Tough Questions Student Copy



Remember that authors show us Tough Questions to give us insight into the struggle the main character faces. When we see those questions, we should ask ourselves, What does this make me wonder about?It’s easy to read right past these tough questions because the author so seldom gives you an answer at that point. But now you know that what the author wants you to do is recognize that these questions show you what concerns the character. You should pause and ask yourself what the Tough Questions make you wonder about.When you understand the character’s situation, you are better able to contemplate how you might react in similar circumstances. When you’re able to do that, you will have a much deeper understanding of the conflicts presented. Directions: Read the following story and underline at least 5 instances of a tough question and mark with a T or TQ for Tough Question. Then answer the anchor question in the space to right for each Tough Question noticed. The anchor question is: What does this make me wonder about?Reynolds, Jason. The Boy in the Black Suit. Atheneum Books for Young Readers: New York. 2015Page11-13IntroduceThis is a book about a young boy who loses his mother to breast cancer and how he learns to deal with her loss. Mr. Ray, his neighbor, and a young lady named Lovey have a big impact on his life. Model Read“Listen. Your mother was a friend of mine. And your father still is. If you need a job, I’ll pay you a couple of bucks to help me out down at the funeral home. I mean, I heard they pay pretty good in this crap shack, but I’m sure I can get close, and you won’t have to come home smelling like deep-fried fat every night, or put up with these knuckleheads. What you think?” Mr. Ray inched his jacket sleeve up just enough to see his watch, which he twisted around so that the goal face was on the top of his wrist. “Unless,” he said low, his eyes still on the time, “you got a thing for hairnets.”Funny. Real Funny.I thought for a moment. Mr. Ray was definitely a friend of my folks. He was the one who talked to my mother about the chemotherapy, and what that would be like. He said he didn’t know much about breast cancer, but he did know that ice cream is the secret to feeling better when the treatment makes you feel sick. As a matter of fact, Mr. Ray was there the day my mom was taken to the hospital, the day she left home for good. He helped my father get her down the steps because she refused to let the EMT guys put her on a stretcher.“I ain’t no princess and I ain’t no baby, so I don’t need to be carried nowhere,” she had snapped as Dad and Mr. Ray held her up by her arms and eased her down the stoop, one painful step at a time.Dad cracked a joke about her being a queen. “Damn right!” she replied, and Mr. Ray was right there to cosign.“The queen of your house, this block, Bed-Stuy – hell, Daisy, you the queen of Brooklyn!” Mr. Ray joked. “And guess what? Your throne will be right here waiting for you when you come home.”She never came home, but we appreciated Mr. Ray’s positivity. He was always that way – a good guy. And even though I trusted him did I really want to work at the funeral home with him? I mean, it wasn’t him I was worried about. It was just the whole death thing, and the fact that I would have to be around sad people all the time. Losing my mom was already damn near too much for me to deal with, so being around a bunch of strangers dealing with the same crap just seemed like hell.But the way Mr. Ray was talking, he’ll pay pretty good. And even though I didn’t buy the whole “You won’t be able to eat here” crap, I didn’t want to risk it. But still, I didn’t know if I could really do it. A funeral home?6381757302500Pages 129-131At this point in the story, Matthew is sitting in on a funeral (something he has done since he got the job as it helps him realize that his own pain is normal). He realizes the girl who was working at the place he was applying for a job at the beginning of the story is at this funeral.At this point the church was quiet. Not a sniffle, not a candy wrapper crackling, not a creak in the wooden church pews, nothing. I kept staring at Renee’s – Love’s – face, trying to find the weak point. The hard swallow, the drowning eyes, something that would give me the feeling I needed. Something that would tell me that there were explosions happening inside of her, and that she was one of us – a mourner. But this one wasn’t coming as easy. I kept watching, waiting.“It says…” She cleared her throat and looked down at the paper. (Lovey is reading a letter her grandma wrote for her funeral)“Dear Sweethearts,If you’re hearing this, I’ve moved on. And if I’m lucky enough to have any one of you sad today, just know that it’ll be okay. And that I’m okay. Better than okay. Lovey will tell you that when her mom passed, the one word I would never let her say was death. I wouldn’t let her say it because I never believed in it. Dead means finished. Over. Done. That didn’t describe her mother then, and it doesn’t describe me now. I ‘ve just changed. Like changing clothes, When one outfit gets too old, gotta takeit off and put on another. Or like changing jobs, once you’ve done all you can do, you get a new position. But to say I’m dead means that you’ll never hear me, or feel me… but you will. I promise. Just because you won’t see me for a while, doesn’t mean I won’t be there. I’ll be there, with a new camera and a full roll of film snapping away.”Here the crowd laughed. I kept waiting for something to happen to Love. I kept staring, waiting for her to break, but she kept speaking, smoothly and confidently. A tear streamed down her face, but that wasn’t enough. It was regular tears. Not like my tears.“And when it’s your turn to change”--- Love flipped the page and continued reading---“to move on, I’ll be here waiting for you, with a photo album, a cup of tea, and a hug like you never felt before. I love you all, especially my Lovey, and I’ll see you all soon enough.Yours, Gwen.”Love cleared her throat and calmly folded the paper back up.“Thank you all so much for coming,” she finished up, still no sigh of a breakdown in her voice.Every single person in the church stood and clapped for Love and for the words Ms. Brown wrote in that letter. I stood and half-clapped while watching her go from the podium to the arms of the preacher to the arms of some other old man, and older woman, and then back to her seat. I wondered what made her so strong. What made her so different. Maybe it was her grandma, Gwenolyn. Maybe Ms. Brown had been dying for a while and had time to prepare Love, and that’s why she was taking it so well. I wasn’t sure, but I knew this was the first funeral I had been to where I didn’t find what I was looking for.And maybe that’s why I stayed after. Maybe I wanted to know what she knew that I didn’t – that thing that was keeping her so cool. I mean, her grandma just died. And her mom was gone. And judging by the fact that there were no men sitting next to her in the pew, her dad wasn’t around either. And no brothers and sisters. Pretty much everything I was living every day, except she was obviously doing it better than me. I bet she didn’t go to sleep listening to Tupac every night. I had to know what the secret was.Or maybe it wasn’t even all that deep and I stayed just because I kind of had a thing for her, and today of all days, for some reason, I was feeling brave, or as my mother used to say “froggy.” Like the black suit was the cure to robot face. I mean, I did just tell myself that the next time I saw her I was going to make a move. But damn, the very next day? At her grandma’s funeral?9334505524500Page 157-159In this scene, Matthew visits the cemetery where his mother was buried. When we came here after the funeral to do the whole burial thing, one of the ladies who works at the cemetery gave my father and me a piece of paper with a map on it, leading to my mother’s grave. That’s how big this place is. You gotta have a map! I mean, all my life living in New York City, I never even thought about the fact that most people who live here die here, and I couldn’t help but wonder if most of them get buried in this place.I stood at the gate and looked out at all the tombstones, white and gray, sprouting from the ground like weird teeth. Most tombstones look exactly alike, and even though I think my memory is pretty good, trying to find my mom’s grave without directions would’ve been like running around in one of those mirror mazes they have at Coney Island.The map said to follow the road straight, make a first left, then follow the path over the hill. As I walked, the wind picked up, blowing my suit jacket open and making my eyes water. Like I said, if this was nighttime, this would’ve been a scary moment for me. I walked and looked at every headstone I was passing. Holmes, Forsythe, Briscoe, Wilson, Waymon, Flushing, Carson, Morton, and on and on. As I read the names of the tombstones in my head, it was almost like a weird roll call, like I was saying hello to all these people. Thinking of their families, their funerals. Dwyer, Piedmont, Lee, Miller (no relation), Radison, Former. The names kept coming as I walked into the wind, pushing myself up the hill, my suit jacket now a black cape flapping behind me.And just like the map said, over the hill, there it was, with a bunch of sad-looking flowers dozing in front of it. IN LOVING MEMORY OF DAISY MILLER carved into a big – well, more like a medium gray stone.“In Loving Memory?” I said out loud. “Is this what you would’ve wanted on there? ‘In Loving Memory’?”I chuckled because it was weird to talk to myself, even though I wasn’t really; I was talking to her – my mother – which was weird too. I was laughing, because if me and dad weren’t so screwed up about the fact my mom was going to die, we could’ve talked to her about what she really would’ve wanted on here stone. It probably would’ve been something like IN LAUGHING MEMORY, or even something like LOL, which she was totally obsessed with when she first learned how to text message. I stood there staring at the marble block, trying to imagine what LOL would’ve been something like, when the feeling of being a giant that I had carried with me all day started to wear off. I wasn’t expecting that to happen, even though when I think about it now, I should’ve known it would.“I don’t know what I am doing here.” I felt nervous, antsy. Stupid tears marched up my throat. A few more words and they’d be at my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re doing here,” I managed to get out, but decided that those would be the last words I’d say. Not that I would be able to say anything else, anyway. If I opened my mouth, even a little bit, whatever was left in me would come pouring out. ................
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