Understanding Text Complexity: Grades 9-12

Transcription

1 Understanding Text Complexity: Grades 9-12 December NTI/Wednesday, December 10 th David Abel/Fellow for Curriculum and Assessment, ELA 1

2 Practice Excerpt 1 (Informational) Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer. --Thomas Paine, Common Sense Practice Excerpt 2 (Literature) Call me Ishmael. Some years ago never mind how long precisely having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball --Herman Melville, Moby Dick. 2

3 Text Lexile Flesch Kincaid Reading Maturity Metric Literature Text 1/Dickens* Literature Text 2/Brockmeier Literature Text 3/Kafka Literature 4/Anyi Literature 5/Poe Informational text 1/Red Jacket* Informational text 2/Olympics Informational text 3/Thoreau Informational text 4/Sagan Informational text 5/Paine Updated Text Complexity Grade Bands and Associated Ranges from Multiple Measures Common Core Band ATOS Degrees of Reading Power Flesch Kincaid 1 The Lexile Framework Reading Maturity SourceRater 2 nd 3 rd th 5 th th 8 th th 10 th th CCR (from achievethecore.org) 3

4 Literature Text 1 MARLEY was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge s name was good upon Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Mind! I don t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the Country s done for. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail. Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were partners for I don t know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain. The mention of Marley s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet s Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot say Saint Paul s Churchyard for instance literally to astonish his son s weak mind. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn t thaw it one degree at Christmas. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 4

5 Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me? No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men s dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they said, No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master! But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call nuts to Scrooge. Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already it had not been light all day and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that Nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. The door of Scrooge s counting-house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn t replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge s nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. Bah! said Scrooge, Humbug! He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge s, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooge s nephew. You don t mean that, I am sure? I do, said Scrooge. Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You re poor enough. Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You re rich enough. Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, Bah! again; and followed it up with Humbug. 5

6 Don t be cross, uncle! said the nephew. What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! Uncle! pleaded the nephew. Nephew! returned the uncle, sternly, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. written by Charles Dickens, excerpted and adapted from A Christmas Carol, 1843, 6

7 Literature Text 2 Shortly after two in the afternoon, on Monday the sixth of April, a few seconds of silence overtook the city. The rattle of the jackhammers, the boom of the transformers, and the whir of the ventilation fans all came to a halt. Suddenly there were no car alarms cutting through the air, no trains scraping over their rails, no steam pipes exhaling their fumes, no peddlers shouting into the streets. Even the wind seemed to hesitate. We waited for the incident to pass, and when it did, we went about our business. None of us foresaw the repercussions. A few people were changed by the episode, their lives redirected in large ways or small ones. The editor of a gossip magazine, for instance, came out of the silence determined to substitute the next issue s lead article about a movie star for one about a fashion model, while her assistant realized that the time had come for her to resign her job and apply for her teaching license. A life-long vegetarian who was dining at the restaurant outside of the art museum decided to order a porterhouse steak, cooked medium rare. Such people were the exceptions, though. Most of us went on with our lives as though nothing of any importance had happened until the next incident occurred, some four days later. This time the silence lasted nearly six seconds. Ten million sounds broke off and recommenced like an old engine marking out a pause and catching spark again. The silence was unusual, and we were not entirely sure how to talk about it not because it was too grave and not because it was too trivial, but because it seemed grave one moment and trivial the next, and so no one was quite able to decide whether it mattered enormously or not at all. A stand-up comedian performing on one of the late-night talk shows was the first of us to broach the subject, albeit indirectly. He waited for a moment in his act when the audience had fallen completely still and then halted in midsentence, raising one of his index fingers in a listening gesture. A smile edged its way onto his lips. He gave pause perhaps one second too long, just enough time for a trace of self-amusement to show on his face, then continued with the joke he had been telling. He could not have anticipated the size of the laugh he would receive. The next morning s newspapers had already been put to bed by the time the comedian s routine was broadcast. The morning after that, though, the first few editorials about the silence appeared. Then the radio hosts and TV commentators began to talk about it, and soon enough it was the city s chief topic of conversation. Every family dinner bent around to it sooner or later, every business lunch, every pillow talk. The bars and health clubs all circulated with bets about the phenomenon: ten dollars said the government had something to do with it, twenty said it would never happen again. When two full weeks went by without another incident, our interest in the matter threatened to shrivel away, and might actually have done so had the next episode not occurred the following Sunday, surprising all of us in the middle of our church services. 7

8 There was another silence, more than ten seconds long, just a couple of days later, and a much shorter silence, like a hiccup, the day after that. Every time one of the silences came to an end we felt as though we had passed through a long transparent passageway, a tunnel or sorts, one that made the world into which we had emerged appear brighter and cleaner than it had before, less troubled, more human. The silence had been siphoned out of the city and into our ears, spilling from there into our dreams and beliefs, our memories and expectations. In the wake of each fresh episode a new feeling glowed through us, full of warmth and a lazy equanimity. It took us a while to recognize the feeling for what is was: contentment. The truth was that we enjoyed the silence, and more than that, we hungered for it. Sometimes we found ourselves poised in the doorways of our homes in the morning or on the edges of our car seats as we drove to work, trying to hear something very faint beneath the clatter of sirens and engines. Slowly we realized that we were waiting for another incident to take place. There were weeks when we experienced an episode of silence almost every day. One particular Wednesday saw three of them in the span of a single hour. But there were others when what the papers took to calling a silence drought descended upon the city and all our hopes for a cessation went in vain. If more than a few days passed without some minor lull to interrupt the cacophony, we would become irritable and overtender, quick to gnash at one another and then to rebuke ourselves for our failures of sympathy. On the one hand, a single interlude of silence might generate an aura of fellow feeling that could last for the better part of a day. The police blotters were nearly empty in the hours following a silence. And there was another effect that was just as impressive: the doctors at several hospitals reported that their mortality rates showed a pronounced decline after each incident, and their recovery rates a marked increase. The silence probed so beneficial to us that we began to wish it would last forever. We envisioned a city where everyone was healthy and thoughtful, radiant with satisfaction, and the sound of so much as a leaf lighting down on the sidewalk was a rare and startling as a gunshot. Who was the first person to suggest that we try generating such a silence ourselves, one that would endure until we chose to end it? No one could remember. But the idea took hold with an astonishing tenacity. Written by Kevin Brockmeier, excerpted and adapted from The Year of Silence, in The View From the Seventh Layer, Pantheon Books,

9 Literature Text 3 The Emperor, so a parable runs, has sent a message to you, the humble subject, the insignificant shadow cowering in the remotest distance before the imperial sun; the Emperor from his deathbed has sent a message to you alone. He has commanded the messenger to kneel down by the bed, and has whispered the message to him; so much store did he lay on it that he ordered the messenger to whisper it back into his ear again. Then by a nod of the head he has confirmed that it is right. Yes, before the assembled spectators of his death all the obstructing walls have been broken down, and on the spacious and loftily mounting open staircases stand in a ring the great princes of the Empire before all these he has delivered his message. The messenger immediately set out on his journey; a powerful, an indefatigable man; now pushing with his right arm, now with his left, he cleaves a way for himself through the throng; if he encounters resistance he points to his breast, where the symbol of the sun glitters; the way is made easier for him than it would be for any other man. But the multitudes are so vast; their numbers have no end. If he could reach the open fields how fast he would fly, and soon doubtless you would hear the welcome hammering of his fists on your door. But instead how vainly does he wear out his strength; still he is only making his way through the chambers of the innermost palace; never will he get to the end of them; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; he must next fight his way down the stair; and if he succeeded in that nothing would be gained; the courts would still have to be crossed; and after the courts the second outer palace; and once more stairs and courts; and once more another palace; and so on for thousands of years; and if at last he should burst through the outermost gate but never, never can that happen the imperial capital would lie before him, the center of the world, crammed to bursting with its own sediment. Nobody could fight his way through here even with a message from a dead man. But you sit at your window when evening falls and dream it to yourself. From The Penal Colony, trans. Willa and Edwin Muir, as excerpted in Howard Schwartz, ed., Imperial Messages: One Hundred Modern Parables (New York: Avon Books, 1976), p. 1-2.] 9

10 Literature Text 4 Against the clamor of the city, who could hear the prayers being uttered in Peace Lane? Who would notice people whose dearest wish in life is not to be praised for merit but only to avoid making mistakes? Here a lean-to shed has been added on to look down upon the rooftops of the city, you would find them in utter disarray, worn and dilapidated, structures built on top of structures, taking up every bit of free space. This was especially true of the older longtang 1, like Peace Lane it s a miracle that they haven t collapsed yet. About a third of the titles were broken, patched over in places with bits of felt, the wooden frames on the doors and windows were blackened and rotting, with everything in view a uniform ash gray. But though it was falling apart on the outside, the spirit of the place remained; its inner voice, though stifled, was still audible. But amid all the noises of this city, just what did this voice amount to? There was never a moment of peace and quiet in the city; the day had its sounds, as did the night, and between them they drowned that voice out. But it was still there it couldn t be silenced because it was the foundation upon which the hubbub and commotion fed; without it all of those noises would have been nothing but an empty echo. but what did this voice say? Two words: to live. No matter how loud the noise became, no matter what a rumpus it made, or how long it carried on, it could never find those two words. Those two little words weighted a ton, so they sank, and sank all the way down, to the very bottom; only immaterial things like smoke and mist could float up to the surface. It was impossible to listen to this voice without crying. The prayers whispered in Peace Lane went on day and night, like an everyburning alter lamp, but they weren t burning on oil: inch by inch, they were burning thoughts. In contrast the chaotic noises echoing in the city s air were nothing but the scraps and leftovers of life, which is why they could be so liberally strewn about. The prayers concealed throughout those thousands of Shanghai longtang rang out louder and clearer than all the church bells in Europe: they created a rumbling thunder that seemed to emerge from the earth itself, the sound of mountains crumbling. A shame we had no way of participating in this ourselves, but just looking at the abyss they created was enough to make the heart grow cold. See what they have done to this place! It is hard to say whether this was a form of construction or destruction, but whatever it was, it was massive. What Peace Lane prayed for was peace itself. You could heart it even from the bell that was rung every night to warn people to mind their kitchen fires. Peace is not something ordinary, but Peace Lane had an ordinary heart and its prayers were quite humble as well; these modest requests, however, were not easily granted. No major disaster had befallen Peace Lane in many years, but little things kept coming up, such as someone falling off the balcony while bringin in their laundry, another getting electrocuted when he turned off a light switch with a wet hand, pressure cooker explosions, rat poison accidentally ingested. If all these, who died wrongful deaths, had cried out, their howls would have been deafening. So how one not pray for peace and security? In the early evening, when the lights came on, you could see in all the windows the watchful eyes of frightened people looking out for signs of trouble. But whenever something bad did happen, no one ever saw it coming. This was where Peace Lane had gone numb and where it displayed its pragmatism. The residents were never prepared for the closest dangers. Yes, they understood the dangers of fire and electricity, but beyond that they had no imagination. And so if you were to see the people of Peace Lane praying, they would be like idiots reciting a book from memory, chanting with their lips but not their minds, repeating the 10

11 same incantations over and over again. Meanwhile the flowerpot sitting on the windowsill was just an inch away from falling down, but no one ever bothered to move it; the termites had already done their work on the floors, but no one every seemed to care; illegal structures kept being added one on top of the other, causing the foundation to sink, yet another one was about to be built. During the typhoon season, when Peace Lane shook and rattled and it appeared as if the entire neighborhood was going to pieces, people curled up in their rooms, complacently enjoying cool breeze brought by the storm. What people in Peace Lane prayed for was to be able to live in a fool s paradise they would rather turn a blind eye and never ask questions. The pigeon whistles sounding in the morning sang of peace, announcing the good but never the bad; but even if they had, would that have made a difference? You might be able to escape it in the first round, but would you escape in the second? Put that way, those prayers must imply an acceptance, a sort of Daoist resignation to reality. For want of anything else to pray for, night after night they pray for peace, but that was just wishful thinking. But now the story seems to be coming to an end. Even those who attempt brazen acts with a smiling façade are met with sober, straight faces: the time for equivocation was over. The tide was receding and the rocks would soon be exposed. Counting on one s fingers, one finds that the Shanghai longtang have quite a few years on them a few more and they ll be treading on thin ice. Going up again to the highest point in the city and looking down, one sees that the crisscrossing longtang neighborhoods are already beginning to look desolate. If these had been large imposing building[s], that desolation might be mitigated by their grand proportions. But longtang buildings all have low walls and narrow courtyards, filled with ordinary people carrying out their mundane tasks: could places like these be thought of as desolate? Desolation takes on a comical aspect in such places, and that only makes the people living there all the more dejected. Putting it in harsher terms: the whole place bore a certain resemblance to a heap of rubble. With the leaves falling in early winter, all we see are broken bricks and shattered tiles. Like an aging beauty who retains her alluring profile, it can no longer bear scrutiny. Should you insist on searching for a trace of her former charm after all, not everything is erased you would have to look for it in the turn of the alley. Left here, right there, as if glancing coquettishly from side to side, but the eyes that are so flirtatious are also getting on in years, they have lost their luster and are incapable of grabbing hold of your attention. Soon, sleet began to come down that was the frigid past accumulated over generations turning to water before it even hit the ground. Written by Wang Anyi, excerpted and adapted from The Song of Everlasting Sorrow: A Novel of Shanghai, 1995, Columbia University Press 11

12 Literature Text 5 From the dim regions beyond the mountains at the upper end of our encircled domain, there crept out a narrow and deep river, brighter than all save the eyes of Eleonora; and winding stealthily about in mazy courses, it passed away at length through a shadowy gorge, among hills still dimmer than those whence it had issued. We called it the River of Silence, for there seemed to be a hushing influence in its flow. No murmur arose from its bed, and so gently it wandered along that the pearly pebbles upon which we loved to gaze, far down within its bosom, stirred not at all, but lay in a motionless content, each in its own old station, shining on gloriously for ever. The margin of the river, and of the many dazzling rivulets that glided through devious ways into its channel, as well as the spaces that extended from the margins away down into the depths of the streams until they reached the bed of pebbles at the bottom, these spots, not less than the whole surface of the valley, from the river to the mountains that girdled it in, were carpeted all by a soft green grass, thick, short, perfectly even, and vanilla-perfumed, but so besprinkled throughout with the yellow buttercup, the white daisy, the purple violet, and the ruby-red asphodel, that its exceeding beauty spoke to our hearts in loud tones of the love and of the glory of God. The loveliness of Eleonora was that of the Seraphim; but she was a maiden artless and innocent as the brief life she had led among the flowers. No guile disguised the fervour of love which animated her heart, and she examined with me its inmost recesses as we walked together in the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass, and discoursed of the mighty changes which had lately taken place therein. At length, having spoken one day, in tears, of the last sad change which must befall humanity, she thenceforward dwelt only upon this one sorrowful theme, interweaving it into all our converse, as, in the songs of the bard of Schiraz, the same images are found occurring again and again in every impressive variation of phrase. She had seen that the finger of Death was upon her bosom that, like the ephemeron, she had been made perfect in loveliness only to die; but the terrors of the grave to her lay solely in a consideration which she revealed to me one evening at twilight by the banks of the River of Silence. She grieved to think that, having entombed her in the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass, I would quit for ever its happy recesses, transferring the love which now was so passionately her own to some maiden of the outer and every-day world. And then and there I threw myself hurriedly at the feet of Eleonora, and offered up a vow to herself and to Heaven, that I would never bind myself in marriage to any daughter of Earth that I would in no manner prove recreant to her dear memory, or to the memory of the devout affection with which she had blessed me. And I called the Mighty Ruler of the Universe to witness the pious solemnity of my vow. And the curse which I invoked of Him and of her, a saint in Elusion, should I prove traitorous to that promise, involved a penalty the exceeding great horror of which will not permit me to make record of it here. And the bright eyes of Eleonora grew brighter at my words; and she sighed as if a deadly burden had been taken from her breast; and she trembled and very bitterly wept; but she made acceptance of the vow (for what was she but a child?), and it made easy to her the bed of her death. And she said to me, not many days afterwards, tranquilly dying, that, because of what I had done for the comfort of her spirit, she would watch over me in that spirit when departed, 12

13 and, if so it were permitted her, return to me visibly in the watches of the night; but, if this thing were indeed beyond the power of the souls in Paradise, that she would at least give me frequent indications of her presence; sighing upon me in the evening winds, or filling the air which I breathed with perfume from the censers of the angels. And, with these words upon her lips, she yielded up her innocent life, putting an end to the first epoch of my own. But the void within my heart refused, even thus, to be filled. I longed for the love which had before filled it to overflowing. At length the valley pained me through its memories of Eleonora, and I left it for ever for the vanities and the turbulent triumphs of the world. I found myself within a strange city, where all things might have served to blot from recollection the sweet dreams I had dreamed so long in the Valley of the Many-Coloured Grass. The pomps and pageantries of a stately court, and the mad clangour of arms, and the radiant loveliness of woman, bewildered and intoxicated my brain. But as yet my soul had proved true to its vows, and the indications of the presence of Eleonora were still given me in the silent hours of the night. Suddenly, these manifestations ceased; and the world grew dark before mine eyes; and I stood aghast at the burning thoughts which possessed at the terrible temptations which beset me; for there came from some far, far distant and unknown land, into the gay court of the king I served, a maiden to whose beauty my whole recreant heart yielded at once at whose footstool I bowed down without a struggle in the most ardent, in the most abject worship of love. What indeed was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervour and the delirium, and the spirit-lifting ecstasy of adoration with which I poured out my whole soul in tears at the feet of the ethereal Ermengarde? Oh, bright was the seraph Ermengarde! and in that knowledge I had room for none other. Oh, divine was the angel Ermengarde! and as I looked down into the depths of her memorial eyes, I thought only of them and of her. I wedded; nor dreaded the curse I had invoked; and its bitterness was not visited upon me. And once but once again in the silence of the night, there came through my lattice the soft sighs which had forsaken me; and they modelled themselves into familiar and sweet voice, saying Sleep in peace! for the Spirit of Love reigneth and ruleth, and, in taking to thy passionate heart her who is Ermengarde, thou art absolved, for reasons which shall be made known to thee in Heaven, of thy vows unto Eleonora. Edgar Allen Poe, excerpted and adapted from Eleanora, 1842, 13

14 Informational Text 1 This is an excerpt from a speech given by Red Jacket, Chief of the Seneca Nation, to the United States acting secretary of war in Washington, D.C., on February 10, Brother, the business on which we are now come is to restore the friendship that has existed between the United States and the Six Nations, agreeably to the direction of the commissioner from the fifteen fires1 of the United States. He assured us that whensoever, by any grievances, the chain of friendship should become rusty, we might have it brightened by calling on you. We dispense with the usual formality of having your speech again read, as we fully comprehended it yesterday, and it would therefore be useless to waste time in a repetition of it. Brother, yesterday you wiped the tears from our eyes, that we might see clearly; you unstopped our ears that we might hear; and removed the obstructions from our throats that we might speak distinctly. You offered to join with us in tearing up the largest pine-tree in our forests, and under it to bury the tomahawk. We gladly join with you, brother, in this work, and let us heap rocks and stones on the root of this tree that the tomahawk may never again be found.... Brother, we observe that the men now in office are new men, and, we fear, not fully informed of all that has befallen us. In 1791 a treaty was held by the commissioners of Congress with us at Tioga Point, on a similar occasion. We have lost seven of our warriors, murdered in cold blood by white men, since the conclusion of the war. We are tired of this mighty grievance and wish some general arrangement to prevent it in future. The first of these was murdered on the banks of the Ohio, near Fort Pitt. Shortly after two men belonging to our first families were murdered at Pine Creek; then one at Fort Franklin; another at Tioga Point; and now the two that occasion this visit, on the Big Beaver. These last two had families. The one was a Seneca; the other a Tuscarora. Their families are now destitute of support, and we think that the United States should do something toward their support, as it is to the United States they owe the loss of their heads. Brother, these offences are always committed in one place on the frontier of Pennsylvania. In the Genesee country we live happy and no one molests us. I must therefore beg that the President will exert all his influence with all officers, civil and military, in that quarter, to remedy this grievance, and trust that he will thus prevent a repetition of it and save our blood from being spilled in future. Brother, let me call to mind the treaty between the United States and the Six Nations, concluded at Canandaigua. At that treaty Colonel Pickering, who was commissioner on behalf of the United States, agreed that the United States should pay to the Six Nations four thousand five hundred dollars per annum, and that this should pass through the hands of the superintendent of the United States, to be appointed for that purpose. This treaty was made in the name of the President of the United States, who was then General Washington; and, as he is now no more, perhaps the present President would wish to renew the treaty. But if he should think the old one valid and is willing to let it remain in force we are also willing. The sum above mentioned we wish to have part of in money, to expend in more agricultural tools and in purchasing a team, as we have some horses that will do for the purpose. We also wish to build a sawmill on the Buffalo creek. If the President, however, thinks proper to have it continue as heretofore, we shall not be very uneasy. Whatever he may do we agree to; we only suggest this for his consideration. 14

15 Brother, I hand you the above-mentioned treaty, made by Colonel Pickering, in the name of General Washington, and the belt that accompanied it; as he is now dead we know not if it is still valid. If not, we wish it renewed if it is, we wish it copied on clean parchment. Our money got loose in our trunk and tore it. We also show you the belt which is the path of peace between our Six Nations and the United States.... Brother, the business that has caused this our long journey was occasioned by some of your bad men; the expense of it has been heavy on us. We beg that as so great a breach has been made on your part, the President will judge it proper that the United States should bear our expenses to and from home and whilst here. Brother, three horses belonging to the Tuscarora Nation were killed by some men under the command of Major Rivardi, on the plains of Niagara. They have made application to the superintendent and to Major Rivardi, but get no redress. You make us pay for our breaches of the peace, why should you not pay also? A white man has told us the horses were killed by Major Rivardi s orders, who said they should not be permitted to come there, although it was an open common on which they were killed. Mr. Chapin has the papers respecting these horses, which we request you to take into consideration. Written by Red Jacket, excerpted and adapted from Orations from Homer to William McKinley, Vol. VII, 1902, P.F. Collier and Son 15

16 Informational Text 2 Factsheet: Legacies of the Games IOC [International Olympic Committee] SUPPORT As the Olympic Games have grown to become the world s foremost sporting event, their impact on a host city and country has also increased. This has meant that cities interested in hosting the Games are now placing increasing emphasis on the legacies that such an event can create for their citizens and, in many cases, they are using the Games as a catalyst for urban renewal.... GAMES OF THE OLYMPIAD BEIJING 2008 Education: 400 million children in 400,000 Chinese schools were exposed to the Olympic values, and 550 Chinese schools partnered with schools in other countries to conduct cultural sports and educational exchanges.... Transport Infrastructure: Beijing s Capital Airport saw its capacity increased by 24 million passengers; a new express way and high speed rail link was built to Tianjin; and three new subway lines were constructed, as well as a new ring road and airport express road. Public transport capacity was increased by 4.5 million people. Venues: Twenty-three of the Beijing 2008 venues will be used as sports facilities, conference centres and public event facilities; six venues were located on university campuses for use by students after the Games; and the International Broadcast Centre and Main Press Centre will serve conventions and tourism.... Environment: Some 140 billion Yuan was invested in air quality improvements alone, with 60,000 coal-burning boilers being upgraded to reduce emissions; a number of public buses being converted to run on natural gas; and restrictions being put in place on private automobile use, a form of which is still in place today. There were also significant improvements in water treatment facilities. ATHENS 2004 Transport Infrastructure: Athens 2004 saw a new and renovated urban and underground system capable of carrying 1,000,000 passengers a day (20 per cent of the population of Athens); 90km of new roads were built and a further 120km widened, with a new computerised traffic management system installed to help manage traffic. A new airport was also constructed.... Environment: Some 90 per cent of the Schinias rowing facility which is on reclaimed wetland was designated a wildlife preserve. Hundreds of thousands of trees and shrubs were planted.... Education: One hundred thousand Greeks received technical, managerial or other Games-related training.... Venues: Some Athens 2004 venues were converted for post-games use, ranging from sports facilities to a local theatre, to shopping and convention centres, to Government offices and a new university campus

17 SALT LAKE CITY Venues: The Utah Athletic Foundation was Venues: The Utah Athletic Foundation was created to manage the Olympic Oval and Park, allowing the local community to use the facilities, as well as host major events. Both the Park and Oval are USOC Olympic training sites. Fourteen venues in total continue to be used for events, elite training and recreational purposes. Education: The Salt Lake City Organising Committee provided Olympic-related experiences to 600,000 Utah school children and those experiences continue today with 5-10,000 students visiting Olympic facilities every year. Salt Lake also ran a One School, One Country programme partnering schools in Utah with schools in countries around the world, thus letting students learn about a variety of cultures, languages, customs, music and sport. Environment: Thanks to energy efficient designs, water conservation efforts, aquatic habitat restoration projects, recycling of Games waste, a worldwide tree planting programme and the encouragement of transit use, Salt Lake 2002 was certified as climate neutral by the Climate Neutral Network.... LILLEHAMMER 1994 Environment: The Lillehammer Games were noteworthy for their focus on environmental conservation, which set the stage for the formation of the Green Olympics. Venues: Lillehammer Olympia Park AS was created to manage the legacy of five of the Olympic Venues. The Lillehammer Olympic venues are used for a host of purposes ranging from sporting to cultural and commercial events in both summer and winter. The venues are available for public use, as well as for elite athletes. In 2016, Lillehammer will host the Youth Olympic Games.... Infrastructure: The Games allowed improvements to be made to the roads, the railway to Oslo, the local telecommunications system, and the water and sewage systems that would otherwise have taken 20 years.... Education: The International Broadcast Centre allowed the Lillehammer College to increase enrolment from 600 to 3,000 students, thanks to the extra space it created. The local authority also developed an educational programme for local primary and secondary school students.... International Olympic Committee, excerpted and adapted from Factsheet: Legacies of the Games, July 17,

18 Informational Text 3 This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself. As I walk along the stony shore of the pond in my shirt-sleeves, though it is cool as well as cloudy and windy, and I see nothing special to attract me, all the elements are unusually congenial to me. The bullfrogs trump to usher in the night, and the note of the whip-poor-will is borne on the rippling wind from over the water. Sympathy with the fluttering alder and poplar leaves almost takes away my breath; yet, like the lake, my serenity is rippled but not ruffled. These small waves raised by the evening wind are as remote from storm as the smooth reflecting surface. Though it is now dark, the mind still blows and roars in the wood, the waves still dash, and some creatures lull the rest with their notes. The repose is never complete. The wildest animals do not repose, but seek their prey now; the fox, and skunk, and rabbit, now roam the fields and woods without fear. They are Nature's watchmen- links which connect the days of animated life. There is commonly sufficient space about us. Our horizon is never quite at our elbows. The thick wood is not just at our door, nor the pond, but somewhat is always clearing, familiar and worn by us, appropriated and fenced in some way, and reclaimed from Nature. For what reason have I this vast range and circuit, some square miles of unfrequented forest, for my privacy, abandoned to me by men? My nearest neighbor is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of my own. I have my horizon bounded by woods all to myself; a distant view of the railroad where it touches the pond on the one hand, and of the fence which skirts the woodland road on the other. But for the most part it is as solitary where I live as on the prairies. It is as much Asia or Africa as New England. I have, as it were, my own sun and moon and stars, and a little world all to myself. At night there was never a traveller passed my house, or knocked at my door, more than if I were the first or last man; unless it were in the spring, when at long intervals some came from the village to fish for poutsthey plainly fished much more in the Walden Pond of their own natures, and baited their hooks with darkness- but they soon retreated, usually with light baskets, and left "the world to darkness and to me," and the black kernel of the night was never profaned by any human neighborhood. I believe that men are generally still a little afraid of the dark, though the witches are all hung, and Christianity and candles have been introduced. Yet I experienced sometimes that the most sweet and tender, the most innocent and encouraging society may be found in any natural object, even for the poor misanthrope and most melancholy man. There can be no very black melancholy to him who lives in the midst of nature and has his senses still. There was never yet such a storm but it was Aeolian music to a healthy and innocent ear. Nothing can rightly compel a simple and brave man to a vulgar sadness. While I enjoy the friendship of the seasons I trust that nothing can make life a burden to me. The gentle rain which waters my beans and keeps me in the house today is not drear and melancholy, but good for me too. Though it prevents my hoeing them, it is of far more worth than my hoeing. If it should continue so long as to cause the seeds to rot in the ground and destroy the potatoes in the low lands, it would still be good for the grass on the uplands, and, being good for the grass, it would be good for me. Sometimes, when I compare myself with other men, it seems as if I were more favored by the gods than they, beyond any deserts that I am conscious of; as if I had a warrant and surety at their hands which my fellows have not, and were especially guided and guarded. I do not flatter myself, but if it be possible they flatter me. I have never felt lonesome, or in the least oppressed by a sense of solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, when, for an hour, I doubted if the near neighborhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was something unpleasant. But I was at the same time 18

19 conscious of a slight insanity in my mood, and seemed to foresee my recovery. In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every sound and sight around my house, an infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighborhood insignificant, and I have never thought of them since. Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that the nearest of blood to me and humanest was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place could ever be strange to me again. Some of my pleasantest hours were during the long rain-storms in the spring or fall, which confined me to the house for the afternoon as well as the forenoon, soothed by their ceaseless roar and pelting; when an early twilight ushered in a long evening in which many thoughts had time to take root and unfold themselves. In those driving northeast rains which tried the village houses so, when the maids stood ready with mop and pail in front entries to keep the deluge out, I sat behind my door in my little house, which was all entry, and thoroughly enjoyed its protection. In one heavy thunder-shower the lightning struck a large pitch pine across the pond, making a very conspicuous and perfectly regular spiral groove from top to bottom, an inch or more deep, and four or five inches wide, as you would groove a walking-stick. I passed it again the other day, and was struck with awe on looking up and beholding that mark, now more distinct than ever, where a terrific and resistless bolt came down out of the harmless sky eight years ago. Men frequently say to me, "I should think you would feel lonesome down there, and want to be nearer to folks, rainy and snowy days and nights especially." I am tempted to reply to such- This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? is not our planet in the Milky Way? This which you put seems to me not to be the most important question. What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near to? Not to many men surely, the depot, the post-office, the bar-room, the meeting-house, the schoolhouse, the grocery, Beacon Hill, or the Five Points, where men most congregate, but to the perennial source of our life, whence in all our experience we have found that to issue, as the willow stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This will vary with different natures, but this is the place where a wise man will dig his cellar.... Any prospect of awakening or coming to life to a dead man makes indifferent all times and places. The place where that may occur is always the same, and indescribably pleasant to all our senses. For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction. Nearest to all things is that power which fashions their being. Next to us the grandest laws are continually being executed. Next to us is not the workman whom we have hired, with whom we love so well to talk, but the workman whose work we are. Henry David Thoreau, excerpted and adapted from Walden, 1854, h.htm. 19

20 Informational Text 4 Science is a way of thinking much more than it is a body of knowledge. Its goal is to find out how the world works, to seek what regularities there may be, to penetrate to the connections of things from subnuclear particles, which may be the constituents of all matter, to living organisms, the human social community, and thence to the cosmos as a whole. Our intuition is by no means an infallible guide. Our perceptions may be distorted by training and prejudice or merely because of the limitations of our sense organs, which, of course, perceive directly but a small fraction of the phenomena of the world. Even so straightforward a question as whether in the absence of friction a pound of lead falls faster than a gram of fluff was answered incorrectly by Aristotle and almost everyone else before the time of Galileo. Science is based on experiment, on a willingness to challenge old dogma, on an openness to see the universe as it really is. Accordingly, science sometimes requires courage at the very least the courage to question the conventional wisdom. Beyond this the main trick of science is to really think of something: the shape of clouds and their occasional sharp bottom edges at the same altitude everywhere in the sky; the formation of a dewdrop on a leaf; the origin of a name or a word Shakespeare, say, or philanthropic ; the reason for human social customs the incest taboo, for example; how it is that a lens in sunlight can make paper burn; how a walking stick got to look so much like a twig; why the Moon seems to follow us as we walk; what prevents us from digging a hole down to the center of the Earth; what the definition is of down on a spherical Earth; how it is ossible for the body to convert yesterday s lunch into today s muscle and sinew; or how far is up does the universe go on forever, or if it does not, is there any meaning to the question of what lies on the other side? Some of these questions are pretty easy. Others, especially the last, are mysteries to which no one even today knows the answer. They are natural questions to ask. Every culture has posed such questions in one way or another. Almost always the proposed answers are in the nature of Just So Stories, attempted explanations divorced from experiment, or even from careful comparative observations. But the scientific cast of mind examines the world critically as if many alternative worlds might exist, as if other things might be here which are not. Then we are forced to ask why what we see is present and not something else. Why are the Sun and the Moon and the planets spheres? Why not pyramids, or cubes, or dodecahedra? Why not irregular, jumbly shapes? Why so symmetrical, worlds? If you spend any time spinning hypotheses, checking to see whether they make sense, whether they conform to what else we know, thinking of tests you can pose to substantiate or deflate your hypotheses, you will find yourself doing science. And as you come to practice this habit of thought more and more you will get better and better at it. To penetrate into the heart of the thing even a little thing, a blade of grass, as Walt Whitman said is to experience a kind of exhilaration that, it may be, only human beings of all the beings on this planet can feel. We are an intelligent species and the use of our intelligence quite properly gives us pleasure. In this respect the brain is like a muscle. When we think well, we feel good. Understanding is a kind of ecstasy. Let us approach a much more modest question: not whether we can know the universe or the Milky Way Galaxy or a star or a world. Can we know, ultimately and in detail, a grain of salt? Consider one microgram of table salt, a speck just barely large enough for someone with keen eyesight to make out without a microscope. In that grain of salt there are about sodium and chlorine atoms. This is a 1 followed by 16 zeros, 10 million billion atoms. 20