In your own words, what is the story about?

Based on your experiences, do you think that having an elder member of the family coming to live with you will be a source of conflict or happiness?

Provide some possible sources of conflict or happiness from such an event

What do the underlined information tell you about the relationship that the writer had with her mother?

What do you call someone who attributes mundane things such as the weather as predictions of what is to come.

Example: You dropped a glass cup and it shattered on the floor = something bad is going to happen.

Student's answer: She was not educated

Is this an acceptable answer? Why or why not?

Student's answer:

She felt excited. This can be seen from her eyes dancing and her face lighting up.

Is this an acceptable answer? Why or why not?

Student's response:

She called them offending oversights because they offended Grandmother.

Is this an acceptable answer? Why or why not?

What do you notice about the sentence structure in the excerpt below. Why do you think the author structured the sentences that way?

Mum had it the hardest though. Nothing she did was good enough for Grandma. She did not come home from work early enough. She did not clean the house well enough. She did not help me with my schoolwork enough. She did not even do the laundry often enough. I tried to help my mother by taking on extra chores in hopes that Grandma would ease off on her but somehow Grandma would manage to find something else to nag about.

Which feeling/thought describes the paragraph(s) below?

Explain your answer by providing some clues or reasons to support your answer.

[Difficult] [Affectionate] [Inconsiderate] [Irrational] [clumsy] [encouraging]

‘Grandma is coming to live with us? Why? I thought she was going to live with Uncle Sam?’ I asked. I loved Grandma but my heart was filled with apprehension because Mum was always tense whenever she was around. When Grandpa died two months ago, Grandma decided to sell their house and move in with Uncle Sam, Mum’s younger brother.

‘Uncle Sam needs to do some travelling the next few months for his job,’ Mum explained. ‘He thinks it will be better if Grandma stays with us.’

‘What do you think?’ I asked. Mum did not reply. She just gave me a weak smile and squeezed my arm affectionately.

Which feeling/thought describes the paragraph(s) below?

Explain your answer by providing some clues or reasons to support your answer.

[Difficult] [Affectionate] [Inconsiderate] [Irrational] [clumsy] [encouraging]

‘Oh Grandma, it’s just the monsoon season. There’s no such thing as bad luck,’ I reassured her. Inside, I was cringing. Rather than the dark clouds, Grandma’s words were an indication of what we were about to face in the coming weeks.

‘Silly girl! Fate and luck control everything!’ she chided.

‘Of course, Grandma,’ I pretended to concede. I led her by her arm to the room we had prepared for her.

Which feeling/thought describes the paragraph(s) below?

Explain your answer by providing some clues or reasons to support your answer.

[Difficult] [Affectionate] [Inconsiderate] [Irrational] [clumsy] [encouraging]

The next few weeks were a real adjustment for all of us. My parents had warned us about this and as much as we all loved Grandma, it was not easy getting used to having another person in our home. As I have been told was characteristic of most old people, Grandma would wake up at 5 am every morning, even on the weekends. This would have been fine if she was quiet about it but this was most certainly not the case. Upon waking, she would fling open her room door, causing it to slam against the wall before she trod to the bathroom for her morning shower, her slippers slapping noisily against the tiled floor of our flat. Crashes were bound to emit from behind the bathroom door as she would inevitably drop either the showerhead or knock over the washing pail Mum kept inside the shower. The racket she made every morning would jolt the rest of us awake. She would then potter about in the kitchen preparing breakfast, which was always something scrumptious but it is hard to appreciate it when my eyes are bleary and my brains were foggy from being awakened so rudely. How I wish the breakfast spread could just appear on the table without the loud overture!

Which feeling/thought describes the paragraph(s) below?

Explain your answer by providing some clues or reasons to support your answer.

[Difficult] [Affectionate] [Inconsiderate] [Irrational] [clumsy] [encouraging]

Mum had it the hardest though. Nothing she did was good enough for Grandma. She did not come home from work early enough. She did not clean the house well enough. She did not help me with my schoolwork enough. She did not even do the laundry often enough. I tried to help my mother by taking on extra chores in hopes that Grandma would ease off on her but somehow Grandma would manage to find something else to nag about. It was not all disagreeable though. It was nice having Grandma around especially when I came home from school in the afternoon. With both my parents working, I used to always come home to an empty house. But now, Grandma was always there to welcome me with a warm hug, complete with a hearty afternoon snack. Somehow, she was different when it was just the two of us. She never nagged at me, and she was always on my side when I complained about anything, including my parents. In her eyes, I could do no wrong. The opposite was true for my mother—everything she did was erroneous.

I soon began to take advantage of Grandma’s favouritism. Whenever my mother denied me something, I would turn to Grandma for intervention. It started off with small things like whether I could have an extra hour on the iPad or whether I could buy the latest watch that all my friends had when my old one was perfectly fine. As my star brightened with each passing month, my mother’s steadily grew dimmer.