The School Play By Gary Soto

The School Play By Gary Soto

In the school play at the end of his sixth-grade year, all Robert Suarez had to remember to say was, "Nothing's wrong. I can see," to a pioneer woman, who was really Belinda Lopez. Instead of a pioneer woman, Belinda was one of the toughest girls since the beginning of the world. She was known to slap boys and grind their faces into the grass so that they bit into chunks of wormy earth. More than once Robert had witnessed Belinda staring down the janitor's pit bull, who licked his frothing chops but didn't dare mess with her.[A]

The class rehearsed for three weeks, at first without costumes. Early one morning Mrs. Bunnin wobbled into the classroom lugging a large cardboard box. she wiped her brow and said, "Thanks for the help, Robert."

Robert was at his desk scribbling a ballpoint tattoo that spelled DUDE on the tops of his knuckles. He looked up and stared, blinking at his teacher. "Oh, did you need some help?" he asked.

She rolled her eyes at him and told him to stop writing on his skin. "You'll look like a criminal," she scolded.

Robert stuffed his hands into his pockets as he rose from his seat. "What's in the box?" he asked.

She muttered under her breath. she popped open the taped top and brought out skirts, hats, snowshoes, scarves, and vests. She tossed Robert a red beard, which he held up to his face, thinking it made him look handsome.

"I like it," Robert said. He sneezed and ran his hand across his moist nose.

His classmates were coming into the classroom and looked at Robert in awe. "That's bad," Ruben said. "What do I get?"

Mrs. Bunnin threw him a wrinkled shirt. Ruben raised it to his chest and said, "My dad could wear this. can I give it to him after the play is done?"

Mrs. Bunnin turned away in silence.

Most of the actors didn't have speaking parts. They just got cutout crepe-paper snowflakes to pin to their shirts or crepe-paper leaves to wear.

During the blizzard in which Robert delivered his line, Belinda asked, "Is there something wrong with your eyes?" Robert looked at the audience, which at the moment was a classroom of empty chairs, a dented world globe that had been dropped by almost everyone, one limp flag, one wastebasket, and a picture of George Washington, whose eyes followed you around the room when you got up to sharpen your pencil. Robert answered, "Nothing's wrong. I can see."

Mrs. Bunnin, biting on the end of her pencil, said, "Louder, both of you."

Belinda stepped up, nostrils flaring so that the shadows on her nose quivered, and said louder, "Sucka, is there something wrong with your eye-balls?"

"Nothing's wrong. I can see."

"Louder! Make sure the audience can hear you," Mrs. Bunnin directed. She tapped her pencil hard against her desk. She scolded, "Robert, I'm not going to tell you again to quit fooling with the beard."

"It's itchy."

"We can't do anything about that. Actors need props.[1] You're an actor. Now try again."

Robert and Belinda stood center stage as they waited for Mrs. Bunnin to call "Action!" When she did, Belinda approached Robert slowly. "Sucka face, is there anything wrong with your mug?" Belinda asked. Her eyes were squinted in anger. For a moment Robert saw his head grinding into the playground grass.[B]

"Nothing's wrong. I can see."

Robert giggled behind his red beard. Belinda popped her gum and smirked.[2] She stood with her hands on her hips.

"What? What did you say?" Mrs. Bunnin asked, pulling off her glasses. "Are you chewing gum, Belinda?"

"No, Mrs. Bunnin," Belinda lied. "I just forgot my lines."[C]

Belinda turned to face the snowflake boys clumped together in the back. She rolled out her tongue, on which rested a ball of gray gum, depleted of sweetness under relentless[3] chomp. She whispered "sucka" and giggled so that her nose quivered dark shadows.

The play, The Last Stand, was about the Donner party just before they got hungry and started eating each other. Everyone who scored at least twelve out of fifteen on their spelling tests got to say at least one line. Everyone else had to stand and be trees or snowflakes.

Mrs. Bunnin wanted the play to be a success. She couldn't risk having kids with bad memories on stage. The nonspeaking trees and snowflakes stood humming snow flurries, blistering wind, and hail, which they produced by clacking their teeth.

Robert's mother was proud of him because he was living up to the legend of Robert De Niro, for whom he was named. Over dinner he said, "Nothing's wrong. I can see." when his brother asked him to pass the dish towel, their communal napkin. His sister said, "It's your turn to do dishes," and he said, "Nothing's wrong. I can see." His dog, Queenie, begged him for more than water and a dog biscuit. He touched his dog's own hairy beard and said, "Nothing's wrong. I can see."

One warm spring night, Robert lay on his back in the backyard, counting shooting stars. He was up to three when David, a friend who was really his brother's friend, hopped the fence and asked, "What's the matter with you?"

"Nothing's wrong. I can see," Robert answered. He sat up, feeling good because the line came naturally, without much thought. He leaned back on his elbow and asked David what he wanted to be when he grew up.[D]

"I don't know yet," David said, plucking at the grass. "Maybe a fighter pilot. What do you want to be?"

"I want to guard the president. I could wrestle the assassins and be on television. But I'd pin those dudes, and people would say, 'That's him, our hero." David plucked at a stalk of grass and thought deeply.

Robert thought of telling David that he really wanted to be someone with a super great memory, who could recall facts that most people thought were unimportant. He didn't know if there was such a job, but he thought it would be great to sit at home by the telephone waiting for scientists to call him and ask hard questions.

The three weeks passed quickly. The day before the play, Robert felt happy as he walked home from school with no homework. As he turned onto his street, he found a dollar floating over the currents of wind. "A buck," he screamed to himself. He snapped it up and looked for others. But he didn't find any more. It was his lucky day, though. At recess he had hit a home run on a fluke bunt--a fluke because the catcher had kicked the ball, another player had thrown it into center field, and the pitcher wasn't looking when Robert slowed down at third, then burst home with dust flying behind him.

That night, it was his sister's turn to do the dishes. They had eaten enchiladas with the works, so she slaved with suds up to her elbows. Robert bathed in bubble bath, the suds peaked high like the Donner Pass. He thought about how full he was and how those poor people had had nothing to eat but snow. I can live on nothing, he thought and whistled like wind through a mountain pass, raking flat the suds with his palm.[E]

The next, day after lunch, he was ready for the play, red beard in hand and his one line trembling on his lips. Classes herded into the auditorium. As the actors dressed and argued about stepping on each other's feet, Robert stood near a cardboard barrel full of toys, whispering over and over to himself, "Nothing's wrong. I can see." He was hot, itchy, and confused when he tied on the beard. He sneezed when a strand of the beard entered his nostril. He said louder, "Nothing's wrong. I can see," but the words seemed to get caught in his beard. "Nothing, no, no. I can see great," he said louder, then under his breath because the words seemed wrong. "Nothing's wrong, can't you see? Nothing's wrong. I can see you." Worried, he approached Belinda and asked if she remembered his line. Balling her hand into a fist, Belinda warned, "Sucka, I'm gonna bury your ugly face in the ground if you mess up."[F]

"I won't," Robert said as he walked away. He bit a nail and looked into the barrel of toys. A clown's mask stared back at him. He prayed that his line would come back to him. He would have to disappoint his teacher and didn't like the thought of his face being rubbed into spiky grass.

The curtain parted slightly, and the principal came out smiling onto the stage. She said some words about pioneer history and then, stern faced, warned the audience not to scrape the chairs on the just-waxed floor. The principal then introduced Mrs. Bunnin, who told the audience about how they had rehearsed for weeks.

Meanwhile, the class stood quietly in place with lunchtime spaghetti on their breath. They were ready. Belinda had swallowed her gum because she knew this was for real. The snowflakes clumped together and began howling.

Robert retied his beard. Belinda, smoothing her skirt, looked at him and said, "If you know what's good for you, you'd better do it right." Robert grew nervous when the curtain parted and his classmates who were assigned to do snow, wind, and hail broke into song.

Alfonso stepped forward with his narrative[4] about a blot on American history that would live with us forever. He looked at the audience, lost for a minute. He continued by saying that if the Donner party could come back, hungry from not eating for over a hundred years, they would be sorry for what they had done.

The play began with some boys in snowshoes shuffling around the stage, muttering that the blizzard would cut them off from civilization. They looked up, held out their hands, and said in unison,[6] "Snow." One stepped center stage and said, "I wish I had never left the prairie." Another one said, "California is just over there." He pointed, and some of the first graders looked in the direction of the piano.

"What are we going to do?" one kid asked, brushing pretend snow off his vest.

"I'm getting pretty hungry," another said, rubbing her stomach.

The audience seemed to be following the play. A ribbon of sweat ran down Robert's face. When his scene came up, he staggered to center stage and dropped to the floor, just as he had seen Robert De Niro do in that movie about a boxer. Belinda, bending over with an "Oh, my," yanked him up so hard that something clicked in his elbow. She boomed, "Is there anything wrong with your eyes?"

Robert rubbed his elbow, then his eyes, and said, "I can see nothing wrong. Wrong is nothing, I can see."[G]

"How are we going to get through?" she boomed, wringing her hands together at the audience, some of whom had their mouths taped shut because they were known talkers. "My husband needs a doctor." The drama advanced through snow, wind, and hail that sounded like chattering teeth.

Belinda turned to robert and muttered, "You mess-up. You're gonna hate life."

But Robert thought he'd done okay. At least, he reasoned to himself, I got the words right. Just not in the right order.

With his part of the play done, he joined the snowflakes and trees, chattering his teeth the loudest. He howled wind like a baying hound and snapped his finger furiously in a snow flurry. He trembled from the cold.

The play ended with Alfonso saying that if they came back to life, the Donner party would be sorry for eating each other. "It's just not right," he argued. "You gotta suck it up in bad times."[H]

Robert figured that Alfonso was right. He remembered how one day his sister had locked him in the closet and he didn't eat or drink for five hours. When he got out. he hit his sister, but not so hard as to leave a bruise. He then ate three sandwiches and felt a whole lot better.

The cast then paraded up the aisle into the audience. Belinda pinched Robert hard, but only once because she was thinking that it could have been worse. As he passed a smiling and relieved Mrs. Bunnin, she patted Robert's shoulder and said, "Almost perfect."

Robert was happy, He'd made it through without passing out from fear. Now the first and second graders were looking at him and clapping. He was sure everyone wondered who the actor was behind that smooth voice and red, red beard.[I]

[1] prop n. an object an actor uses in a play
[2] smirk v. to smile in an insulting way
[3] relentless adj. refusing to stop or give up
[4] narrative n. a story
[6] in unison at the same time.
[A] PLOT: EXPOSITION What background information have you learned about Robert?
[B] PLOT: RISING ACTION Reread lines 42-56. What conflict, or struggle, is developing?
[C] MONITOR What is the actual line Belinda is supposed to say?
[D] MONITOR Reread lines 75-88. Why does Robert respond with his line when someone speaks to him at home?
[E] MONITOR Think about how Robert feels the day before the play. How might this affect his performance?
[F] PLOT: RISING ACTION How has the tension increased now that it is the day of the play?
[G] PLOT: CLIMAX How is the delivery of Robert's line a turning point in the story?
[H] PLOT: FALLING ACTION What effect does Robert's delivery of his lines have on the end of the play?
[I] PLOT: RESOLUTION How do Robert, Belinda, and Mrs. Bunnin feel about Robert's performance?

Comprehension
1. Clarify Does repeating his line again and again when he is at home help Robert remember it?
2. Clarify Reread lines 86-98. What does Robert want to be when he grows up?
3. Summarize What happens on the day of the performance?

Literary Analysis
4. Monitor Review the chart you filled in as you read. Which questions and answers were most helpful for understanding the story? Explain.
5. Compare and Contrast Do you think Belinda is nervous about performing in front of the student audience? Compare and contrast her actions with Robert's on the day of the play.
6. Make Inferences How does the audience react to the play? Support your answer with specific details from the story.
7. Examine Plot Elements The plot of "The School Play" centers on Robert's fear of forgetting his line. Go back through the story and make a list of important events. Place the events on a diagram like the one shown to identify what happens at each stage of the plot. Do you think the plot of this story is realistic? Why or why not?
8. Analyze Character's Effect on Plot In addition to fear, Robert shows other personal qualities as the plot develops. Identify two of these qualities and explain how they help Robert resolve the conflict he meets.

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And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? 3-1

And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? 3-1

And Then What Happened, Paul Revere? Tells a story of Paul Revere and his famous ride on April 18, 1775, the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Revere and his family lived in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a silversmith, a church bell ringer, and a dentist. Then he joined the Sons of Liberty to protest British laws and become an express rider, spreading news between Boston and Philadelphia. He was also a secret agant, trying to find out the plans of British soldiers in Boston.

On the night of April 18, the British began a march to the towns of Lexington and Concord. Revere's job was to warn people to defend themselves. He had to tell Patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams, too.

Revere saw the signal, two lanterns in a church steeple that meant the British were sailing across the harbor. He rowed across the Charles River to where a horse was waiting and began his famous ride. He galloped along the Lexington road, waking people up by shouting and banging on their doors.

At one point, six English officers arrested Revere, but later they let him go, without his horse. Revere walked back to Lexington, where he found Hancock and Adams. About fifty farmers had gathered to take a stand against the British. The British troops arrived. A battle began. The battles of Lexington and Concord were the first in the Revolutionary War.

At the end of the war Revere went back to being a silversmith and opened a hardware store. He also made church bells. But he will always be remembered for his Big Ride.

Mae Jemison: Space Scientist 2-4

Mae Jemison: Space Scientist 2-4

In 1992, Mae Jemison became the first African American woman in space, aboard the space shuttle Endeavour. Mae Jemison: Space Scientist tells about the years of hard work and training it took for her to become an astronaut.

Jemison was born in 1956 and grew up in Chicago, Illinois. As a child she loved to work on science projects and wanted to become a doctor. After college and medical school, Jemison realized her dream. As part of her medical training, she traveled to many countries, including Cuba, Kenya, and Thailand. She liked traveling so much that she joined the Peace Corps.

After she came back to the United States, Jemison applied to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to become an astronaut. Two thousand people applied, and she was one of only fifteen people to be accepted.

Jemison moved to Houston, Texas, to begin her training. She learned about the equipment she would need to use in space as well as survival skills. She also learned what it would feel like to be without gravity. She received the title of mission specialist.

At last, on September 12, 1992, Endeavour took off on its mission. The crew stayed in space for almost eight days, performing many scientific experiments. They traveled over three million miles and orbited the earth 127 times!

After leaving NASA, Jemison formed her own company, The Jemison Group. It finds ways to use science and technology to improve peoples' lives.

“Mae Jemison Biography Example.” Studylib.net, studylib.net/doc/25213733/mae-jemison-biography-example.

The Fear Place 2-3

The Fear Place 2-3

In The Fear Place, Doug Grillo and his family are camping in Colorado Rockies. Doug's parents have left on an emergency. His brother, Gordie, has gone off alone after he and Doug argue. Doug worries when Gordie doesn't come back after three days. He sets off to find Gordie, even though he knows he will have to cross his Fear Place - a narrow ledge that terrifies him.

As Doug follows the rocky trail, he gets more and more nervous. He tries to keep his mind on other things, thinking about animals and rocks. He hears a noise behind him. It is Charlie, a cougar that he has befriended. Charlie moves in front of Doug and she looks back to see if Doug is following.

The further Doug climbs, the narrower the path becomes. His heart is pounding. He remembers the time before when he was on this path with his family. He was too scared to make it all the way across. Suddenly, he rounds a corner to the ledge he is so afraid of. Doug doesn't think that he can cross the ledge. It is narrower than he had remembered. One slip, and he will fall off the cliff.

Doug tries to imagine the ledge as a yard-wide line drawn in chalk. But it is the cougar who shows him how to get around it. She stays close to the side of the mountain and doesn't lean. Doug feels his body tighten with fear. He takes a deep breath. He couldn't look down. Carefully following Charlie, he reaches a wider part of the path at last.

La Bamba 2-2

La Bamba 2-2

Manuel, the main character in La Bamba, is nervous about his performance for the school talent show. His act is a pantomime of the popular song "La Bamba." He will dance and pretend to sing as the song is played on a record player. During rehearsal, he accidentally drops his forty-five record on the floor.

On the night of the show, Manuel waits backstage for his turn. First two children dressed as a tooth and a toothbrush perform. Next, a violin duo plays. Then a group of girls jumps rope. After them, a boy comes out and performs karate moves.

Finally, it's Manuel's turn to step into the limelight. As the record starts playing he pretends to sing. Then he tries a few dance moves. The audience goes wild. But something horrible happens: the record gets stuck! It must have been scratched when Manuel dropped it. He has to perform the same part of the song over and over.

Finally, the record is turned off and Manuel runs offstage completely embarrassed. Later when he comes out to take a bow, he is surprised that the audience cheers loudly. Everyone thinks he is funny and clever. Classmates want to know how he got the record to stick. Manuel loves the attention. He lets everyone think that he planned the accident.

Michelle Kwan: Heart of a Champion 2-1

Michelle Kwan: Heart of a Champion 2-1

Michelle Kwan: Heart of a Champion is the autobiography of ice skater Michelle Kwan. At the age of twelve, hoping to enter the Olympics, Kwan decides to move from skating at the Junior level to the Senior level. It is a big change, and she needs to pass a skating test to do it. Her coach, Frank Carroll, doesn't think that she is ready. but Kwan doesn't want to wait. While Carroll is away, she takes the skating test and passes.

When Carroll comes back, Kwan tells him what she has done. He is furious at first. Then he tells her that she is going to have to work harder than ever to make her skating artistic.

Kwan's parents are worried that there will be too much pressure at the next level, but they support her decision. Kwan feels ready for the challenge. She knows she will be compared to the best skaters in the world. She is a good jumper, but she is young, and her programs have been easy.

Each skater has two programs to skate: the technical or short program and the freeskate or long program, which counts for more of the score. Skaters must perform certain moves in each program: spirals, spins, and jumps. If a skater doesn't do some of them or makes a mistake, the judges take away points.

A skater needs to be strong in body and mind. There is at least one big competition every month. Practicing takes a lot of hard work, and skaters spend a lot of time in the gym, on the ice, and traveling. They are very sore at the end of the day. Kwan also has to go to school and do her homework.

Kwan tries hard to remember that skating isn't the only important part of her life. School is very important and so are family and friends. The real challenge is to keep in mind both the skater and the person she want so be.

Volcanoes 1-3

Volcanoes 1-3

The nonfiction selection Volcanoes discusses volcanoes in myth and legend, and then explains how volcanoes form and what causes them to erupt, or pour out lava and ash.

The earth is made up of layers of rock. The top layers are called the earth's crust. Deep below the crust, it is hot enough to melt some of the rock, forming magma. Volcanoes form where there are cracks or holes in the crust. Magma pushes up through the crack, causing an eruption. The hot magma that pours out is called lava. When the lava cools, it hardens into rock. Thick lava that moves slowly hardens into sharp rocks. Thin lava that moves quickly forms smooth rocks.

The earth's crust is broken into huge pieces called plates. Most Volcanoes erupt in places where two plates come together, especially along the rim of the Pacific Ocean. There are underwater volcanoes, too. When they erupt, they can grow high enough to stick up out of the ocean and form islands, like Surtsey in Iceland and Mauna Loa in Hawaii.

There are four different types of volcanoes. Shield volcanoes, like Mauna Loa, have gentle slopes. Cinder cone volcanoes look like upside-down ice cream cones. Most volcanoes are composite or strato-volcanoes. They are formed when lava covers layers of cinder and ash. The last kind of volcano is a dome volcano. Its thick lava creates a steep, dome-like shape.

When volcanoes do not erupt anymore, they are considered extinct. An example is Crater Lake in Oregon.

The explosion of Mount St. Helens in 1980 shows how destructive an eruption can be. But volcanic eruptions can also create new mountains, islands, and soil.