Table of Contents Title Author Genre Page 1 I Am Still The Greatest Muhammad Ali Nonfiction 6 2 Saying Thanks To My Ghosts Amy Tan Nonfiction 10 3 The Learning Curve of Gratitude Mary Chapin Carpenter Nonfiction 14 4 A God Who Remembers Elie Wiesel Nonfiction 18 5 When Mom Is Right, And Tells Police They're Wrong NPR STAFF Nonfiction 22 6 Decades Later, Student Finds Teacher To Say 'Thank You' NPR STAFF Nonfiction 25 7 Print Your Own Medicine Lee Cronin Nonfiction 29 8 Why is 'x' the unknown? Terry Moore Nonfiction 33 9 After 30 Years Of Surgeries, Doctor And Patient Dance NPR Staff Nonfiction 37 10 Latina Sisters Aimed High, Defying Low Expectations NPR Staff Nonfiction 41 11 A Life Defined Not By Disability, But Love NPR Staff Nonfiction 45 12 For A Boy With Little, Learning To Love A Castoff Trombone NPR Staff Nonfiction 49 13 The Farmer and the Stork Aesop Fable 53
30 Some One Walter de la Mare Poetry 95 31 I Dream'd in a Dream Walt Whitman Poetry 97 32 When you are old W. B. Yeats Poetry 99 33 The House on the Hill Edwin Arlington Robinson Poetry 101 34 The Last Night Clark Ashton Smith Poetry 104 35 The Price Poetry 106 36 The Soul Of The Sea Poetry 108 37 The Star Spangled Banner Frances Scott Key Song- Patriotic 110 38 America the Beautiful Katherine Lee Bates Song-Patriotic 113 39 Keep the Home-Fires Burning Lena Guilbert Ford Song- Patriotic 117 40 Emblems of Mem'ry Are These Tears Anonymous Song- History 120 41 Stars of the Summer Night Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Song 122 I Am Still The Greatest () By: Muhammad Ali Vocabulary: Notes:
15 training for the Olympics and I was going to win a gold 16 medal. And when I came back home, I was going to turn 17 pro and become the world heavyweight champion in 18 boxing. I never thought of the possibility of failing — only 19 of the fame and glory I was going to get when I won. I 20 could see it. I could almost feel it. When I proclaimed that I 21 was the "Greatest of All Time," I believed in myself. And I 22 still do. 23 Throughout my entire boxing career, my belief in my 24 abilities triumphed over the skill of an opponent. My will 25 was stronger than their skills. What I didn't know was that 26 my will would be tested even more when I retired. 27 In 1984, I was conclusively diagnosed with Parkinson's 28 disease. Since that diagnosis, my symptoms have increased 29 and my ability to speak in audible tones has diminished. If 30 there was anything that would strike at the core of my 31 confidence in myself, it would be this insidious disease. But 32 my confidence and will to continue to live life as I choose 33 won't be compromised. 34 Early in 1996, I was asked to light the caldron at the 35 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta. Of course my 36 immediate answer was yes. I never even thought of having Notes: 37 Parkinson's or what physical challenges that would present 38 for me. 39 When the moment came for me to walk out on the
40 140-foot-high scaffolding and take the torch from Janet 41 Evans, I realized I had the eyes of the world on me. I also 42 realized that as I held the Olympic torch high above my 43 head, my tremors had taken over. Just at that moment, I 44 heard a rumble in the stadium that became a pounding 45 roar and then turned into a deafening applause. I was 46 reminded of my 1960 Olympic experience in Rome, when I 47 won the gold medal. Those 36 years between Rome and 48 Atlanta flashed before me, and I realized that I had come 49 full circle. 50 Nothing in life has defeated me. I am still the 51 "Greatest." This I believe. I Am Still The Greatest By: Muhammad Ali Checking for Understanding
20 her. I spelled out the answer I knew she wanted to hear: 21 Yes. Always. 22 When I became a fiction writer in my 30s, I wrote a story 23 about a woman who killed herself eating too much opium. 24 After my mother read a draft of that story, she had tears in 25 her eyes. Now she had proof: My grandmother had talked 26 to me and told me her true story. How else could I have 27 known my grandmother had not died by accident but with 28 the fury of suicide? She asked me, "She here now?" I 29 answered honestly, "I don't know." 30 Over the years, I have included other details in my 31 writing I could not possibly have known on my own: a 32 place, a character, a song. I have come to feel differently 33 about my ghostwriters. Sometimes their clues have come 34 so plentifully, they've made me laugh like a child who can't 35 open birthday presents fast enough. I must say thanks, not 36 to blind luck but to my ghosts. Notes: 37 Ten years ago, I clearly saw a ghost, and she talked to 38 me. It was my mother. She had died just 24 hours before. 39 Her face was 10 times larger than life, in the form of a 40 moving, pulsing hologram of sparkling lights. My mother 41 was laughing at my surprise. She drew closer, and when 42 she reached me, I felt as if I had been physically punched in 43 the chest. It took my breath away and filled me with 44 something absolute: love, but also joy and peace — and
8 embolism can take your life in an instant. I was familiar 9 enough with the medical term, but not familiar with the 10 pain, the fear and the depression that followed. 11 Everything I had been looking forward to came to a 12 screeching halt. I had to cancel my upcoming tour. I had to 13 let my musicians and crewmembers go. The record 14 company, the booking agency: I felt that I had let everyone 15 down. Notes: 16 But there was nothing to do but get out of the hospital, 17 go home and get well. 18 I tried hard to see my unexpected time off as a gift, but 19 I would open a novel and couldn't concentrate. I would turn 20 on the radio, then shut if off. Familiar clouds gathered 21 above my head, and I couldn't make them go away with a 22 pill or a movie or a walk. This unexpected time was 23 becoming a curse, filling me with anxiety, fear and self- 24 loathing — all of the ingredients of the darkness that is 25 depression. 26 Sometimes, it's the smile of a stranger that helps. 27 Sometimes it's a phone call from a long absent friend, 28 checking on you. I found my lifeline at the grocery store. 29 One morning, the young man who rang up my groceries 30 and asked me if I wanted paper or plastic also told me to 31 enjoy the rest of my day. I looked at him and I knew he 32 meant it. It stopped me in my tracks. I went out and I sat in
2 question is, Why is it that the letter X represents the 3 unknown? Now I know we learned that in math class, but now 4 it's everywhere in the culture -- The X prize, the X-Files, 5 Project X, TEDx. Where'd that come from? 6 About six years ago I decided that I would learn Arabic, 7 which turns out to be a supremely logical language. To 8 write a word or a phrase or a sentence in Arabic is like Notes: 9 crafting an equation, because every part is extremely 10 precise and carries a lot of information. That's one of the 11 reasons so much of what we've come to think of as Western 12 science and mathematics and engineering was really 13 worked out in the first few centuries of the Common Era by 14 the Persians and the Arabs and the Turks. 15 This includes the little system in Arabic called al-jebra. 16 And al-jebr roughly translates to "the system for reconciling 17 disparate parts." Al-jebr finally came into English as 18 algebra. One example among many. 19 The Arabic texts containing this mathematical wisdom 20 finally made their way to Europe --which is to say Spain -- in 21 the 11th and 12th centuries. And when they arrived there 22 was tremendous interest in translating this wisdom into a 23 European language. 24 But there were problems. One problem is there are 25 some sounds in Arabic that just don't make it through a 26 European voice box without lots of practice. Trust me on
27 that one. Also, those very sounds tend not to be 28 represented by the characters that are available in 29 European languages. 30 Here's one of the culprits. This is the letter SHeen, and it 31 makes the sound we think of as SH -- "sh." It's also the very 32 first letter of the word shalan, which means "something" 33 just like the English word "something" -- some undefined, Notes: 34 unknown thing. 35 Now in Arabic, we can make this definite by adding the 36 definite article "al." So this is al-shalan -- the unknown 37 thing. And this is a word that appears throughout early 38 mathematics, such as this 10th century derivation of 39 proofs. 40 The problem for the Medieval Spanish scholars who 41 were tasked with translating this material is that the letter 42 SHeen and the word shalan can't be rendered into Spanish 43 because Spanish doesn't have that SH, that "sh" sound. So 44 by convention, they created a rule in which they borrowed 45 the CK sound, "ck" sound, from the classical Greek in the 46 form of the letter Kai. 47 Later when this material was translated into a common 48 European language, which is to say Latin, they simply 49 replaced the Greek Kai with the Latin X. And once that 50 happened, once this material was in Latin, it formed the 51 basis for mathematics textbooks for almost 600 years.
After 30 Years Of Surgeries, Doctor And Patient Dance () By: NPR Staff Vocabulary: sarcoma – a type of childhood bone cancer squandered – used in a wasteful way Notes: After 30 Years Of Surgeries, Doctor And Patient Dance 1 When Marcela Gaviria was 7 years old, she was diagnosed 2 with Ewing's sarcoma, a type of childhood bone cancer. She 3 survived, and the cancer was cured — but it nearly took her 4 leg. 5 When Gaviria was 12, she needed a bone transplant and 6 met surgeon Dempsey Springfield, who performed the 7 operation. 8 "I was pretty scared, I remember, and I think I survived a 9 very sort of traumatic moment 'cause you were so kind," 10 Gaviria, now 43, told Springfield at StoryCorps in Boston.
11 "What I remember about you were your bow ties. You 12 just looked like such a Southern gentleman, and you'd 13 show up every morning with such a big smile. And you 14 were so warm and gentle, and I wanted to get better for 15 you. I wanted your surgery to work on me." 16 Gaviria has spent the past 30 years dealing with damage Notes: 17 that the cancer did to the bones in her leg and hip, and in 18 all that time she's stuck with Springfield. Even when he has 19 moved, she's traveled so he could keep treating her. 20 "I just don't trust other doctors as much," she tells him. 21 Neither Gaviria nor Springfield can remember how many 22 surgeries they've been through together, but it's a lot. 23 Gaviria says she has "shark-attack body" from all the 24 scarring. 25 When she was a child, Gaviria complained to Springfield 26 that she would never get married. 27 "I always wondered how difficult it would be for 28 someone to sign up to my life," Gaviria says. 29 But this year, she did get married. At her wedding, her 30 first dance was with Springfield. 31 "I wanted you to have the first dance," she told him. 32 "That was just a way of celebrating the fact that a lot of 33 what I'm able to do nowadays is because of your care." 34 "Your wedding is the first wedding of a patient that I 35 have ever gone to," Springfield said. "It's so rewarding to
26 money to buy the pencils to go take the test." 27 They bought the pencils, took the test and "both scored 28 really high," Linda says. Marta received a four-year 29 scholarship to the University of Nebraska, was accepted 30 into medical school and became an OB-GYN. Linda, who 31 works for the U.S. Postal Service as a labor relations 32 specialist, eventually earned a degree in business 33 management. 34 Linda says she knew her mother took pride in her 35 children's academic work. She would always post their 36 grades on the refrigerator while they were growing up, 37 Linda says, "and if we got straight A's, they were on the Notes: 38 refrigerator until the next time we got a report card." 39 But Linda didn't realize just how much her mother 40 treasured those report cards until she passed away 10 41 years ago. 42 "When she knew that she was ill, she had gone and 43 started making photo albums for us kids," Linda says. "I 44 expected to see family photos that we had of us, but I. 45 didn't expect to see the report cards in there. And I didn't 46 expect to see the little graduation announcement from 47 when we graduated from high school. Those were in our 48 photo albums, too. 49 "One thing that made her feel really good was that all 50 her kids went to school," Linda says. "She was very proud of
The Farmer and the Snake () By: Aesop Vocabulary: inflicting – to cause someone to be affected by bosom – a person’s chest benefactor – someone who helps another person revived – made strong and healthy again resuming – to begin again after stopping Notes: The Farmer and the Snake 1 One winter a Farmer found a Snake stiff and frozen with
4 he could not possibly get at it. He tried everything he 5 could think of to reach the water, but all his efforts were in 6 vain. At last he collected as many stones as he could carry 7 and dropped them one by one with his beak into the 8 pitcher, until he brought the water within his reach and 9 thus saved his life. 10 Necessity is the mother of invention. The Crow and the Pitcher By: Aesop Checking for Understanding What does “perishing” mean as it is used in the following sentence: “A crow perishing with thirst saw a pitcher, and hoping to find water, flew to it with delight.” How did the crow’s mood change throughout this fable? What does the moral of the story mean?
28 The Spider turned him round about, and went into his den, 29 For well he knew the silly Fly would soon be back again; 30 So he wove a subtle web in a little corner sly, 31 And set his table ready to dine upon the Fly. 32 Then he came out to his door again, and merrily did sing: 33 “Come hither, hither, pretty Fly, with the pearl and silver 34 wing; Your robes are green and purple, there’s a crest upon 35 your head; Your eyes are like the diamond bright, but mine Notes: 36 are dull as lead.” 37 Alas, alas! how very soon this silly little Fly, 38 Hearing his wily, flattering words, came slowly flitting by: 39 With buzzing wings she hung aloft, then near and nearer 40 drew— Thinking only of her brilliant eyes, and green and 41 purple hue; Thinking only of her crested head—poor 42 foolish thing! At last, Up jumped the cunning Spider, and 43 fiercely held her fast. 44 He dragged her up his winding stair, into his dismal den 45 within his little parlor—but she ne’er came out again! The Spider and the Fly By: Mary Howitt Checking for Understanding
Outwitting Himself 1 A celebrated physician once attended the child of a 2 wealthy French lady, who was so grateful for the recovery 3 of her boy that she determined to give a larger fee than usual 4 for his attendance. As he was taking leave on his final visit, 5 the grateful mother handed to the doctor a handsome 6 pocket-book, which she said she had worked with her own 7 hands. The doctor bowed stiffly, and said, 'Madam, the 8 pocket-book is quite a work of art, and I admire it 9 exceedingly, but my fee is two thousand francs.' 10 'Not more?' she replied; and taking the pocket-book 11 back, she removed from it five one-thousand franc-notes, 12 and handed two of them to the doctor, bowing stiffly in her 13 turn, and, replacing the other three notes in the rejected 14 pocket-book, she retired. Outwitting Himself By: J. Erskine Clarke Checking for Understanding
fillet – a piece of boneless meat caldron – a large pot Song of the Witches 1 Double, double toil and trouble; 2 Fire burn and caldron bubble. 3 Fillet of a fenny snake, 4 In the caldron boil and bake; 5 Eye of newt and toe of frog, 6 Wool of bat and tongue of dog, 7 Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, 8 Lizard's leg and howlet's wing, 9 For a charm of powerful trouble, 10 Like a hell-broth boil and bubble. 11 Double, double toil and trouble; 12 Fire burn and caldron bubble. 13 Cool it with a baboon's blood, 14 Then the charm is firm and good. Song of the Witches By: William Shakespeare Checking for Understanding
3 Someone came knocking; 4 I'm sure-sure-sure; 5 I listened, I opened, 6 I looked to left and right, 7 But nought there was a stirring 8 In the still dark night; 9 Only the busy beetle 10 Tap-tapping in the wall, 11 Only from the forest, 12 The screech owl's call 13 Only the cricket whistling 14 While the dewdrops fall, 15 So I know not who came knocking, 16 At all, at all, at all. Some One By: Walter de la Mare Checking for Understanding Who do you think “Someone” is? How did the author use repetition in this poem? How did the author use rhythm and rhyme in this poem?
10 Why is it then we stray 11 Around the sunken sill? 12 They are all gone away, 13 And our poor fancy-play Notes: 14 For them is wasted skill: 15 There is nothing more to say. 16 There is ruin and decay 17 In the House on the Hill: 18 They are all gone away, 19 There is nothing more to say. The House on the Hill By: Edwin Arlington Robinson Checking for Understanding
The Last Night 1 I dreamed a dream: I stood upon a height, 2 A mountain's utmost eminence of snow, 3 Whence I beheld the plain outstretched below 4 To a far sea-horizon, dim and white. 5 Beneath the sun's expiring, ghastly light, 6 The dead world lay, phantasmally aglow; 7 Its last fear-weighted voice, a wind, came low; 8 The distant sea lay hushed, as with affright. 9 I watched, and lo! the pale and flickering sun, 10 In agony and fierce despair, flamed high, 11 And shadow-slain, went out upon the gloom. 12 Then Night, that grim, gigantic struggle won, 13 Impended for a breath on wings of doom, 14 And through the air fell like a falling sky. The Last Night By: Clark Ashton Smith Checking for Understanding
America the Beautiful () By: Katherine Lee Bates Music by: Samuel A. Ward Vocabulary: liberating – freeing impassioned – showing very strong emotions strife – very angry disagreement between two people thoroughfare – a main road brotherhood – feelings of friendship and support between people thine – your Notes: America the Beautiful 1 O beautiful for spacious skies, 2 For amber waves of grain,
23 Till all success be nobelness, 24 And ev-ery gain divine. 25 O beautiful for patriot dream 26 That sees beyond the years 27 Thine alabaster cities gleam, 28 Undimmed by human tears! Notes: 29 America! America! 30 God shed His grace on thee, 31 And crown thy good with brotherhood 32 From sea to shining sea. 33 America the Beautiful America the Beautiful By: Katherine Lee Bates Music by: Samuel A. Ward Checking for Understanding How did the author use rhythm and rhyme in this song?
Emblems of Mem'ry Are These Tears () By: Anonymous Vocabulary: emblems – a person or thing that represents an idea distressing – upsetting Notes: Emblems of Mem'ry Are These Tears 1 Emblems of Mem’ry are these tears 2 Sad and distressing to the Mind 3 Flowing for all succeeding Years 4 From ev’ry Patriot left behind 5 Could they alas his life restore 6 Well might Columbia mourn 7 Yet let the annual Tribute pour 8 To wet the Hero’s Urn 9 Yet let the annual Tribute pour
Stars of the Summer Night () By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Music by: Berthold Tours Vocabulary: slumbers – sleep pinions – a small gear in a machine deeps – oceans azure – blue color of sky Notes: Stars of the Summer Night 1 Stars of the summer night! 2 Far in yon azure deeps, 3 Hide, hide your golden light! 4 She sleeps! my lady sleeps! She sleeps! 5 Moon of the summer night!
6 Far down yon western steeps, 7 Sink, sink in silver light! 8 She sleeps! my lady sleeps! She sleeps. 9 Wind of the summer night! 10 Where yonder woodbine creeps, 11 Fold, fold thy pinions light! Notes: 12 Fold, fold thy pinions light! 13 She sleeps! She sleeps! 14 She sleeps, my lady sleeps. 15 Dreams of the summer night. 16 Tell her, her lover keeps watch. 17 Her lover keeps watch! 18 while in slumbers light She sleeps! 19 She sleeps! my lady sleeps, 20 my lady sleeps, my lady sleeps, 21 my lady sleeps! She sleeps! Stars of the Summer Night By: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Music by: Berthold Tours