Shutting Out the Sky Section 1-2 Quiz Review

Part A: Think about the images in the text Coming to America: The Story of Immigration. Which word best describes the author's point of view on immigrants?

• negative

• sad

• positive

• scared

Tags

CCSS.RI.6.6

CCSS.RI.6.9

CCSS.RL.4.6

CCSS.RL.5.6

CCSS.RL.6.6

Which piece of evidence best supports your answer to Part A?

• "All newcomers have a hard time at first."

• "People began to arrive in the United States from all over the world in greater numbers."

• "Everyone, from the first Americans thousands of years ago to those who only came yesterday, has left a lasting mark on this great land."

• "New arrivals sometimes settled near the ports where they first landed."

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.8

CCSS.RI.5.8

CCSS.RI.6.1

CCSS.RI.6.8

CCSS.RL.4.5

Read the excerpt below from "Just Draggin' Along till the Freedom Come."

     "In Ireland, we had to pay every cent we possibly could produce to taxes...My mother kept house and my father had no work but just the bit of land we had...Then if the year was bad and the stuff didn't grow, we suffered on that."

     "I've seen a family thrown out. I recall that distinctly because we took them in our barn. They had no place for their bed, for anything. I seen the little child, this is the God's truth, I'll never forget this, it was just about a year and a half, put out on the little cradle...They had nothing, hadn't a cow. Everything they had was sold trying to pay rent. The landlord, he was English, and the English owned Ireland then. They wouldn't let you go to church or nothing. You'd be jailed and shot dead one at a time..."

According to the excerpt, choose two things that motivated the Irish to come to America.

• Sports

• Escape Poverty

• Education

• Religious freedom

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.8

CCSS.RI.5.8

CCSS.RI.6.1

CCSS.RI.6.8

CCSS.RL.6.1

Think about the "Coming to the Golden Land" chapter of Shutting Out the Sky.

       Immigrants came to America for different reasons. For Italian families like the Covellos, America offered a chance to escape grinding poverty. 

       In Italy, poor families like Leonard Covello's didn't have their own land, but worked as laborers for others. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, even farmers who did own land were struggling, due to poor economic conditions and changing world markets for goods. Unemployment rose as successful orchards in Florida and California hurt orange and lemon growers in Italy, and high French tariffs disrupted Italy's wine industry. 

       In Romania, young Marcus Ravage was convinced that emigration was his only chance to escape the poverty of his town, and to get an education. Laws in Romania discriminating against Jews made it almost impossible for him to go to a university or start a successful business. 

       For eastern European Jewish families like the Ravages, America offered the promise of not only gold, but freedom, from religious persecution. For hundreds of years Jewish people had lived in an area of eastern Europe under the rule of the Russian Empire called the Pale of Settlement. This region included Poland, Belorussia, Ukraine, and Lithuania . . . 

 . . . The Jews of eastern Europe had often been subject to unfair rules and repression because of their religion. In 1882, Russia's May Laws placed further restrictions on Jews. They weren't permitted to own or rent land outside towns and cities. Students were forced out of schools and colleges. The government's pressure on Jewish people didn't stop there. Pogroms, or massacres of innocent Jewish people, began to take place more frequently. As fear spread among the Jewish community, emigration often seemed the only hope for the future.

  

Choose two main ideas that are supported by this excerpt. 

• Many immigrants came to America to escape poverty. 

• Better farming conditions in America led to the immigration of many people. 

• Many people immigrated to America instead of getting an education. 

• America was a place where immigrants could be safe from religious persecution. 

• Many Italians and eastern Europeans were forced to immigrate against their will.

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.2

CCSS.RI.5.2

CCSS.RI.6.2

CCSS.RL.4.2

CCSS.RL.5.2

What is the meaning on persecution as it is used in the sentence below?

"For Eastern European Jewish families like the Ravages, America offered the promise not only of gold, but freedom from religious persecution."

• poverty

• liberty

• mistreatment

• acceptance

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.4

CCSS.RI.5.4

CCSS.RL.4.4

CCSS.RL.5.1

CCSS.RL.5.4

Part A: Why is America known as "the golden land"?

• In America everyone had gold and diamond jewelry.  

• In America anyone could become rich and live a better life. 

• In America it was easier to find gold than in Russia or eastern Europe. 

• In America jobs were not as important so there was more time for fun. 

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.8

CCSS.RI.5.8

CCSS.RI.6.1

CCSS.RI.6.8

CCSS.RL.6.1

Part B: Choose two details that support the answer to Part A.

• "Not only that, soap was so cheap even the poorest could wash with it.  Not just once a week, but every day!"

• "In the middle and late 1800s, stories about America spread rapidly in small Jewish towns in Russia and eastern Europe." 

• "Sometimes the letter even contained gold pieces." 

• "Real gold, all the way from America!" 

• "A place where even a poor boy could become a doctor or a millionaire." 

Tags

CCSS.RI.5.2

CCSS.RI.6.2

CCSS.RL.4.2

CCSS.RL.5.2

CCSS.RL.6.2

She knitted socks and mended his shirts, and tried to persuade him to take his old overcoat with him.  Marcus refused.  In America, he felt sure, he would soon be rich enough to buy a new coat. 

       On the day Marcus left, his mother seemed calm.  But as the train drew into the station, she began to cry.  She clung to Marcus desperately, as though her heart would break.  At the time, young Marcus could not understand her despair.  

 

Part A: What does the word despair mean as it is used in the excerpt? 

• loss of resources

• loss of fear

• loss of hope

• loss of anger

Tags

CCSS.RI.4.4

CCSS.RI.5.4

CCSS.RL.4.4

CCSS.RL.5.1

CCSS.RL.5.4

Part B: Which two phrases from the excerpt are clues to determine the answer to Part A?

• "I never saw her again" 

• "seemed calm" 

• "she began to cry" 

• "as though her heart would break" 

• "could not understand"

Tags

CCSS.RF.5.4C

CCSS.RI.5.1

CCSS.RL.4.1

CCSS.RL.5.1

CCSS.RL.5.2