English Language Arts/Literacy
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Today, you will read a passage from the novel The Phoenix Dance.
As you read, you will gather information to prepare for writing an
original narrative.
A young woman named Phoenix is interested in the process of making
shoes. Read the passage from The Phoenix Dance. Then answer the
questions.
from The Phoenix Dance
by Dia Calhoun
1 A cold wind sliced through Pearl Street as Phoenix Dance stood by the
shoemaker’s window staring at a sign wedged between a pair of black-
and-white satin shoes. The sign said, in crudely written letters:
Apprentice wanted, inquire within.
2 As Phoenix’s cloak and her patched brown skirt blew around her, a twinge
of excitement shot from her feet to the crown of her head. She could not
believe her eyes. The sign had not been there yesterday, or the day
before, or the day before that. Nearly every day for the past three
months she had stood at this window dreaming of being the shoemaker’s
apprentice. Phoenix gazed at the exquisite shoes with their rhinestones
and ribbons and rosettes, then touched the scrolling blue lettering painted
on the window that said: Percy Snailkips Shoemaker to the Royal
Household, by Appointment to Her Majesty, Queen Zandora of the Royal
House of Seaborne.
3 Imagine making shoes for the queen! Phoenix smiled and clapped her
hands. Why shouldn’t she be Percy Snailkips’s new apprentice?
4 A blur of movement rippled behind the glass; two people were coming out
of the shop, probably to chase her away as usual. Before they could,
Phoenix ran around the corner, down a side street, around another
corner, and into the alley until she reached the rubbish can behind the
shoemaker’s shop. She took a deep breath and then lifted the lid off the
can. The smell of rotting turnips assaulted her nose.
English Language Arts/Literacy
GO ON ►
5 As Phoenix began picking through the garbage, bright treasures shone
among the apple peels and soggy tea leaves—six brass beads, two
crumpled peacock feathers, and a patch of glue-stained red velvet the
size of her palm. Phoenix stuffed them into her cloak pocket. Her hands
were cold, like the rest of her. On the island of Faranor, the capital of the
archipelago kingdom of Windward, the late winter month of Zephyrus was
always cold and w...
