nobody missed him in the night.
5
When we’d go over bridges, I’d become the flying boy. I
couldn’t fall off the edge ’cause I’d just naturally start
flying.
6
I’d feel safer and stop crying, but would still hold on to
Kevin’s hand, listening. Mom’s shoulders would ease down
from her neck, and Dad would stop gripping the steering
wheel so tight.
7
By the time I was eight, I’d stopped crying and only
shook a little when we crossed a bridge. Kevin would lean
over and whisper the flying boy story to me then, ’cause I
was embarrassed about still needing it.
Page 2
My notes about what I am
reading
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Literary Selection
8
Once I asked Kevin where he heard the story of the
flying boy. When he told me he made him up, I couldn’t
believe it.
9
By the time Kevin turned fifteen, you’d have thought
that he’d have gotten tired of me and the story. He never
got tired though. His face wouldn’t change, and as we got
older his voice only got softer. When our parents thought it
was time I gave the flying boy up, Kevin just ignored them.
10
But the summer he was sixteen, he stopped going on
vacations with us. He’d stay home and work at whatever
summer job he had at the moment. I had to brave all the
bridges alone from then on.
11
One summer I had to tell myself the flying boy stories,
quietly and calmly all the way from Ohio to Texas. And
then I tried remembering way back.
12
The first time I’d heard any flying boy story was the day
I’d wandered off from my grandma’s house and ended up a
mile away, hanging on to my brother’s hand from an old
deserted bridge. Something like that. They said he hung on
to me for about four minutes. My father spotted us, finally,
and pulled me up.
13
Kevin said I was too scared to cry. He kept telling me I
wouldn’t fall; I’d just fly away to Grandma’s front porch. He
said that I must have believed him ’cause I started nodding
my head and looking up into his eyes. My eyes had been on
the water beneath me.
14
Kevin never told me more about that day. I guess he
told everybody else, and as many times as I’ve heard people
tell it, you’d think I’d start making pictures up in my head
about what happened. Blood. Bandages. I haven’t. I can’t
see it or remember anything except the flying boy.
15
Only the bridge and the newspaper article are left to
me. In the picture they printed I’m sitting on Kevin’s lap.
I’m smiling big and Kevin is holding on to me tight so that I
won’t jump off his lap and try to get the photographer’s
camera. Mom told me this.
16
My brother never said much about the article. My
parents talked about how proud they were of him and how
he was always such a good boy. And no, they weren’t
surprised. He was a fine student and loved his little
brother like anything.
Page 3
2010 Released Items
My notes about what I am
reading
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Literary Selection
17
They went on to say that everyone should watch their
little ones all the time. You see, they could not have
survived if something had happened to me.
18
The reporter wrote about how nice and shy Kevin was
and how it was apparent that I was a handful. I escaped
from Kevin’s lap right after the picture was taken and bit
the reporter. I don’t remember that either.
19
I think my brother’s whole life was decided the day I
wandered away from Grandma’s. It’s Kevin the responsible
one . . .
20
He treats me like a friend, and I don’t know how he
manages to do that ’cause I’m not the easiest person on the
planet to get along with.
21
I’d been kicked out of nursery school with the
suggestion that my parents might want to get me
professional help. My parents were upset, but I figured that
was it for me as far as school went.
22
I could stay home forever now.
23
After that I got kicked out of a few more preschools.
Mom and Dad agreed I’d end up in prison before I was ten.
But Kevin didn’t.
24
He’d take me to each new school and tell me what a
good time I was going to have there. He always did that
’cause he was a good student like the article said, and Mom
never minded excusing him from school to be with me.
25
I was special—a problem only my brother seemed to be
able to handle. I was a special problem because everybody
decided I’d been traumatized by something that I didn’t
even remember.
26
So it went on and on that I was messed up and nobody
could do anything about it except my brother. There was
safety in knowing he could take care of me.
27
I had become the flying boy. Able to leap any
devastation I’d caused with a single bound. Able to get out
and fly over anything that tried to stop me or tell my
parents.
28
I was the flying boy for some years. My brother left
home and went to college. My parents moved out of our old
Page 4
2010 Released Items
My notes about what I am
reading
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Literary Selection
neighborhood, for reasons the neighbors thought were
obvious to anyone who’d ever been annoyed by me.
29
But a couple years after my brother left for school, my
career as the flying boy came to an end.
30
I was walking down the street, when all of a sudden
somebody yelled out, “Get my baby!”
31
To make a long story short, when I saved the toddler
from oncoming traffic, my world changed in a minute.
32
Mom and Dad couldn’t say I was a good student and
person, but they did say how proud they were of me and
how this would probably change my life. The article in the
paper even said how redemption was possible. (They must
have talked to the neighbors.)
33
A few weeks later when my brother came home, he
walked into my room with a sad smile on his face. Mom had
sent him the article and my improved report card. (I don’t
know! The good grades just started showing up.)
34
Kevin lay across my bed and said, “I’ll miss the flying
boy.”
35
I looked over at the article with my picture in it holding
Roy, the hyperactive baby I saved.
36
“I’ll miss him, too,” I said, “but I know there won’t be
any shortages in the club. I’ve already told Roy a flying boy
story.”
Reprinted by arrangement with DK Publishing from Gone from Home by Angela Johnson. Text
copyright © 1998 by Angela Johnson. All rights reserved.
Page 5
2010 Released Items
My notes about what I am
reading
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
2010 Released Items
Expository Selection
Writin’ on the Line
by Erik Smith
The words, the original thoughts, the
scenes themselves do not always flow
easily from the hand to the paper. This is,
however, the way author Christopher Paul
Curtis prefers to write his books. There is
no computer, no fancy word processor, not
even a typewriter nearby. There is the
ever-present yellow legal pad, a steady
hand, and the relentless dedication that
accompanies the desire to produce
something special, something lasting, for
young people to read.
Life has become something of a
whirlwind lately for Chris. With the huge
success of his first book, he’s now in
demand for personal appearances, book
signings, and endless promotional tours
that seem to stretch across the entire
country at times. Chris Curtis isn’t into all
of that, however. He would much rather be
at a table writing another book for AfricanAmerican kids to read, to relate to. This is
at the heart of the matter for the assembly
worker turned writer.
4
2
At the ripe young age of forty-seven,
Chris Curtis finds himself these days in
the lofty company of the literati. His first
book, The Watsons Go
to Birmingham, has
been widely acclaimed
and won numerous
prestigious awards. His
new book, Bud, Not
Buddy, appears
destined for the same
kind of success. That’s
no small feat for a guy
who was hanging doors
on a Buick at Fisher
Body Plant Number
One in Flint when he
truly became an author.
This was no overnight success trip for
Christopher. He would be the first one to
tell you that without the support of his
wife Kaysandra, who
is a licensed practical
nurse, his dream to
write books might
have remained just
that—a dream never
to be realized.
5
Fortunately,
Kaysandra believed in
those handwritten
words on the yellow
sheets of paper, as well
as the man who was so
laboriously putting
them there, and she
finally was able to
push him over the
career edge.
Kaysandra told Chris it was time to walk
6
3
“You don’t have to
be a genius to write a
book,” he says with a
chuckle and mile-wide grin. “You just have
to do it.” Easy for him to say. “Heck, I still
wake up and pinch myself to remember
that I don’t have to get up and go to the
line every day.”
Page 6
© James Keyser Photography
1
■ see Writin’, page 2
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Expository Selection
2010 Released Items
■ Writin’, cont. from page 1
Page 2
off the line and give his writing a chance.
It wasn’t too long before his days at the
Buick plant were behind him for good.
7
8
9
“I’d just go to the library with no plan
in my head. I’d sit there with no story in
mind, I’d just start writing something
down. Then suddenly a ten-year-old’s voice
came to me and from that point on it
became easy.” Chris still writes his books
the same way. The voice of a child
suddenly comes to him and he’s off and
running.
Chris has moved in the years since he
left the assembly line. He and Kaysandra
live in Windsor, Ontario, on a quiet treelined street. His routine has changed too.
He picks up daughter Cydney from school
each day, maybe on the way home from the
library where he still goes to get in touch
with the little voices that propel his hands
across the paper. It’s pretty normal family
stuff for a celebrated author.
Sure, Chris can still find time to shoot
a few hoops around the backyard net. He
still finds time to get in the groove of some
old Motown records by his favorite singers.
But it’s the writing that pumps his heart
and drives the pure soul of the man who
wants every kid to have the chance to
read.
Page 7
“Books have always made a real
difference in my life,” the author recalls.
“While there weren’t a lot of books for me
as an African American to read, I still
loved books, books with good stories. Now
that’s what I’m trying to do, write good
stories. I think the factory gave me the
discipline necessary to be a writer.”
10
Some would probably say there is a
fairy-tale quality to the personal journey of
Christopher Curtis, the storyteller from
Buick City who managed to write on the
line during his breaks. The story of the
not-so-old author who suddenly climbed to
the top of the children’s bestseller lists
with a book that came from the voice of
the little boy that lives somewhere very
close to his heart.
11
But it’s not a fairy tale at all—it’s the
real thing—and after all, true stories
almost always seem to be the best ones
anyway, don’t you think?
12
“It’s very gratifying to hear kids tell me
how important my books are to them,”
Chris says modestly. “It makes me feel so
good and it’s such a long way from hanging
a door on a Buick.”
13
Erik Smith, From the Heart, Huron River Press, 2006.
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
2010 Released Items
Visual Representation
MAKE
A
A URLVN
ED
TEPU
CA
L
RO
I
S
your life
back on
the road
to success
Nonfiction
Make a You Turn
What happens when you look around and find
yourself in the middle of a life you don’t enjoy?
You have the power to change it. Author
Caroline Sepulveda walks you through 10
steps that will help you become the person you
want to be. This book will turn your life around.
CAROLINE SEPULVEDA is a clinical therapist in Los Angeles.
She is the author of four other self-help books.
“Tired of your job? Tired of your life? Tired of yourself? You can
turn it all around. Caroline Sepulveda shows you how. It works
in my office. It will work for you.”
From the foreword by Dr. Donna D. Jones
Front Cover design by Tynesha Sharpe
Cover art: Thinkstock/CORBIS
Author photograph by Ned Frisk/CORBIS
Banner Publishing
www.BannerBooks.net
ISBN
0–000–00000–0
USA $14.95/Canada $22.95
Images courtesy of © Alan Schein Photography/CORBIS and
© Ned Frisk/CORBIS.
Page 8
MAKE A YOU TURN
U
O
Y
NE
And get
Caroline Sepulveda
Caroline Sepulveda
MAKE A YOU TURN
Author of Change Your Mind, Change Your Life
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Literary Selection/Objective 1
2010 Released Items
Use “A Handful” to answer questions 1–8.
1
2
Which of these is a synonym for the word
“traumatized” in paragraph 25?
A
Rescued
B
Abandoned
C
Wounded
D
Explored
3
Why does the narrator find himself hanging
from a bridge?
A
He wanders away from his grandmother’s
house.
B
He gets out of the car during a stop.
C
He falls while trying to save Kevin.
D
He slips out of his father’s grasp.
Page 9
What are paragraphs 3 through 6 mainly
about?
A
Kevin calms the narrator’s fears by telling
stories about a flying boy.
B
Kevin tells a story about how a boy turns
the Ferris wheel at a carnival.
C
The narrator screams every time his
parents drive over a bridge.
D
The narrator’s parents relax once the
narrator stops crying.
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
4
5
Literary Selection/Objective 2
Which of these best describes Kevin?
A
Difficult and ashamed
B
Bitter and resentful
C
Playful and irresponsible
D
Thoughtful and inventive
6
The narrator finally overcomes his behavioral
problems when he accepts —
A
his brother’s advice about how to act
B
responsibility for someone else’s safety
C
his parents’ authority over him
D
responsibility for being a difficult child
Page 10
2010 Released Items
For the narrator, the flying boy is a symbol of
the ability to overcome —
A
his behavioral problems
B
a learning disability
C
his dependence on his brother
D
his fear of bridges
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
7
Literary Selection/Objective 3
Which of these best supports the reporter’s
conclusion that the narrator was “a handful”?
A
8
He’d take me to each new school and tell
me what a good time I was going to have
there.
2010 Released Items
In paragraph 6, the author describes the
parents’ actions in order to help the reader
understand how —
A
tiring these long vacation drives are for
them
B
I’d feel safer and stop crying, but would
still hold on to Kevin’s hand, listening.
B
confused they are about the narrator’s
actions
C
After that I got kicked out of a few more
preschools.
C
tense the narrator’s screaming makes
them
D
I think my brother’s whole life was decided
the day I wandered away from Grandma’s.
D
proud they are of Kevin’s grades and
behavior
Page 11
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Expository Selection/Objective 1
2010 Released Items
Use “Writin’ on the Line” to answer questions 9–16.
9
10
In paragraph 1, the word relentless means —
A
unrealistic
B
unstopping
C
twisted
D
sensible
11
Before becoming a writer, Curtis worked
in a —
A
factory
B
hospital
C
library
D
school
Page 12
Paragraphs 5 and 6 are mainly about the
importance of —
A
having a dream
B
writing by hand
C
Curtis’s determination
D
Kaysandra’s support
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
12
Expository Selection/Objective 2
Early in his career as a writer, Curtis faced a
conflict between his dream of a writing career
and the need to —
A
establish a regular routine at home
B
listen to old records
C
earn a living
D
support his wife’s dreams
13
Page 13
2010 Released Items
Which of these best states a major theme in
this selection?
A
The struggle to change one’s life
B
The difficulty of overcoming fears
C
The stress of raising a family in the
suburbs
D
The effort to balance work with home life
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
14
15
Expository Selection/Objective 3
The author most likely wrote this selection
to —
16
A
entertain readers with an amusing story
B
inform readers about an acclaimed author
C
convince readers that books are important
D
persuade readers to visit their public
library
In paragraph 11, the reader can tell that “the
voice of the little boy that lives somewhere
very close to his heart” actually belongs to —
A
Curtis’s wife
B
kids at the library
C
Curtis’s imagination
D
friends at the factory
Page 14
2010 Released Items
Which sentence best supports the idea that
Curtis is a modest person?
A
“Books have always made a real difference
in my life,” the author recalls.
B
This was no overnight success trip for
Christopher.
C
The words, the original thoughts, the
scenes themselves do not always flow
easily from the hand to the paper.
D
“You don’t have to be a genius to write
a book,” he says with a chuckle and
mile-wide grin.
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
2010 Released Items
Crossover Items
Use “A Handful” and “Writin’ on the Line”
to answer questions 17–18.
17
Kevin and Kaysandra share a desire to —
A
have a fulfilling career
B
help a loved one
C
get a summer job
D
take care of a sibling
18
Page 15
Which of these best explains the difference
between the time frames used in the two
selections?
A
One focuses on the future, and the other
focuses on the present.
B
One focuses on childhood, and the other
focuses on adulthood.
C
One takes place in a single day, and the
other happens during the course of a
week.
D
One takes place in the future, and the
other happens in the past.
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Visual Representation/Objective 3
2010 Released Items
Use the visual representation on page 8 to answer questions 19–20.
19
The main purpose of the book is to —
A
tell a romantic story
B
profile a historical figure
C
offer practical advice
D
teach basic driving skills
20
Page 16
The “Dead End” sign on the cover is intended
to appeal to readers who think that —
A
their relationships are falling apart
B
their health is in jeopardy
C
their creativity has been stunted
D
their lives are going nowhere
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Open-Ended Items
2010 Released Items
21
How does the narrator change from the beginning to the end of “A Handful”? Support your answer with
evidence from the selection.
22
In “Writin’ on the Line,” do you think Curtis made the right choice to pursue a career in writing?
Explain your answer and support it with evidence from the selection.
23
What is one similarity between the narrator of “A Handful” and Curtis in “Writin’ on the Line”? Explain
your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.
Page 17
TAKS Grade 9 Reading
Item
Number
Answer Key
Student
Expectation
Correct
Answer
LITERARY SELECTION
OBJECTIVE 1
1
1B
2
5
3
5
OBJECTIVE 2
4
5B
5
5B
6
7
OBJECTIVE 3
7
Fig. 19B
8
Fig. 19B
C
A
A
D
B
D
C
C
EXPOSITORY SELECTION
OBJECTIVE 1
9
1B
10
8A
11
8A
OBJECTIVE 2
12
9C
13
9C
OBJECTIVE 3
14
Fig. 19B
15
9C
16
Fig. 19B
B
A
D
C
A
B
C
D
CROSSOVER ITEMS
17
Fig. 19B
18
Fig. 19B
B
B
VISUAL REPRESENTATION
OBJECTIVE 3
19
12B
20
12B
C
D
OPEN-ENDED ITEMS
21
5B
22
9C
23
Fig. 19B
OE
OE
OE
Page 18
2010 Released Items