Judge a source for the task, then quote and cite it

Grade 11 Reading Worksheet - Building Confidence

Circle the best answer.

1. Read this first

   Use this

   An Ice Cutter's Winter on Lake Tamsin (diary entries with an editor's note, from a book)
   Source line: Diary entries written in January and February 1903 by Josiah Haldane, an ice cutter at Lake Tamsin, printed in *Winter Work on Lake Tamsin: An Ice Cutter's Diary*, edited by Ruth Okonkwo, a curator at the Tamsin Valley Museum (Fernhill Press, 2019). Sentences [1] to [3] are the editor's note, written in 2019, on page 40. Sentences [4] to [9] are on page 41, and sentences [10] to [14] are on page 42. Stars mark italics.

   [1] Josiah Haldane kept this notebook in the winter of 1903, while he worked on a crew that harvested ice from Lake Tamsin for sale in summer. [2] His granddaughter donated it to the museum in 1987, and the entries printed here follow it closely, except that a few irregular spellings have been modernized. [3] By the late 1930s, electric refrigerators had become common enough throughout the valley that the icehouses closed, and the trade Haldane describes disappeared within a generation.

   [4] January 12. The ice on the north bay measured fourteen inches, which Mr. Lusk, our foreman, considers thick enough to carry the horses, so we began marking the first field. [5] A horse pulls the marker across the ice in straight lines, and the plow follows in the same grooves, cutting deeper with every pass until a saw can finish. [6] We cut the blocks twenty-two inches square, because that is the size that fits the chutes at the icehouse. [7] My hands were so cold by noon that I could hardly hold the pike pole, but Mrs. Lusk's coffee at dinner was the best I ever tasted.

   [8] January 20. A thaw softened the field for two days, and Mr. Lusk refused to let us cut, since soft ice melts in the icehouse long before August. [9] We spent the time packing sawdust between the stored rows, because sawdust insulates the blocks from warm air the way a coat protects against wind.

   [10] February 3. Today we floated blocks down the open channel to the icehouse ramp, where a moving chain carried them into the building. [11] I counted more than nine hundred blocks before supper, and the men at the top estimated that the house was already more than half full. [12] Mr. Lusk says the hotels on the south shore pay generously for blocks that survive into summer, because visitors expect cold drinks. [13] Some of the older men predict that the trade will not last, now that several city families own machines that manufacture ice, but I cannot imagine the valley without its crews. [14] Tonight the lake is quiet, and from the shore the cut field looks like an enormous checkerboard laid across the snow.

2. 1.

   Ari is researching what cutting lake ice felt like to workers in 1903. For that question, are sentences [4] to [14] a primary or a secondary source, and why?

   • Primary, because Haldane wrote them during the 1903 harvest he describes.
   • Secondary, because they reached readers in a book that was printed in 2019.
   • Primary, because the museum curator watched the 1903 harvest and wrote it down.
   • Primary, because any writing more than a hundred years old counts as primary.
3. 2.

   Bo wants to explain how the crews kept ice from melting until summer. Which Strength-and-limit line fits sentences [8] and [9] for that task?

   • Strength: a worker's own account of the thaw rule and the sawdust packing; limit: one crew on one lake in one winter.
   • Strength: a museum curator edited the book, so each detail is checked; limit: few readers know the book.
   • Strength: it shows who bought the ice and why they paid well; limit: it gives no prices for the hotels.
   • Strength: a curator's careful study of old icehouses; limit: it was written long after the trade ended.
4. 3.

   Esme quotes part of sentence [6] in an MLA 9 paper. Which sentence works the quotation in correctly?

   • Haldane explains that the blocks “because that is the size that fits the chutes at the icehouse” (41).
   • Haldane explains that the blocks were cut to one size because “that is the size that fit the chutes in the icehouse” (41).
   • Haldane explains that the blocks were cut to one size because “that is the size that fits the chutes at the icehouse” (41).
   • Haldane explains that the blocks were cut to one size because “that is the size that fits the chutes at the icehouse.” (41)
5. 4.

   Kira wants to know how many blocks a crew could move into the icehouse in one day. Which Strength-and-limit line fits sentence [11] for that task?

   • Strength: the count comes from the icehouse company's own records; limit: those records were lost before 1987.
   • Strength: a museum book printed the count, so it must be exact; limit: the book does not list its sources.
   • Strength: a count made by a worker on the day itself; limit: one day's rough count, “more than nine hundred,” not an exact total.
   • Strength: it shows how the blocks rode a moving chain into the building; limit: it does not name the chain's maker.
6. 5.

   Luz quotes part of sentence [9] in an MLA 9 paper. Which sentence works the quotation in correctly?

   • In his diary, Haldane compares sawdust to clothing, writing that it guards the blocks “the way a coat protects against wind” (41).
   • In his diary, Haldane compares sawdust to clothing, writing that it guards the blocks “the way a coat protects against the wind” (41).
   • In his diary, Haldane compares sawdust to clothing, writing that it guards the blocks “the way a coat protects against wind.” (41)
   • In his diary, Haldane compares sawdust to clothing, writing that it “We spent the time packing sawdust between the stored rows” (41).

7. Number, Please

   Pinecrest's First Telephone Exchange (magazine article (local history))
   Source line: Article by Helen Lind and Samuel Okafor, two volunteer historians, “Number, Please: Pinecrest's First Telephone Exchange,” *Hill Country Past*, the magazine of the Pinecrest Historical Society, Spring 2022, pages 22–24. The authors used the telephone company's ledgers from 1908 to 1957 and a 1979 interview with a former operator. Sentences [1] to [7] are on page 22, and sentences [8] to [14] are on page 23. Stars mark italics.

   [1] When the Pinecrest Telephone Company opened its exchange on Front Street in 1908, it served forty-one subscribers, mostly shops, doctors and larger farms. [2] Every call passed through a switchboard, a tall wooden cabinet covered with rows of small sockets called jacks, each one wired to a single telephone line. [3] A caller lifted the receiver, which lit a tiny lamp on the board, and the operator plugged a cord into that line's jack and asked, "Number, please?" [4] She then plugged the other cord of the pair into the jack of the number requested and rang that line, completing the connection. [5] The company's ledgers show that by 1915 the exchange served more than three hundred subscribers, and that most rural homes shared party lines with three or four neighbors. [6] On a party line each household had its own pattern of rings, but any neighbor who lifted a receiver could listen in. [7] The ledgers also list the operators by name, and nearly all of them were young women from the village who worked ten-hour shifts, six days a week.

   [8] In a 1979 interview recorded by the historical society, a former operator, Mildred Kaye, remembered the night shift as the most worrying, because late calls usually meant someone needed a doctor. [9] Operators often knew where the doctor was before the caller did, she explained, since they had connected his earlier calls. [10] That local knowledge made the operators valued members of the community, and the ledgers record a small yearly bonus for each of them. [11] The exchange moved to a brick building on Mill Street in 1931, and the switchboard was enlarged so that several operators could work side by side. [12] Pinecrest changed to dial telephones in 1957, and the last switchboard was dismantled that autumn, although one panel now stands in the society's museum. [13] Little of the operators' daily work was written down, so most of what we know comes from the ledgers and from the few operators interviewed later. [14] We hope readers whose families worked at the exchange will share their letters and photographs, so that the next account can be fuller.

8. 6.

   Milo is researching how operators connected calls in 1908. For that question, is this article a primary or a secondary source, and why?

   • Primary, because the authors worked as operators at the exchange they describe.
   • Secondary, because it was printed in a magazine rather than kept in an archive.
   • Primary, because it describes the exchange exactly as it worked back in 1908.
   • Secondary, because Lind and Okafor wrote it in 2022 from ledgers and an interview that others made.
9. 7.

   Noah wants to know how many homes shared party lines around 1915. Which Strength-and-limit line fits sentence [5] for that task?

   • Strength: the figure comes from the company's own ledgers; limit: “most” and “three or four” are not exact counts.
   • Strength: a historical society's magazine printed it, so it is surely right; limit: the magazine is small.
   • Strength: it explains the pattern of rings for each home; limit: it does not say how long calls lasted.
   • Strength: Lind and Okafor counted the homes themselves in 1915; limit: they visited the village alone.
10. 8.

    Ren is researching how the Pinecrest Historical Society tells the exchange's story today. For that question, is this 2022 article a primary or a secondary source, and why?

    • Secondary, because it was written in 2022, and recent writing cannot be primary.
    • Primary, because the article is the society's own telling of the story, from 2022.
    • Secondary, because the authors wrote about 1908 from records that other people made.
    • Secondary, because a printed magazine article cannot be firsthand evidence.
11. 9.

    Tala wants to describe what the night shift was like for the operators. Which Strength-and-limit line fits sentences [8] and [9] for that task?

    • Strength: it gives the year the exchange moved to Mill Street; limit: it does not describe the new building.
    • Strength: the historical society recorded it, so each word can be trusted; limit: the society is a small group in town.
    • Strength: Lind and Okafor worked the night shift themselves; limit: they kept no diary at the time.
    • Strength: an operator's own memory, recorded in an interview; limit: one person, speaking many years after the work.
12. 10.

    Zee quotes part of sentence [13] in an MLA 9 paper. Which sentence works the quotation in correctly?

    • Lind and Okafor admit that “most of what we know comes from the ledgers and from the few operators interviewed later” (23).
    • Lind and Okafor admit that “so most of what we know comes from the ledgers and from the few operators interviewed later” (23).
    • Lind and Okafor admit that “most of what we know comes from the ledgers and from the few operators interviewed later.” (23)
    • Lind and Okafor admit that “most of what we know comes from the ledgers and from the operators interviewed later” (23).