OldLady
Diamond Member
- Nov 16, 2015
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I have a student who has me flummoxed. We are working on making inferences, reading between the lines, and he really comes up with some off the wall shit. I gave him the opening of "Gift of the Magi" by O'Henry. The first question was, Why is Della crying?
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
My student's answer: Boredom. Based on the words, "There was clearly nothing to do"
I asked if he usually throws himself down and howls when he is bored. Ummmm.....errr..... I said we'd get back to that question and we worked through others, like is she rich, how did she get the $1.87, etc. We talked and talked. We read the rest of the story (he loved the irony--is going to read more O'Henry). THEN he knew why Della was crying. He has to take his Hi-SET (GED) and it's full of inference and main idea questions. He's got to do better than "boredom" but I am just not getting him there.
What can I do?
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.
There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating.
My student's answer: Boredom. Based on the words, "There was clearly nothing to do"
I asked if he usually throws himself down and howls when he is bored. Ummmm.....errr..... I said we'd get back to that question and we worked through others, like is she rich, how did she get the $1.87, etc. We talked and talked. We read the rest of the story (he loved the irony--is going to read more O'Henry). THEN he knew why Della was crying. He has to take his Hi-SET (GED) and it's full of inference and main idea questions. He's got to do better than "boredom" but I am just not getting him there.
What can I do?
