11th grade An older British work and what later writing took from it worksheet

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 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.
   • 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.
3. 2.

   Tala fills the period-note row. Which fact from the note best explains why Crusoe tells, step by step, how he makes one board?

   • His readers were traders and shopkeepers who admired steady work and practical problem-solving.
   • Robinson Crusoe appeared in London in 1719 and is called one of the first English novels, so steps were expected.
   • Defoe wanted his readers to leave town and live alone by their own labor.
   • Readers love survival shows, so Defoe added how-to steps to keep his audience watching.
4. 3.

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

   • The waste of a whole tree for each board, kept exactly in the snowed-in weather hut.
   • The admission that the untrained maker's method is slow and costly, accepted with patience.
   • The confidence that reason can solve everyday problems, which the period note describes.
   • 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?

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

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

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.

   Milo fills the taken row for sentences 9 to 11. What did the later text take from the Dickens scene?

   • A learner too frightened to speak at all, kept exactly as Sissy is in sentence 5.
   • A classroom where a strict teacher keeps order and the learners sit quietly in rows.
   • A facts-only leader who sets aside a person's lived knowledge and wants a recited definition.
   • A lesson about animals, since both scenes ask a learner to define a living creature.
9. 7.

   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.
   • She knows horses already, because her father works with them in a traveling circus.
   • 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.
10. 8.

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

    • Sentence 2: Mr. Gradgrind runs a school that teaches only facts and figures.
    • 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.
    • No note sentence: Bitzer sounds like a search engine, which 1854 readers never knew.
11. 9.

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

    • Teach facts first, and once they are learned, let the children enjoy stories and play.
    • Teach these children only facts, since facts are all that life needs, and remove everything else.
    • Plant a school garden so the children can gather facts about how plants grow.
    • Memorize all forty-one parts before you are allowed to touch the real thing.
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 1: the novel came out in weekly parts, so pupils were numbered to keep track.
    • Sentence 2: he believes only facts and figures are worth knowing, so a pupil becomes a figure.
    • Sentence 3: Sissy's circus family had no proper name she could give at school.
    • No note sentence: schools today give students ID numbers, and Dickens is predicting that.