20 points possible
Directions:
1. Annotate the text. Show evidence of a close reading through annotating your
questions, comments, reactions, and predictions. (5+ to the right of the article)
2. Make a connection. (below the article)
3. Write a 3-5 sentence summary. (bottom)
4. Write a 5+ sentence response with your opinion about what you read (under summary)
"The Hill We Climb" Poet Amanda
Gorman Has a Way With Words
Author: NEWSELA, Amanda Gorman
Date:04/04/2022
American poet Amanda Gorman inspired the audience when she read her
poem "The Hill We Climb" at the inaugural ceremony of President Joe
Biden on January 20, 2021, in Washington, D.C. Photo: Patrick
Semansky-Pool/Getty Images
Amanda Gorman was the country's first National Youth Poet Laureate.
She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" at the presidential inauguration,
which happened on January 20, 2021. Soon after, it was announced that
she'd be reading at Super Bowl LV. She was the first poet ever to perform
at the Super Bowl.
"The Hill We Climb"
When day comes we ask ourselves,
'where can we find light in this never-ending shade,"
the loss we carry,
a sea we must wade?
We've braved the belly of the beast.
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace,
and the norms and notions
of what just is
isn't always just-ice.
And yet the dawn is ours
before we knew it,
somehow we do it.
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed
a nation that isn't broken
but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and a time
where a skinny Black girl
descended from slaves and raised by a single mother
can dream of becoming president
only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished,
far from pristine,
but that doesn't mean we are
striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge a union with purpose,
to compose a country committed to all cultures, colors, characters,
and
conditions of man.
And so we lift our gazes not to what stands between us
but what stands before us.
We close the divide because we know, to put our future first,
we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms
so we can reach out our arms
Lesson Standards: RI.9-10.1. Cite strong and
thorough textual evidence to support analysis of
what the text says explicitly as well as inferences
drawn from the text. RL.9-10.2. Determine a
central idea of a text and analyze its
development over the course of the text,
including how it emerges and is shaped and
refined by specific details; provide an objective
summary of the text.
Your notes here
