Name: Grade 6 Lesson 2 Date: Use the article titled Knots in My Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli on pages 51-61 in your student reader to answer the questions below. Directions Read the story. Then answer questions 1 and 2. 1. What character trait most helps Jerry Spinelli to become a successful writer? Use two details from the story to support your response. 2. What theme is best supported by paragraphs 7 11 on page 57 and paragraph 1 on page 60? Use two details from the story to support your response.
Use the article titled Knots in My Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli on pages 51-61 in your student reader to answer the question below. Directions Read the selections. Then answer question 3.
Exemplary Response - 2 Point Reading/Writing Standard(s) RL.6.1, W.6.1 RL.6.1 Cite textual evidence to support analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text. Stem Used: What character trait most helps [character] to do X? Use two details from the story to support your response. pp. 51-61 Possible Exemplary Response: The character trait that most helps Jerry Spinelli to become a successful writer is his ability to relate to children. When he first became a writer he wrote many books that could not get published. Even with the lack of success he did not give up. After an incident at home where one of his step kids ate his lunch, he changed his perspective on writing. He began to write stories about children from a child s point of view. With this change his books were published and he became a successful writer. Possible Details to Include: Other relevant text-based details Score Points: Apply 2-point rubric.
Exemplary Response - 2 Point Reading/Writing Standard(s) RI.6.2, W.6.1 RI.6.2 Determine a central idea of a text and how it is conveyed through particular details; provide a summary of the text distinct from personal opinions or judgments. W.6.1 Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence. Stem Used: What theme is best supported by paragraphs # through #? Use two details from the story to support your response. pp. 57-60 2. What theme is best supported by paragraphs 7 11 on page 57 and paragraph 1 on page 60? Use two details from the story to support your response. Possible Exemplary Response: The theme that is best supported in paragraphs 7-11 on p. 57 and paragraph 1 on p. 60 is to never give up no matter how hard things may get. After having a poem published in the local newspaper in high school, Jerry Spinelli realized he wanted to be a writer. He went to college and took writing seminars after he graduated. He was able to find a job as an editor for a department store magazine. In his free time he constantly wrote novels. He would write on his lunch hour, after work, and on the weekends. He wrote four novels in thirteen years could not get them published. Even though he suffered these setbacks, he continued to write. Finally, after his fifth novel about children, written from a kid s point of view, he became a published writer. Possible Details to Include: Other relevant text-based details Score Points: Apply 2-point rubric.
Exemplary Response - 4 Point Reading/Writing Standard(s) RL.6.9, W.6.4 RL.6.3 Describe how a particular story s or drama s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution. W.6.4 Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. Stem Used: Both articles focus on X. How is X similar and different in both articles? Use details from both articles to support your response pp. 51-61 Use the article titled Knots in My Yo-Yo String by Jerry Spinelli on pp. 51-61 in your student reader to answer the question below. Directions Read the selections. Then answer question 3. Possible Exemplary Response: After 13 novels and repeated rejections, Jerry Spinelli still does not give up on his writing. He is confident in his writing and continues to keep writing, And in my spare time I began to write my first novel. Three years later I finished it, but no one wanted to publish it. So I wrote another. And another. And another. Wrote them on my lunch hours, after work, weekends. Four novels over thirteen years. Nobody wanted them. Jerry Spinelli persevered. He continued to think of daily life to write about, and at one point he decides to change his writing and instead of writing from his point of view, he decided to write from a kid s point of view. I was about to do so, intending to describe the scene from the point of view of the chicken-deprived father, when it suddenly occurred to me that there was a more interesting point of view here namely, the kid s. Instead of giving up, throwing in the towel, thinking he had given it his all, Jerry Spinelli
instead changed his writing perspective. He did not give up, but rather tried another approach and in the end it paid off. In my head I replayed moments from my kidhood. I mixed my memories with imagination to make stories, to make fiction, and when I finished writing, I had a book, my fifth novel, my first about kids. I called it Space Station Seventh Grade. Possible Details to Include: Other relevant text-based details Score Points: Apply 4-point rubric