1. KNOTS IN MY YO-YO STRINGS
LESSON 2
FIRST READ

2. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
WHY IS TEAMMWORK IMPORTANT?

3. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
1. How does the paragraph that tells about the histories of the two football teams help you understand the importance of the game?
2. What text evidence explains why the Norristown fans “grimly awaited the inevitable?”
3. Why do you think the author uses the word little to describe the number of inches the team had to run the ball?

4. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
4. Why do you think the author doesn’t know why he decides to write? Use evidence from the text to support your answer.
5. Why does the author start his poem at the end of the football game?
6. Why does the author say that after writing the poem, the game was finally over?

5. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
7. How does Jerry Spinelli introduce the idea of how he became a writer?
8. What trait does Jerry Spinelli show on this page? What text evidence supports your answer?

6. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
9. What text evidence shows that the culprit of the chicken theft knows what he or she did was wrong?
10. Why does the author refer to his children as “the six little angels” if one of them is the “culprit”?
11. How does this section contribute to the idea that having children helped the author’s writing?
12. How does the author’s description of his job in the last paragraph tell us how he feels about it?

7. THINK THROUGH THE TEXT
13. What about the story of the chicken thief helps the author write his first published book? What evidence in the text supports your answer?
14. How does repeating the question the boy asked the author fit into the structure of this selection?
15. What does the author mean when he says answering the boy’s question would take too much time?