1. Quickly have a seat and take out a PENCIL
3/27/18
Quickly have a seat and take out a PENCIL

2. Annotation is a note of any form made while reading text.
“Reading with a pencil.”

3. Annotation is not highlighting.

4. Foundational Annotation Skills
Underline the major points.
Circle keywords or phrases that are confusing or unknown to you.
Write margin notes restating the author’s ideas.

5. 9th Grade English

6. Annotate “Letting Go” Underline the major points.
Circle keywords or phrases that are confusing or unknown to you.
Write margin notes restating the author’s ideas.

7. What is the conflict in the story?
What does the text say? Key Details
What is the conflict in the story?
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.

8. What does the text say? Key Details
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.
What is happening with the family at the beginning? What words and phrases help you to determine this?

9. What does the text say? Key Details
Facilitator: this question doesn’t require a table discussion, as adults quickly arrive at this answer. You can use this as an example of a literal level question.
Why does the woman take the picture of the baby off the bed and walk out of the room with it?

10. How does the text work?
What is the importance of the narrator’s emphasis on the snow’s melting into dirty water in the first line of the story?
Facilitator: Water is used to symbolize life. Fresh water symbolizes good health, while muddy water symbolizes death or bad times. Rivers are often used to symbolize change and the passage of time.

11. When, and why, does the man decide that he wants the baby?
How does the text work?
When, and why, does the man decide that he wants the baby?
Facilitator: The use of the word “THE” speaks of the whole of the people, not just an individual. Hughes is reminding us that African-Americans draw strength from their history and the span of their influence and presence across the world.

12. How does the text work?
Facilitator: deep, continuous, mysterious.
What is the symbolic value of the flowerpot? Can you find other symbols in the story?

13. How does the text work?
What is the tone of the story?  Is it what you would expect, given what happens? Why do you think the author chose this tone? 
Facilitator: Both rivers and veins have many branches that form a web or network, especially as they connect to other rivers or veins. Symbolically, both symbolize movement, and are necessary for life. If either a vein or a river stopped, death would soon occur. [PHOTO]: The Mississippi River delta, as imaged by Japan’s Advanced Land Observing Satellite.

14. How does the text work?
What is the importance of the story’s title? Popular Mechanics is a magazine with  regular sections on automotive, science, and technology topics. Why do you think Carver chose the title of this magazine for his short story?
Facilitator: the time period extends from approximately 3000 BC to the late 19th century.

15. What does the text mean? Inferences
Facilitator: Hughes is contemplating the African-American’s experiences from enslavement (muddy) to hard-fought freedoms (golden). While he realizes there is still much to be done (this was written in 1921, decades before civil rights legislation), he is hopeful that there are some signs of improvement. However, the river remains muddy below its golden surface, suggesting there is still much to be done.
What themes do you see in this story?

16. What does the text mean? Inferences
Identify all the references to the baby in the story and then in relation to these references, discuss what the baby means to his parents.
Facilitator: Hughes is contemplating the African-American’s experiences from enslavement (muddy) to hard-fought freedoms (golden). While he realizes there is still much to be done (this was written in 1921, decades before civil rights legislation), he is hopeful that there are some signs of improvement. However, the river remains muddy below its golden surface, suggesting there is still much to be done.

17. What does the text mean? Inferences
The last sentence of Carver’s story is “In this manner, the issue was decided.” What do you think “the issue” refers to in the last sentence of the story? Why do you think Carver chose this curiously neutral term?
Facilitator: Hughes is tracing an arc of history to demonstrate their resilience, strength, and tenacity throughout the millennia. He is also tracing the rise and fall of other civilizations (the Egyptian empire, the Roman empire) to show that his people endure.

18. What does the text mean? Inferences
Facilitator: Hughes is tracing an arc of history to demonstrate their resilience, strength, and tenacity throughout the millennia. He is also tracing the rise and fall of other civilizations (the Egyptian empire, the Roman empire) to show that his people endure.
According to Norman German and Jack Bedell (1998), Carver’s “Popular Mechanics” can be compared to the story of King Solomon and the two mothers. If this true? How do they connect?

19. The Judgment of Solomon
Two women came before King Solomon to ask him to determine which of the two of them should be awarded a disputed infant. Both mothers claimed to have given birth to the baby. Since each of them refused to waiver from her story, Solomon came up with what sounded like a logical idea. He suggested the baby be cut in two and that each woman receive one half.  When one of the women immediately understood that the beloved child would be killed, she no longer cared whether she got to raise him. All she wanted was that he be safe.  The other potential mother didn't care: she thought the idea of cutting the baby in half was just fine.  Solomon decided the real mother -- or at least the one who should have custody of the child -- was the one who would rather give up the child than see it be killed.
Facilitator: Hughes is tracing an arc of history to demonstrate their resilience, strength, and tenacity throughout the millennia. He is also tracing the rise and fall of other civilizations (the Egyptian empire, the Roman empire) to show that his people endure.