Why the author wrote it, and how the words persuade
Grade 9 Reading Worksheet - Challenge Me
Circle the best answer.
Read this first
Op-Ed
Give Westbrook a Splash Pad (opinion column): [1] By two o'clock on a July afternoon, the sidewalk around the Cedar Park playground is roughly the temperature of the surface of the sun, and the metal slide is not far behind. [2] Parents huddle in the one patch of shade, children wander in circles looking for something cool to touch, and by three the playground is empty. [3] I write as a member of the town's Parks Advisory Group to ask the council to include a splash pad in next year's park budget.
[4] A splash pad is a flat play area with fountains and sprayers that shoot water up from the ground and then let it drain away. [5] Because a splash pad has no standing water, it needs no lifeguard, which makes it far cheaper to run each summer than a pool. [6] The design our group reviewed would cost about $180,000 to build, and the town's planners estimate that it would cost about $9,000 a year to operate.
[7] Council Member Ruth Haskins has said, "Westbrook already has a pool, so a splash pad would be a luxury." [8] The pool is a fine place to swim, and I am grateful for it, but it charges admission, it closes at five, and it is two miles from the neighborhoods closest to Cedar Park.
[9] Members of the council, here is the choice that is in front of you. [10] A pool serves the children who can get to it; a splash pad would serve the children who already live next door. [11] Is it a luxury for a seven-year-old to cool off within walking distance of home? [12] I ask the council to fund the splash pad this spring, so that next July the Cedar Park playground is full at three o'clock instead of empty.
Bo is drawing a shift line across the map. Where does the writer stop explaining and start pressing the council directly, and what follows?
- At sentence 9: the writer turns to "Members of the council" and then presses with antithesis (10) and a rhetorical question (11).
- At sentence 7: the writer takes up Ruth Haskins's view that a splash pad "would be a luxury" and argues it from then on.
- At sentence 7: the writer turns to the council directly and then presses with antithesis and a rhetorical question.
- At sentence 9: the writer turns to the council directly in order to admit that the pool already meets the town's needs.
Esme is tagging sentence 1 on the map. What does the overstatement in sentence 1 do for the op-ed's case?
- No reader takes it literally, so it wins attention with a joke while the planners' figures in sentence 6 carry the argument.
- It makes the writer seem careless with facts, so readers doubt the cost figures that come later.
- It is an understatement that makes the heat sound milder than it is, so the writer seems calm.
- It reports how hot the sidewalk gets, a reading that the Parks Advisory Group took on a July afternoon.
Jun is checking the whole section map. Which choice gives the op-ed's purpose and its sections in order?
- Fund a splash pad: joking picture of the heat (1–3) → what a pad is and costs (4–6) → direct appeal to the council (7–12).
- Fund a splash pad: joking picture of the heat (1–3) → what a pad is and costs (4–6) → a council member's view and a reply (7–8) → direct appeal (9–12).
- Fund a splash pad: joking picture of the heat (1–3) → costs given as rhetorical questions (4–6) → a council member's view and a reply (7–8) → direct appeal (9–12).
- Get families to visit the pool: joking picture of the heat (1–3) → what a pad is and costs (4–6) → a council member's view and a reply (7–8) → direct appeal (9–12).
Speech
Trees for Garnet Street (speech to a neighborhood meeting): [1] Neighbors, thank you for coming out on a Tuesday night to talk about Garnet Street, the one block in the Riverside neighborhood that has no trees at all. [2] Garnet Street has sixty houses and two long rows of sidewalk without a single trunk between them, and on a summer afternoon the pavement there shimmers like a griddle.
[3] Some of you have told me, "Trees are more trouble than they are worth," and I will be honest about what they cost us. [4] They drop leaves that someone has to rake, they need room to grow, and a young tree takes several years before it gives much shade. [5] The city will plant a street tree for free when residents ask, but each household has to promise to water its tree during the first two summers. [6] That is a real chore, and I would not pretend otherwise to anyone in this room.
[7] Still, shaded pavement stays much cooler than pavement in full sun, and a cooler street is one where people walk, sit and talk with each other. [8] Mrs. Ortiz has sat on her porch every summer evening for thirty years, and she has told me, "I would love just one tree to sit under." [9] Not one person on Garnet Street has ever been able to sit outside in the summer.
[10] So sign the request tonight. [11] Sign it for your own porch, sign it for the children who ride their bikes up and down this block, and sign it for the neighbors who will live here long after us. [12] A few years is not a long wait for shade that our grandchildren may still be sitting under.
Kira is drawing a shift line. At which sentence does the speaker stop granting the costs of trees and begin arguing for them, and what signals it?
- Sentence 10: "So" turns from the honest list of chores to the benefit of planting trees on the block.
- Sentence 7: "Still" turns from the honest list of chores to the benefit of shaded, cooler pavement.
- Sentence 3: the speaker takes up the view that "trees are more trouble than they are worth" and argues it.
- Sentence 7: "Still" signals that the costs are too great and that planting should wait a few years.
Milo is checking the whole section map. Which choice gives the speech's purpose and its sections in order?
- Get neighbors to sign the tree request tonight: the bare, hot block (1–2) → honest costs (3–6) → benefits and a neighbor's wish (7–9) → repeated commands (10–12).
- Get neighbors to sign the tree request tonight: the bare, hot block (1–2) → honest costs (3–6) → benefits and a neighbor's wish (7–9) → rhetorical questions (10–12).
- Get the city to plant sixty trees: the bare, hot block (1–2) → honest costs (3–6) → benefits and a neighbor's wish (7–9) → repeated commands (10–12).
- Get neighbors to sign the tree request tonight: the bare, hot block (1–2) → benefits and a neighbor's wish (3–9) → repeated commands (10–12).
Op-Ed
Let Dunmore's Streetlights Dim After Midnight (opinion column): [1] Dunmore has 2,300 streetlights, and each one of them burns at full brightness from dusk until dawn, whether a street is crowded at nine in the evening or empty at three in the morning. [2] The town's bill for lighting those streets is not exactly small: last year it came to about $410,000, the third-largest line in the public works budget.
[3] Most of our lights still use older sodium lamps, the kind that glow orange and are hard to dim. [4] Modern LED streetlights use less electricity than sodium lamps, and many models can be dimmed by a timer or by a signal from town hall. [5] A town that switched could light its streets brightly in the busy evening hours and lower the lights by half on quiet streets after midnight. [6] Scientists have also found that bright light at night can confuse migrating birds, many of which travel in the dark.
[7] Some residents worry that, in the words of one letter to this paper, "Dimmer streets will be darker, more dangerous streets." [8] That worry deserves a careful answer, and the plan would keep main roads, crosswalks and the train station at full brightness all night.
[9] When I moved to Alder Road twenty years ago, I used to lie on the back lawn on clear summer nights and count shooting stars. [10] I have not seen one from that lawn in years, because the glow from the streets now washes out all but the brightest stars. [11] A town can save money and keep its night sky at the same time; it does not have to give up one to have the other. [12] I urge the council to test dimmable lights on ten quiet streets next year and to let residents judge the results for themselves.
Noah is drawing a shift line. Where does the op-ed move from technical explanation to personal experience, and what does the move add?
- At sentence 9: the memory shows that the writer cares more about stars than about the town's budget.
- At sentence 9: the memory of counting shooting stars gives the figures a cost that readers can picture.
- At sentence 6: the mention of migrating birds turns the figures into a personal memory that readers can picture.
- At sentence 9: the move is made with a rhetorical question that asks readers whether the stars matter.
Pia is tagging sentence 2 on the map. What does the understatement "not exactly small" do for the op-ed?
- It makes the writer sound unsure of the figure, so readers doubt the $410,000 that follows.
- It tells readers that the bill is fairly modest, so the writer's case rests on the birds and the stars instead of the cost.
- Saying "not exactly small" and then giving $410,000 lets the figure land harder, in a dry tone that sounds reasonable.
- It is an overstatement that makes the bill sound bigger than the town's budget can bear.
Ren is checking the whole section map. Which choice gives the op-ed's purpose and its sections in order?
- Replace the town's streetlights at once: cost of full brightness (1–2) → how dimming works and what it spares (3–6) → a safety worry and the plan (7–8) → a memory and the request (9–12).
- Test dimmable lights on quiet streets: cost of full brightness (1–2) → how dimming works and what it spares (3–6) → a safety worry and the plan (7–8) → a memory and the request (9–12).
- Warn that dimmer streets are more dangerous: cost of full brightness (1–2) → how dimming works (3–6) → a safety worry and the plan (7–8) → a memory and the request (9–12).
- Test dimmable lights on quiet streets: cost of full brightness (1–2) → how dimming works and what it spares (3–8) → a memory and the request (9–12).
Letter
A Quiet Hour at the Community Center (letter to a community center board): [1] Dear Mr. Paulson and members of the Maple Grove Community Center board: for eight years the center has been the busiest, friendliest building in town, and I have loved nearly every hour I have spent in it. [2] The staff know everyone's name, the coffee in the lobby is always hot, and the bulletin board is crowded with more classes than any one person could take.
[3] But on Tuesday mornings, the building has become almost impossible for some of its own members to use. [4] The lobby speakers play music at full volume, the gym's buzzer sounds every few minutes, and the toddler music class practices drums in the room beside the library corner. [5] For our reading group of older members, several of whom wear hearing aids, the noise turns a conversation into a shouting match. [6] For the young children who come to the story corner and cover their ears at every buzzer, it turns a visit into something to escape.
[7] I am asking the board to make ten to eleven on Tuesday mornings a quiet hour, with the lobby music off, the buzzer silent and the hallway lights turned down a little. [8] The toddler music class has met at ten on Tuesdays for six years and has a waiting list, so it would need a new time. [9] Moving it to the afternoon is a tiny change that no family will even notice.
[10] A quiet hour would cost nothing, it would take no new staff, and it would open the center again to people who have quietly stopped coming. [11] Other public places, from some libraries to some grocery stores, already set aside quiet hours of this kind. [12] I hope the board will try the quiet hour this winter and then ask the members who use it whether it helps.
Zee is tagging sentence 9 on the map. What does the understatement in sentence 9 do to the letter's case with the board?
- It strengthens the letter, because making the change sound small makes the board more likely to agree at once.
- It reports a plain fact: the music class families have said that they would not mind meeting in the afternoon.
- It weakens the letter: sentence 8 says the class has met for six years and has a waiting list, so "a tiny change" sounds dismissive.
- It is an overstatement that makes the music class's move sound bigger, so the board takes it seriously.
Milo is checking the whole section map. Which choice gives the letter's purpose and its sections in order?
- Get the board to try a Tuesday quiet hour: the noise and who it shuts out (1–6) → the proposal and the class it moves (7–9) → cost, examples, request (10–12).
- Get the music class families to move to the afternoon: praise (1–2) → the noise and who it shuts out (3–6) → the proposal and the class it moves (7–9) → cost, examples, request (10–12).
- Get the board to try a Tuesday quiet hour: praise (1–2) → the noise and who it shuts out (3–6) → the proposal and the class it moves (7–9) → cost, examples, request (10–12).
- Get the board to try a Tuesday quiet hour: praise (1–2) → the noise told in rhetorical questions (3–6) → the proposal and the class it moves (7–9) → cost, examples, request (10–12).