Mother to Son Quiz

In the first seven lines, to what is Hughes comparing a stairway with "tacks in it and splinters?"

• The son

• Life

• The other people who live in the run-down housing

• The carpet on the stairway

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CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.5

In the poem, boards with "tacks and splinters" and "boards torn up" are symbols for -

• The lack of compassion each man has for his fellow man

• The ungrateful way the mother's son treats her

• Run-Down housing

• A life that has had many difficulties and challenges

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CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.5

What might "reachin' landin's" symbolize in the mother's climb?

• Portions of her life that held magic for her.

• Compassionate forces in her life

• Places in her life where she has to stop and make decisions.

• Destructive forces in her life.

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CCSS.RL.5.2

CCSS.RL.6.2

CCSS.RL.7.2

CCSS.RL.8.2

CCSS.RL.9-10.2

Why do you think that the word "bare" is on a line all alone?

• To highlight the son's brutality

• Because Hughes couldn't think of anything else to add to the line

• Because it rhymes with the word "stair"

• To emphasize how difficult and "bare" of luxuries the mother's life has been

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.4

CCSS.RL.8.5

When the speaker talks about "turnin' corners" in the poem, you can infer that she is talking about-

• Places in her life where she set new goals or had to try to solve her problems in a new way

• Places in her life where she felt she had failed

• The point in her life when she was feeling lost and needed her son to be successful

• Her need to find a father figure for her son to look up to.

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CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.5

The crystal stair is a metaphor that is used throughout the poem. Why do you think Hughes makes the stairway "crystal"?

• Crystal sparkles in the sunlight

• Crystal has different colors in it depending on how the light hits it

• You can almost see through crystal

• Crystal is beautiful, but it is also fragile and breaks easily

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CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.5

Why is a "stairway" a particularly appropriate metaphor to describe the wisdom the mother is trying to impart on her son?

• A stairway takes steady persistence to climb and it can go up and down

• Stairways are almost always dirty and rough

• One has to clean and wax a stairway to make it look good

• Stairways are often found in expensive houses

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CCSS.RI.7.1

CCSS.RL.6.2

CCSS.RL.7.1

CCSS.RL.7.2

CCSS.RL.8.1

The repetition in lines 4-6 is used to highlight --?

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor

• The son's childhood

• The mother's struggles in her life

• The tools needed to remodel the stairs

• The mother and son's memories of a past life

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CCSS.RL.6.4

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.5

Based on the speaker's statements in "Mother to Son," why do you think the mother decided to have this talk with her son?

• The mother needed to complain about her life.

• The mother wants to resolve an argument they had.

• The son wants to give up or is struggling with something.

• The mother is reuniting with her son and needed to tell him about her life.

Tags

CCSS.RL.7.10

CCSS.RL.7.4

CCSS.RL.7.5

CCSS.RL.8.10

CCSS.RL.8.4