Galena Park Independent School District
Summer Reading Acknowledgement 6th Grade
Date:
Home Campus:
2012-2013 Grade Level:
5th
I understand that I have chosen to be enrolled in PreAdvanced Placement English Language Arts class for the
2012-2013 academic year. I understand that I must
complete the attached summer reading requirement and that
it will be counted as a major project grade. I also understand
that I will be tested on the information included. The
assignment is due to my teacher by September 14, 2012.
Failure to complete the assignment will negatively affect my
grade. As per Galena Park ISD policy, for every day the
project is late, 10% will be deducted from my total grade, up
to a maximum of 50%.
Student Signature
Parent Signature
GALENA PARK ISD
SIXTH GRADE PRE-AP LANGUAGE ARTS
REQUIRED SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
Dear Students,
Congratulations on your decision to enroll in the Pre-AP English Language Arts class for the 2012-2013
school year. Pre-AP English Language Arts includes a summer reading component with required reading and
responding. Getting started in the summer provides you with initial preparation for the course you will take
next year, and allows you the flexibility to learn on your own schedule and at your own pace for this novel. The
summer reading assignment is due by September 14, 2012. If the project is late, it will be handled in
accordance to the GPISD Pre-AP late work policy (10% deducted per day, up to 50% of the total grade). Please
follow the directions in their entirety and pay close attention to the grading rubric at the end of the
packet. The grading rubric explains exactly how the teacher will be grading your work. The guidelines and
requirements for the project are clearly explained below.
PRE-AP SIXTH GRADE SUMMER ASSIGNMENT
1. Read the excerpt from the novel Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse.
2. Read
3. Complete a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting the obstacles that each character (Billie Jo and Jackie Robinson) faced in each story. A
copy of a Venn diagram is attached, if needed.
4. Write an expository essay (one page or less) where you use the information that you included in the Venn diagram to compare and contrast the
obstacles that each character faced. Be sure to include an introduction, similarities of the obstacles, differences of the obstacles, and a conclusion.
5. Answer the open ended response questions provided. Use complete sentences to answer each question provided. Be sure to start your answer
with information from the question (example
) and include quotes from the text to support
your answer (direct quotes must be in quotation marks).
6. Write a personal narrative (one page or less) where you discuss a time in your life that you encountered adversity and explain how you dealt
with it.
7. Create a cover page. The cover page must include your name, the name of the project, the due date (September 14, 2012), and an illustration or
photograph that represents the project.
8. Be prepared to discuss and write about the texts by the final due date of the project.
9. Additional directions for summer project: All work should be neatly written in blue or black ink or typed. The assignment can be completed as a
print-out using Microsoft Word (or a similar program) or saved on a flash drive and turned in as a Microsoft PowerPoint (or similar program). If the
assignment is printed, it must be bound together in some way (this could be a single staple or a report cover).
10. If you have questions or concerns, you may contact a teacher, from your campus, at any of the following e-mail addresses:
Cobb Sixth Grade Campus
o Ms. Burra [email protected]
o Ms. McCray [email protected]
o Mr. Seibert [email protected]
Galena Park Middle
o Ms. Davis [email protected]
o Ms. Miller [email protected]
Woodland Acres Middle
o Ms. Emmert [email protected]
Equity Policy Statement
AP Access and Equity Initiatives
The College Board and the Advanced Placement Program encourage teachers, AP
Coordinators, and school administrators to make equitable access a guiding principle for their AP
programs. The College Board is committed to the principle that all students deserve an
opportunity to participate in rigorous and academically challenging courses and programs. All
students who are willing to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be
considered for admission to AP courses. The Board encourages the elimination of barriers that
restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have
been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to
ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.
Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse
1998 Newbery Medal Winner
Winner of the 1998 Scott O'Dell Award
An ALA Notable Children's Book
An ALA Best Book for Young Adults
Book Summary
In this powerful historical novel, a young teenager named Billie Jo Kelby describes her life from the winter of
1934 through the autumn of 1935. Through her story readers see what life in the dust bowl was like as Oklahoma
farmers struggled to raise crops choked by continual dust storms, and families struggled to survive.
Billie Jo and her parents face these hard times together and, despite the never-ending dust, Billie Jo is happy.
More than anything, Billie Jo loves to play the piano, and she has begun earning money performing. Ma and Pa are
happy, too soon Ma will give birth and at last Billie Jo will have a brother or sister.
Then a terrible accident changes everything. Ma mistakes a pail of kerosene that Pa had left next to the stove for
water and begins to use it to cook. Fire erupts. After her mother runs outside, Billie Jo tosses the flaming
kerosene out the door, realizing too late that Ma is standing right in the path of the fiery liquid. Billie Jo tries
desperately to save Ma, beating out the flames with her own hands. Ma and the baby both die, the town gossips
that Billie Jo caused the accident, Pa withdraws into a deep depression, and Billie Jo's hands are so badly burned
that she cannot play the piano and daily chores are agony.
For a long time, she can forgive neither her father nor herself, and even escapes on a freight train. As she leaves
the dust of Oklahoma behind, Billie Jo comes to understand herself and her father in a new way. She returns
home; the many hardships she has faced her mother's tragic death, her father's retreat into depression, her
own need to escape, and the personal journey that finally result in healing and forgiveness all lead Billie Jo
"out of the dust" in a most surprising way.
Out of the Dust.
The Accident
I got
burned
bad.
Daddy
put a pail of kerosene
next to the stove
and Ma,
fixing breakfast,
thinking the pail was
filled with water,
lifted it,
poured it,
but instead of making coffee,
Ma made a rope of fire.
It rose up from the stove
to the pail
and the kerosene burst
into flames.
Ma ran across the kitchen,
out the porch door,
screaming for Daddy.
I tore after her,
then,
thinking of the burning pail
left behind in the bone-dry kitchen,
I flew back and grabbed it,
throwing it out the door.
The flaming oil
splashed onto her apron,
and Ma,
suddenly Ma,
was a column of fire.
I pushed her to the ground,
desperate to save her,
desperate to save the baby, I
tried,
beating out the flames with my hand.
I did the best I could.
but it was no good.
Ma
got
burned
bad.
July 1934
1
Burns
At first I felt no pain,
only heat.
I thought I might be swallowed by the heat,
and nothing would be left of me.
Someone brought Doc Rice.
he tended Ma first,
then came to me.
The doctor cut away the skin on my hands, it hung in
crested strips.
He cut my skin away with scissors,
then poked my hands with pins to see what I could feel.
he bathed my burns in antiseptic.
Only then the pain came.
July 1934
Nightmare
I am awake now,
still shaking from my dream:
I was coming home
through a howling dust storm,
my lowered face was scrubbed raw by dirt and win.
Grit scratched my eyes,
it crunched between my teeth.
Sand chafed inside my clothes,
against my skin.
Dust crept inside my ears, up my nose,
down my throat.
I shuddered, nasty with dust.
In the house,
dust blew through the cracks in the walls,
it covered the floorboards and
heaped against the doors.
It floated in the air, everywhere.
searched for it,
found it under a mound of dust.
I was angry at Ma for letting in the dust.
I cleaned off the keys
but when I played,
a tortured sound came from the piano,
like someone shrieking.
I hit the keys with my fist, and the piano broke into
a hundred pieces.
Daddy called to me. He asked me to bring water,
Ma was thirsty.
I brought up a pail of fire and Ma drank it. She had
given birth to a baby of flames. The baby
burned at her side.
2
The house had been tractored out,
tipped off its foundation.
No one could live there.
Everywhere I looked were dunes of rippled dust.
The wind roared like fire.
The door to the house hung open and there was
dust inside
several feet deep.
And there was a piano.
The bench was gone, right through the floor.
The piano leaned toward me.
I stood and played.
The relief I felt to hear the sound of music after the
sound
to our house,
lumps for hand,
they dripped a sickly pus,
they swung stupidly from my wrists,
they strung with pain.
When I woke up, the part
about my hands
was real.
July 1934
A Tent of Pain
Daddy
has made a tent out of the sheet over Ma
so nothing will touch her skin,
what skin she has left.
I
She smells like scorched meat.
Her body groaning there,
it looks nothing like my ma.
Daddy brings her water,
and drips it inside the slit of her mouth
by squeezing a cloth.
pen her eyes,
she cries out
when the baby moves inside her,
otherwise she moans,
day and night.
I wish the dust would plug my ears
July 1934
3
Drinking
Daddy found the money
Ma kept squirreled in the kitchen under the
threshold.
It
But it was enough for him to get good and drunk.
He went out last night.
While Ma moaned and begged for water.
He drank up the emergency money
until it was gone.
I tried to help her.
Ic
It hurt the blisters on my hands to try.
I only made it worse for Ma. She cried
for the pain of the water running into her sores,
she cried for the water that
would not soothe her throat
and quench her thirst,
and the whole time
my father was in Guymon,
drinking.
July 1934
Devoured
Doc sent me outside to get water.
The day was so hot,
the house was so hot.
As I came out the door,
I saw the cloud descending.
It whirred like a thousand engines.
It shifted shape as it came
settling first ov
Grasshoppers,
eating tassles, leaves, stalks.
Then coming closer to the house,
the laundry on the line, and then,
the grasshoppers came right over me,
I tried beating them away.
But the grasshoppers ate every leaf,
they ate every piece of fruit.
Nothing left but a couple apple cores,
her apples were gone.
I never had a chance.
Ma died that day
giving birth to my brother.
August 1934
4
Blame
e
She came to bring my brother back to Lubbock
to raise as her own,
but my brother died before Aunt Ellis got here.
She barely noticed me.
As soon as she found my brother dead,
she
had a talk with my father.
Then she turned around
and headed back to Lubbock.
The neighbor women came.
They wrapped my baby brother in a blanket
a
We buried them together
on the rise Ma loved,
the one she gazed at from the kitchen window,
the one that looks out over the dried up Beaver River.
Reverend Bingham led the service.
He talked about Ma,
but what he said made no sense
and I could tell
h
h
never even heard her play piano.
He asked my father
to name my baby brother.
My father, hunched over, said nothing.
I told the reverend
m
Like our President.
The women talked as they scrubbed death from our house.
I
stayed in my room
silent on the iron bed,
listening to their voices.
t
they said.
Under their words a finger pointed.
about my father leaving kerosene by the stove.
drinking himself
into a stupor
while Ma writhed, begging for water.
They only said,
Billie Jo threw the pail of kerosene.
August 1934
5
by
Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns
1
It was 1945, and World War II had ended. Americans of all races had died for
their country. Yet black men were still not allowed in the major leagues. The national
pastime was loved by all America, but the major leagues were for white men only.
2
Branch Rickey of the Brooklyn Dodgers thought that was wrong. He was the only
team owner who believed blacks and whites should play together. Baseball, he felt,
would become even more thrilling, and fans of all colors would swarm to his ballpark.
3
Rickey decided his team would be the first to integrate. There were plenty of
brilliant Negro league players, but he knew the first black major leaguer would need
much more than athletic ability.
4
Many fans and players were prejudiced
races to play
together. Rickey knew the first black player would be cursed and booed. Pitchers would
throw at him; runners would spike him. Even his own teammates might try to pick a
fight.
5
But somehow this man had to rise above that. No matter what happened, he
must never lose his temper. No matter what was said to him, he must never answer
6
was 28 years old, and a superb athlete. In his first season in the Negro leagues, he hit
.387. But just as importantly, he had great intelligence and sensitivity. Robinson was
college-educated, and knew what joining the majors would mean for blacks. The
grandson of a slave, he was proud of his race and wanted others to feel the same.
7
In the past, Robinson had always stood up for his rights. But now Rickey told him
8
At first Robinson thought Rickey wanted someone who was afraid to defend
himself. But as they talked, he realized that in this case a truly brave man would have
to avoid fighting. He thought for a while, then promised Rickey he would not fight back.
9
Robinson signed with the Dodgers and went to play in the minors in 1946. Rickey
was right fans insulted him, and so did players. But he performed brilliantly and
avoided fights. Then, in 1947, he came to the majors.
10
Many Dodgers were angry. Some signed a petition demanding to be traded. But
Robinson and Rickey were determined to make their experiment work.
11
On April 15 Opening Day 26,623 fans came out to Ebbets Field. More than
half of them were black Robinson was already their hero. Now he was making history
just by being on the field.
6
12
The afternoon was cold and wet, but no one left the ballpark. The Dodgers beat
the Boston Braves, 5care they cheered his every move.
13
Ro
hurt him. The St. Louis Cardinals said they would strike if he took the field. And
in
the same places as his teammates.
14
Yet through it all, he kept his promise to Rickey. No matter who insulted him, he
never retaliated.
15
The Dodgers set attendance records in a number of cities.
16
Slowly his teammates accepted him, realizing that he was the spark that made
them a winning team. No one was more daring on the base paths or better with the
glove. At the plate, he had great bat control he could hit the ball anywhere. That
17
Jackie Robinson went on to a glorious career. But he did more than play the game
well his bravery taught Americans a lesson. Branch Rickey opened a door, and Jackie
Robinson stepped through it, making sure it could never be closed again. Something
wonderful happened to baseball and America the day Jackie Robinson joined the
Dodgers.
7
Directions: All work, including essays and responses to questions, must be completed on a separate sheet of
paper. The exception to this rule would be the Venn diagram.
Part 1: VENN DIAGRAM
*Fill out the attached Venn-diagram with the similar and different
obstacles that each character (Billie Jo and Jackie Robinson) faced
in each story. An obstacle is defined as somebody or something that
prevents progress.
Part 2 : EXPOSITORY ESSAY PROMPT
*In a well-written essay, compare and contrast the obstacles that
each character faced.
Part 3: OPEN ENDED RESPONSE QUESTIONS
Use complete sentences to answer each question provided. Include quotes from the text to support your answer
(direct quotes must be in quotation marks) and include the page number from where you found the quote.
Out of the Dust
1. Summer 1934: The Accident: What exactly happened? Use as
many details from the story as possible. Use quotation marks
2. Summer 1934: Blame: Do you believe that Billie Jo blames
herself for the death of her mother? Use a sentence or two from
the text to prove your answer (remember to use quotation
marks when you take sentences from the text).
3. Name two difficult situations that Robinson and his team faced
and describe how they overcame each situation. Include a
quote to support your answer.
4. Why was Branch Rickey given a great deal of credit in this
essay? Include a quote to support your answer.
Part 4: PERSONAL NARRATIVE PROMPT
*Discuss a time in your life where you faced an obstacle and explain
how you dealt with it.
8
9
Name_________________________
Due Date September 14, 2012
You may
use this
section to
check off
tasks once
completed
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RUBRIC
T
Comments
Venn Diagram (10 points)
a. Differences of Out of the Dust & Differences of
b. Similarities of each
Expository Essay (30 points)
a. Has a clear introduction
b. Discussed similarities of the obstacles
c. Discussed differences of the obstacles
d. Has a clear conclusion
Open-Ended Response Questions (30 points)
a.
Wrote complete sentence answers for each
question.
b.
Included at least one quote per question to prove
your responses. (5 pts per question)
c.
Use of Quotation Marks
d.
Wrote the page numbers of where you found your
proof.
Personal Narrative (20 points)
a. Discussed a time in your life that you encountered
an obstacle
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Points
Available
Points
Received
_5__
_5__
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_5__
_10__
_10__
_5__
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_5__
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_20_
_____
_3_
_____
_2_
_____
_10_
_____
_10_
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b. Explained how you dealt with it.
Organization (10 points)
e. Neatness
f. Stapled/Bound on the upper-left corner
g. Cover Page
- Name, date, Title, Illustration
_3_
_1_
_____
_____
_4_
_____
Blue ink, Black Ink, or Typed
_2_
_____
10
_____
h.
BONUS (10 points)
____
take an AR
i.
test
TOTAL POINTS AVAILABLE
TOTAL POINTS RECEIVED
110
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10