1. A Quilt of a Country by Anna Quinlen
A Close Reading

2. General Understandings
Overall view
Sequence of information
Story arc
Main claim and evidence
Gist of passage

3. General Understandings in 9th Grade
What is the main idea of the essay? What is her major idea?
Meghan: Great addition of an upper grade example.
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

4. Key Details Search for nuances in meaning
Determine importance of ideas
Find supporting details that support main ideas
Answers who, what, when, where, why, how much, or how many.

5. Key Details in 9th Grade
Where are there examples of freedom and oppression? What other juxtapositions does our author use?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

6. Vocabulary and Text Structure
Bridges literal and inferential meanings
Denotation
Connotation
Shades of meaning
Figurative language
How organization contributes to meaning

7. Vocabulary and Text Structure in 9th Grade
What role does the word conundrum play in this essay? What is the structure of the essay? How does she build her argument?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

8. Author’s Purpose Genre: Entertain? Explain? Inform? Persuade?
Point of view: First-person, third-person limited, omniscient, unreliable narrator
Critical Literacy: Whose story is not represented?

9. Author’s Purpose in 9th Grade
Look at the date of this essay, and then let’s talk about why she might have written it. Whose side of the story is not being told?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

10. Inferences
Probe each argument in persuasive text, each idea in informational text, each key detail in literary text, and observe how these build to a whole.

11. Inferences in 9th Grade
What does the author believe about the benefits and limitations of tolerance?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

12. Opinions, Arguments, and Intertextual Connections
Author’s opinion and reasoning (K-5)
Claims
Evidence
Counterclaims
Ethos, Pathos, Logos
Rhetoric
Links to other texts throughout the grades

13. Arguments in 9th Grade
To quote, she says, “These are the representatives of a mongrel nation that somehow, at times like this, has one spirit.” What does that mean and what evidence does she provide for this statement?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)

14. Intertextual Connections in 9th Grade
In what ways does this essay differ from “The Melting Pot,” written by the same author 10 years earlier?
Anna Quindlen’s “A Quilt of a Country” (2001)