An older British work and what later writing took from it

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   A Table on the Island, and a Desk in the Snow (older British novel and a later text)

   Period note: [1] Daniel Defoe published Robinson Crusoe in London in 1719, and it is often called one of the first English novels. [2] Its narrator, a sailor shipwrecked alone on an island, describes how he builds a life from salvaged supplies and his own labor. [3] Defoe wrote for a growing class of English traders and shopkeepers who admired steady work and the confidence that reason could solve everyday problems.

   From Robinson Crusoe (1719): [4] And now I began to apply myself to make such necessary things as I found I most wanted, particularly a chair and a table;… [5] …I had never handled a tool in my life; and yet, in time, by labour, application, and contrivance, I found at last that I wanted nothing but I could have made it, especially if I had had tools.… [6] For example, if I wanted a board, I had no other way but to cut down a tree, set it on an edge before me, and hew it flat on either side with my axe, till I brought it to be thin as a plank, and then dub it smooth with my adze. [7] It is true, by this method I could make but one board out of a whole tree; but this I had no remedy for but patience,…

   Later text (ours): [8] When snow closed the road to the Granite Pass weather hut in January, I had food and a radio but no desk, and I had never built anything larger than a birdhouse. [9] The weather readings I wrote on my knee came out smeared and illegible. [10] So I took apart two empty supply crates and fitted the boards together with screws from a broken shelf. [11] It took four evenings to make a desk a carpenter could finish in an hour, and it still rocks a little, but every reading since has gone out clean. [12] The ranger laughed and said that almost everyone who winters up here eventually builds furniture.

   Word notes: [13] Here wanted means lacked or needed, and contrivance means clever planning. [14] To hew is to chop wood into shape, and to dub it with an adze is to shave it smooth with a curved blade.

2. 1.

   Ari fills the taken row of the chart. Which feature of Crusoe's account does the later text take most directly?

   • A first-person account of building needed furniture by hand, with no training, from what is at hand.
   • Two narrators who each say they had built nothing larger than a birdhouse.
   • A narrator who is cut off from other people for a while and has to face hardship.
   • Boards cut from a tree with an axe, then smoothed flat before they are fitted together, as in both texts.
3. 2.

   Luz fills the left column for sentence 5. What does Crusoe mean by saying that he wanted nothing but he could have made it?

   • He wished for nothing more, because hard work had made him content without comforts.
   • He could make anything an English carpenter could make, and he needed no tools to do it.
   • He lacked nothing that he could not have made himself, given time and, ideally, tools.
   • Readers of his day trusted that reason could solve everyday problems, as sentence 3 says.
4. 3.

   Jun sets sentence 7 beside sentence 11. What did the later text take from Crusoe's comment on his own method?

   • The confidence that reason can solve everyday problems, which the period note describes.
   • The admission that the untrained maker's method is slow and costly, accepted with patience.
   • The waste of a whole tree for each board, kept exactly in the snowed-in weather hut.
   • A character who learns that hard work pays off in the end.
5. 4.

   Pia puts sentence 6 into plain words for the left column. Which version keeps Crusoe's meaning?

   • He invented a faster way of making boards than any carpenter had ever used before.
   • Whenever he felt like having wood, he cut down a tree and split it into many planks, using the whole trunk.
   • He took boards from an old supply crate, then smoothed them flat with a borrowed tool.
   • For each board he felled a tree, chopped both sides flat until it was plank-thin, then shaved it smooth.
6. 5.

   Bo links sentence 5 to the period note. Which sentence explains Crusoe's trust that labor and contrivance could make up for his lack of skill?

   • Sentence 1: the book appeared in London in 1719 as one of the first English novels.
   • No sentence: Crusoe's pride in teaching himself is a do-it-yourself habit of our own time.
   • Sentence 3: his readers trusted that steady work and reason could solve everyday problems.
   • Sentence 12: most people who winter up there eventually build their own furniture.

7. A School of Facts, and a Training Room (older British novel and a later text)

   Period note: [1] Charles Dickens published Hard Times in weekly parts in 1854, and he set it in Coketown, an imaginary English mill town of the industrial north. [2] Mr. Gradgrind, a retired hardware merchant who runs the town's model school, believes that only facts and figures are worth teaching, and the novel's first speech below is his. [3] Sissy Jupe, called girl number twenty, has just told Mr. Gradgrind that her father works with horses in a traveling circus.

   From Hard Times (1854), chapters 1 and 2: [4] ‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else.… Stick to Facts, sir!’ [5] …‘Very well, then. He is a veterinary surgeon, a farrier, and horsebreaker. Give me your definition of a horse.’ (Sissy Jupe thrown into the greatest alarm by this demand.) [6] ‘Girl number twenty unable to define a horse!’ said Mr. Gradgrind, for the general behoof of all the little pitchers.… [7] …‘Quadruped. Graminivorous. Forty teeth, namely twenty-four grinders, four eye-teeth, and twelve incisive. Sheds coat in the spring; in marshy countries, sheds hoofs, too. Hoofs hard, but requiring to be shod with iron. Age known by marks in mouth.’ Thus (and much more) Bitzer. [8] ‘Now girl number twenty,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. ‘You know what a horse is.’

   Later text (ours): [9] In the training room at Fenwick Cycle Works, Ms. Draycott opened a slide of catalog codes and announced that new mechanics would memorize all forty-one parts of a bicycle before touching a wheel. [10] She asked Mr. Abiola, who had repaired bicycles in his uncle's shop for twenty years, to define a derailleur. [11] When he began describing how a worn one slips on a steep hill, she stopped him and called on someone else. [12] That afternoon a customer's chain jammed at the front counter, and it was Mr. Abiola who freed it in under a minute.

   Word notes: [13] A farrier puts shoes on horses, a quadruped walks on four feet, and graminivorous means grass-eating. [14] Behoof means benefit, and the little pitchers are the pupils, pictured as jugs waiting to be filled.

8. 6.

   Zee fills the left column for sentence 8. What does Mr. Gradgrind mean when he tells girl number twenty that she knows what a horse is?

   • Now that she has heard Bitzer's list of facts, he believes she knows a horse.
   • He admits that Sissy, who lives among horses, knew them better than Bitzer did.
   • He asks her whether she knows what a horse is, hoping she will answer this time.
   • She knows horses already, because her father works with them in a traveling circus.
9. 7.

   Kira fills the period-note row for Bitzer's answer in sentence 7. Which note sentence best explains that answer?

   • Sentence 1: Hard Times first came out in weekly parts, in the year 1854.
   • Sentence 3: every child in Coketown worked with horses, so the school taught horse facts.
   • Sentence 2: Mr. Gradgrind runs a school that teaches only facts and figures.
   • No note sentence: Bitzer sounds like a search engine, which 1854 readers never knew.
10. 8.

    Ren matches sentence 7 to the later text. Which part of the later text does the job of Bitzer's recited definition?

    • The note that a quadruped walks on four feet, which defines the horse in plain words.
    • The list of grinders, eye-teeth and hoofs that Ms. Draycott shows on her slide.
    • The catalog codes Ms. Draycott wants memorized before anyone touches a wheel.
    • Mr. Abiola's account of a slipping part, since both describe how something moves.
11. 9.

    Esme puts sentence 4 into plain words for the left column. Which version keeps the speaker's meaning?

    • Memorize all forty-one parts before you are allowed to touch the real thing.
    • Teach facts first, and once they are learned, let the children enjoy stories and play.
    • Plant a school garden so the children can gather facts about how plants grow.
    • Teach these children only facts, since facts are all that life needs, and remove everything else.
12. 10.

    Mr. Gradgrind calls Sissy girl number twenty in sentence 6. Noah fills the period-note row: which note sentence explains a number instead of a name?

    • Sentence 3: Sissy's circus family had no proper name she could give at school.
    • Sentence 1: the novel came out in weekly parts, so pupils were numbered to keep track.
    • No note sentence: schools today give students ID numbers, and Dickens is predicting that.
    • Sentence 2: he believes only facts and figures are worth knowing, so a pupil becomes a figure.