English II: Writing: Module 3: Lesson 2: Section 5
Commentary on Quotations from Text
Graphic Organizer: Writing a Response
Instructions: Your assignment is to write a response to an excerpt from “New Directions,” an essay by
Maya Angelou. You have read the full essay and have written some notes for yourself
like the ones below:
Notes:
Maya Angelou’s essay “New Directions” recounts the story of Mrs. Annie Johnson whose
husband leaves her with two “toddling” sons. She needs to make some money, but
she doesn’t want to leave her children in someone else’s care, so she decides to bake
meat pies to sell at lunchtime to the workmen at a cotton gin and a lumberyard near her
house. Her pies are a success, and eventually she builds a stall where she can sell such
things as “cheese, meal, syrup, cookies, candy, writing tablets, pickles, canned goods,
fresh fruit, soft drinks, coal, oil, and leather soles for worn-out shoes.”
The assignment asks you to write a response, not to the full essay, but to the final paragraph:
Each of us has the right and the responsibility to assess the roads which lie ahead, and
those over which we have traveled, and if the future road looms ominous or unpromising, and the roads back uninviting, then we need to gather our resolve and, carrying only
the necessary baggage, step off that road into another direction. If the new choice is also
unpalatable, without embarrassment, we must be ready to change that as well. (131)
Write a response to this paragraph either 1) agreeing with Angelou and adding your own idea to hers, 2)
disagreeing with her and pointing out why you disagree, or 3) agreeing with most of what she is saying
but disagreeing with part of it.
Your first writing challenge is to understand the focus paragraph. You can assume that your reader knows
the information about Mrs. Johnson and her pies.
Reread the paragraph so that you are clear about its meaning. Then without looking back at Angelou’s
wording, write a summary. If you find that you can remember some of the wording that Angelou uses, you
can include it, but put her words in quotation marks. Select your quotations carefully. Use the space
provided on page two to write your response, then mouse over the “Possible Revised Summary” button
to read a summary for comparison.
© 2012 Texas Education Agency/ The University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved.
English II: Writing: Module 3: Lesson 2: Section 5
Graphic Organizer: Writing a Response (continued, page 2)
Possible Revised Summary
When you read your summary and look back at Angelou’s statement, you may want to scrap yours and
just use hers. Well, you can’t do that. You can improve yours if you see things that do not accurately
reflect what Angelou said, but it will undermine your authority and your credibility as a writer to simply
copy the words of the original.
However, you want along with your authority and credibility to prove to your reader that you “were
listening” to Angelou. You want to use a few phrases from her statement that will make your summary
convincing as a restatement of her ideas. If possible, you also want to use quotations to indicate the tone
of the passage.
This is like adding spices to a stew. If you overdo it, you will ruin the stew. Just the right amount will push
the stew to another level of gastronomic excellence. In this case you are aiming for rhetorical excellence;
just the right amount of direct quotation will get you there.
Limit yourself to fifteen words total. That’s the upper limit. You can use fewer.
Carefully choose a few phrases from Angelou’s statement that can be worked into your summary. Rewrite
your summary in the space provided on page three, possibly changing some of it to accommodate the
embedded quotations. When you are finished, mouse over the “Possible Revised Summary” button to
read a summary for comparison.
© 2012 Texas Education Agency/ The University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved.
English II: Writing: Module 3: Lesson 2: Section 5
Graphic Organizer: Writing a Response (continued, page 3)
Possible Revised Summary
So much for a summary. What about a response? Do you want to agree and add, disagree and explain,
or disagree in part and explain?
As you write your response, make use of some of Angelou’s phrases. Be very careful to put quotation
marks around the words you borrow from Angelou. It must be absolutely clear that these are her words
and not yours.
If you fail to do this, alarms will go off, sirens will sound, and the plagiarism police will burst through the
door and take you away. Well, almost. It’s a very serious thing in the world of academic writing to use
someone else’s words without giving credit. The penalties can vary from failing an assignment, to loss of
privilege, academic probation, and even expulsion from an educational institution.
And, anyway, why do it? If you give credit, you get credit for accurately “listening” to the author.
Write your revised summary and response below in the spaces provided. For this exercise, you can respond in five or six sentences, but think about how you might expand this into an essay-length statement
using explanations and examples. When you are finished, click on the button labeled "Possible Revised
Summary and Response" to read a summary and response for comparison.
© 2012 Texas Education Agency/ The University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved.
English II: Writing: Module 3: Lesson 2: Section 5
Graphic Organizer: Writing a Response (continued, page 4)
Possible Revised Summary and Response
© 2012 Texas Education Agency/ The University of Texas System. All Rights Reserved.
English II: Writing: Module 3: Lesson 2: Section 5
Graphic Organizer: Writing a Response (continued, page 5)
Possible Revised Summary and Response
Angelou says that we should look ahead in time and behind us into the past and evaluate
whether what we see coming in our lives is good or not and whether where we have been was
good or not. If what we see coming “looms ominous and unpromising” and going back to the
life we have lived in our past is “uninviting,” then we need to be courageous enough to “step off
that road into another direction.” And if the new direction is not a good choice, we need to be
courageous all over again and try something else.
I certainly agree that we should evaluate and make choices about when to “step off the
road” of our lives and try “another direction.” Being stuck in a way of life just because that is how
you ended up is letting life push you around. You have to be courageous and be ready to push
life around sometimes. However, I also think there are times to learn from life in ways that we
may not have anticipated. Of course, a future that is “ominous and unpromising” is unlikely to be
anything but a disappointment. However, a future that looks different from the one we imagined
might offer a new direction without our having to “step off” the road at all. Perhaps you have
been turned down by the college you have dreamed of going to all your life; you could change
directions and not go to college at all or you could learn from life and find a way to get a college
education somewhere else. I think we have to be willing sometimes to be patient with life. If we
find that patience is not the answer, we can also be ready to push life around and “step off into
another direction.”