Annotating a Reading

 Answer the following questions in your notebook while watching the Pre Reading Video and be prepared to submit your answers to your instructor.

1. Reading Overview: Style of an Essay

Think about the characteristics of an essay. Do essays follow certain patterns, styles, or techniques? What else makes this type of writing unique? List two features that you think describe essay writing.

2. Preview: Gathering Clues

You might use the previewing strategy without realizing it. Think about what makes you want to read a magazine, an online article, or a book for pleasure and what makes you say, I'll skip this one. List three features of a reading that make you either want to read it or skip it.

3. Connect to the Reading: Freewrite: 4:00 minutes

Write down all the feelings, thoughts, or ideas you have about Thanksgiving. Ignore spelling, punctuation, grammar, or any questions about how to capture these ideas. Just brainstorm about the topic, record your thoughts, and keep going until your four minutes are up.

4. Make Predictions and Ask Questions: Predictions and Questions

What predictions can you make about "Rice For Thanksgiving"? Try to decide what the author might see, feel, or realize based on all the information you have gathered so far. Once you've read "Rice for Thanksgiving," you’ll have a chance to review your predictions to see if they were accurate. Make three predictions about "Rice For Thanksgiving."

Now, based on the quick preview of the reading you've seen so far, think about what you would ask the author if she were sitting across the table from you. Consider what you would like to know more about, identify any issues that are unclear to you right now, or address those points that you hope she will answer in the reading. Once you've read "Rice for Thanksgiving," you'll have a chance to review your questions for the author. Write two questions that you would ask Jocelyn Fong. 

Rice for Thanksgiving

by Jocelyn Fong

Until four years ago, when cancer took my grandma, the Chinese side of my family, my dad's side, spent every Thanksgiving at her house. It was always warm, heated by the oven and stove, which grandma usually had running since morning. Our family is large, but the feast she prepared was always much larger. She cooked pies, meats, vegetables, and stuffing, which however delicious, were not my main course. My sister, my cousins and I, we came for grandma's rice and gravy.

And that's what comes to mind when I think about Thanksgiving—not pilgrims or gratitude, or pumpkin pie. My image of Thanksgiving consists of grandma's eleven grandchildren pouring turkey gravy over mountains of steamed white rice.

I believe in rice and gravy because I am rice and gravy. I'm half Asian, half Anglo and completely American.

My generation learned in school that culture was something to celebrate and something necessarily foreign. Nobody ever explained to me that culture is not a set of exotic garments and foods, but something everyone has.

Back then many government applications and forms had yet to acknowledge the shades of grey in between the major ethnic groups. I usually checked the “Asian” box even though I am equally white. It seemed like everyone expected me to fit inside that box and I sometimes worried that I wasn't Asian enough, like I was pretending.

So I used to mourn what I saw as the loss of my Chinese heritage. Grandma never taught my dad to speak Cantonese; our holidays were the American ones; and we ate our family dinners with forks.

See, my grandma's generation wasn't taught that diversity was valuable. Her parents came to this country at a time when the central focus of American immigration policy was keeping the Chinese out. Discriminatory laws turned them into illegal immigrants. They used fake papers and adopted a fake family name in order to come here.

Until 1943, the United States would not allow Asians to become naturalized citizens. Many parts of Phoenix, where my grandma grew up and where I was raised, were designated off-limits to Chinese people before World War II. And interracial marriage remained illegal in Arizona until my dad was a teenager. Needless to say, my grandma was encouraged to downplay, not preserve her Chinese culture.

Which is why I've come to be proud of my mixed identity. My very existence is a mark of progress and a symbol of my country—a collage of people with roots all over the planet, who, though not without  strife , form something new and strong together.

The now-common phrase "long time no see" came from the literal translation of a Chinese expression into English. To me, rice and gravy is a similar type of translation. It's a delightful piece of culture that arises only at that point where immigrants braid their past into the American story. And that's what my family celebrates with rice and gravy for Thanksgiving.

Answer the following questions in your notebook while watching the Post Reading Video and be prepared to submit your answers to your instructor.

1. Review: Annotation—Author's Main and Supporting Ideas

Take a moment to annotate "Rice for Thanksgiving." You might have already made notes while you read (good for you!), so now make annotations that specifically identify the main and supporting ideas.

2. Discuss: Audience and Author's Purpose 

* Who do you think the author was trying to reach (the intended audience) with this reading? 

* List two clues from the text that support your idea for the intended audience. 

* What do you think the author's purpose was for writing "Rice for Thanksgiving?"

3. Reflect: Freewrite: 5:00 minutes

Now that you've had a chance to read, review, and reflect on this reading, record your thoughts and feelings about it in this exercise. Remember to focus on content rather than grammar or mechanics.

To get started, consider the author's purpose, any vivid details, the way Jocelyn Fong expressed her opinion, interesting words/phrases, or other aspects of the reading you found worth discussing. You could also think about whether or not you found this essay persuasive and what parts of the reading led to this decision.  Set your timer to 5:00 minutes and begin writing.