Close Read: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

What is a central theme of the text?

Everyday people can provide some of the greatest wisdom.

What do the following lines from Paragraph 25 reveal about Marguerite? Her sounds began cascading gently. I knew from listening to a thousand preachers that she was nearing the end of her reading, and I hadn't really heard, heard to understand, a single word.

She is entranced by Mrs. Flowers's reading and cannot comprehend the reading as she normally would.

Which sentence from the text most strongly supports your answer to question 7?

"Somehow I had never connected Mrs. Flowers with food or eating or any other common experience of common people."

Which passage from the text most strongly supports the answer to question 5?

"That some people, unable to go to school, were more educated and even more intelligent than college professors."

Which of the following choices best explains why Momma offers Mrs. Flowers assistance with getting her bags home in Paragraph 6?

Like most people in the community, Momma has a high level of respect for Mrs. Flowers.

What can the reader infer from the following passage? She said, without turning her head, to me, "I hear you're doing very good schoolwork, Marguerite, but that it's all written. The teachers report that they have trouble getting you to talk in class." We passed the triangular farm on our left and the path widened to allow us to walk together. I hung back in the separate unasked and unanswerable questions.

Marguerite is having a hard time because she is struggling to communicate with people.

What is a central idea of the excerpt?

Marguerite is in awe of Mrs. Flowers because she sees Mrs. Flowers as larger than life.

Instructions Order these events chronologically as they occur in the text:

Mrs. Flowers requests the help of Marguerite so that she can have a talk with the girl. Mrs. Flowers explains to Marguerite that she must do more than just read books to absorb the value of language. Several books become more accessible to Marguerite due to her meetings with Mrs. Flowers. Marguerite listens to Mrs. Flowers read a book that she herself has already read in a way that changes how she hears it.

What is the meaning of the following description of Mrs. Flowers in Paragraph 2? "...her printed voile dresses and flowered hats were as right for her as denim overalls for a farmer."

Mrs. Flowers wore clothes which were particularly well-suited to her.

Instructions Match each vocabulary word with its corresponding synonym:

nobleman - aristocrat harmless - benign fill - infuse phrased - couched ambience - aura