Also in 2021 Test A English, question 18; 2023 Test A English, question 44.
Passage Excerpt from Winter Wheat
Excerpt from Winter Wheat
by Mildred Walker
Ellen, the narrator, is preparing to leave her parents and the family farm for college the next day.
I love Dad’s way of talking that makes him seem different from other ranchers. He’s lived here twenty-three years, but he still says “back East where I come from.” He’s the one who gets excited when I do about spring coming or a serial running in the magazine we’re both reading, but it’s what Mom says that I depend on. When Mom used to say “Don’t worry” about my pet chicken or dog or new calf, it always got well. Dad is always talking of going some place, not now, but next year, maybe. Mom seems to think of nothing farther away than today or perhaps yesterday or tomorrow morning.
Mom folded the ironing board and put it inside their bedroom that was just off the kitchen. She carried in the freshly ironed clothes. Dad went back to his paper. When Mom came back she took beans from the cupboard to soak for tomorrow. Dad always said Mom could make all the dishes he’d had back in Vermont as well as though she were a New Englander herself, instead of a Russian. All of a sudden, I realized that tomorrow when those beans would be ready to eat I’d be going away. It gave me a funny feeling.
“I’ll be taking the train tomorrow night,” I said aloud, more to hear it myself.
“We can drive you into town in the afternoon,” Dad said, dropping his paper on the floor.
“There’s no need to go to town; she can catch the train at Gotham just as well. We haven’t nothing to take us into town for,” Mom said.
“Well, we don’t have to decide tonight,” Dad said, but I knew he wanted to go into Clark City. It wouldn’t be so flat as just seeing me go off on the train from Gotham. My going away was hard on both of them; they were so different—and I was part of them both. It made me uncomfortable to think of leaving them.
While I was getting ready for bed in my room that’s off the front room, I saw how it would be if I left from town. We’d go in right after dinner and go around to the stores, Dad going one way and Mom and I another. Dad would probably have his hair cut at the barbershop and stop in the bank and meet someone he knew to talk to. Then we’d meet at the big store on the corner and go to the cafeteria for supper. The train stops ten minutes or so at the station in town and there are other people and excitement and you have time to wave from the platform and then again from your window by your seat. We went to the station in Clark City to see the Goodals off when they went back to Iowa.
If I left from Gotham, we’d just drive down in the truck and wait till the train came. It only stops long enough for you to get on and you hardly have time to taste the flavor of going away.
I sat on the bed in my pyjamas with my arms around my knees. I couldn’t keep from thinking of that time Dad went back East. I tried to, and then I just sat still and looked straight at it. Sometimes that’s better than working so hard to keep from looking at what’s in your mind.
Dad went all the way back to Vermont. . . . It was in November and it was already dark when the train came through Gotham. Even now, I could feel how cold and dark it was. I held Mom’s hand. Dad was so dressed-up he seemed strange. . . . We stood there without saying anything until Dad told Mom to remember to call Mr. Bardich, our neighbor, if the cow didn’t calve tomorrow.
“I’ll manage,” Mom snapped back.
“I wish you could go, Anna,” Dad said to Mom, “and we could take Ellen.” . . .
“Good-by, Anna Petrovna,” he said, looking at Mom. I had never heard him call her by two names before.
“Good-by,” Mom said, standing still, without smiling.
Then he was gone and the crossroads were darker than ever. The train light shone on the high window in the top of the grain elevator for a moment and then that too was dark. We got into our old Ford and Mom drove back to the house. My throat ached all the way. The name Dad had called Mom kept saying itself in my ears: “Anna Petrovna, Anna Petrovna.” . . .
Our house seemed lonely when we came back to it. It seemed to be hiding under the coulee. I went with Mom to put the truck in the barn that was bigger than the house. I think Mom was prouder of our barn than the house, anyway. We walked back to look at the cow that was going to calve. She was just a big light blob in the dark, waiting. I had thought she was exciting this morning, but now she seemed sad, too.
The wind blew when we walked across the open space to the house and I couldn’t help shivering with the cold. Inside the house it was warm, but empty.
“Bring your nightgown in here and I heat you some milk,” Mom said.
I drank the milk sitting on a stool in front of the stove. It tasted good, but the lonely ache in my throat was still there. I picked up my clothes and hung them neatly behind the stove and put my cup on the sink board. Mom was fixing oatmeal for tomorrow morning.
“Good night, Mom,” I said almost timidly, standing beside her. She seemed wrapped around in a kind of strangeness. Then she turned around and drew me to her. The front of her dress was warm from the stove. I felt the comfortable heat through my gown. She laid her hand against my face and it felt rough and hard but firm. I dared ask her something I wanted to know.
“Mom, was that really your name—what Dad called you?”
Her voice sounded surprised. “Why, Yeléna, you know that; Anna Petrovna. You know I am born in Russia, in Seletskoe.”
“Yes, but I didn’t know your other name,” I said.
“Anna Petrovna Webb.” She pronounced it slowly. “Once I think what a funny name Ben Webb is!” She laughed. Her laugh was warm and low like our kitchen, and comfortable. The house seemed natural and right again. . . .
But now that I am grown, I feel the wall of strangeness between them, more than when I was a child. I wondered how they would get along without me.
From WINTER WHEAT by Mildred Walker, published by University of Nebraska Press. Copyright © 1944 by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc. Copyright renewed 1971 by Mildred Walker. All rights reserved.
serial: story published in short segments at regular intervals
coulee: small gulch or ravine
Question
Read these sentences from paragraph 2.
Dad always said Mom could make all the dishes he’d had back in Vermont as well as though she were a New Englander herself, instead of a Russian. All of a sudden, I realized that tomorrow when those beans would be ready to eat I’d be going away. It gave me a funny feeling.
The sentences help develop a theme of the excerpt by
- Asuggesting that life presents people with many challenges.
- Bimplying that the stress of major life events can cause confusion.
- Cdemonstrating that moving on from the familiar is a common human experience.
- Demphasizing the idea that people can easily learn the routines of being part of a new culture.
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The question asks how the sentences in paragraph 2 help develop a theme of the excerpt.
A. Incorrect. Although the sentences from paragraph 2 describe Ellen’s “funny feeling” upon realizing that she will no longer be home when the beans that her mother is making are ready to eat, the details do not show that life presents many challenges. Additionally, the theme that life presents people with many challenges is not a theme found in the excerpt.
B. Incorrect. The sentences from paragraph 2 state that Ellen has “a funny feeling” while awaiting a major life event, but they do not indicate that she is confused or stressed. The details in the sentences convey a sense of wistfulness, but the theme that the stress of major life events causes confusion is not found in the excerpt.
C. CORRECT. The sentences from paragraph 2 show that Ellen’s mother has moved on from the familiar and left her childhood home behind, just as Ellen is about to do. This information links the experiences of parent and child and helps develop the theme that moving beyond the familiar is a common human experience.
D. Incorrect. Although the sentences from paragraph 2 show that Ellen’s mother has learned to cook New England food very well (“as though she were a New Englander herself”), they do not provide information about how easy or difficult it was for Ellen’s mother to learn a new way of cooking. The theme that people can easily learn the routines of a new culture is not a theme found in the excerpt.
Question analysis
This theme question quotes three sentences from paragraph 2 of the Winter Wheat excerpt, about Mom’s cooking and Ellen’s sudden realization that she is leaving, and asks how they help develop a theme. Students must connect a small kitchen moment to an idea that runs through the whole excerpt, choosing among theme statements that range from narrow to very general.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- Above grade 7 Explaining how details develop a theme is a grade 7 standard. These sentences never state the idea, so students must infer it from a remark about Mom’s cooking and Ellen’s passing feeling, then link it to the whole excerpt, more than typical grade 7 work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Hard: combines ideas, needs a plan, and has more than one tempting wrong answer.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 3, strategic thinking · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- Reading between the lines major
- Evidence in several places moderate
- How, not what minor
- Evidence
- Answered from the whole text
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 4, 1179 words; question and choices: about grade 7, 117 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The quoted sentences seem to be about cooking and a passing mood, and the link to a theme hides in where the parents come from. Students who miss that Dad and Mom both left homes far away read the passage as being about Mom’s skill or Ellen’s nerves, and pick a theme built on one of those. The vague choice about life’s challenges catches students who sense that leaving is hard but cannot pin the theme to these details.
Reading between the lines major Working it out
The theme is never stated: students must notice that “back in Vermont” and “instead of a Russian” mean both parents left their first homes, just as Ellen realizes she will be “going away.” (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Evidence in several places moderate Working it out
A theme of the excerpt must hold beyond paragraph 2, so the choice has to be checked against Dad’s trip back East in the flashback and Mom’s Russian name in paragraph 22. (Kirsch & Mosenthal, 1990; Gorin & Embretson, 2006)
How, not what minor Working it out
The stem asks how the sentences develop a theme, so a remark about cooking has to be read for what it reveals about the parents’ pasts, not for its subject. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Strategy: Note what each quoted sentence tells you about the person in it, then pick the theme that these details and the rest of the excerpt both support.
Traps
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Too broad or too strong: A choice overstates, generalizes, or uses absolute words the text does not support.
- Wrong tone or attitude: Misjudges the tone, attitude or point of view, such as reading admiration as criticism, or taking a character's or subject's feelings for the author's.
The wrong answers, classified
A Too broad or too strong (King et al., 2004)
Chooses a theme loose enough to fit almost any story; the sentences show the parents’ pasts and a sudden realization, not a series of challenges.
B Wrong tone or attitude (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Hears stress and confusion in Ellen’s “funny feeling,” though the sentences suggest a quiet, wistful realization, and nothing in the excerpt shows her confused about leaving.
D Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Seizes on Mom cooking “as though she were a New Englander herself” and adds that adapting was easy, which the sentence never says; it praises her skill, not the ease of learning.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks how three sentences from paragraph 2 help build a theme. A theme is a big idea about life that a story keeps showing. Look at what each sentence tells you about the people in it, not just at its subject, cooking.
Read the sentence about Mom and Dad
The first sentence says “Dad always said Mom could make all the dishes he’d had back in Vermont as well as though she were a New Englander herself, instead of a Russian.” Vermont is a state far to the east, in New England. Dad grew up there. Mom came from Russia. So both parents left the places where they grew up.
Read the sentences about Ellen
The next sentences say “All of a sudden, I realized that tomorrow when those beans would be ready to eat I’d be going away. It gave me a funny feeling.” The beans are soaking for tomorrow’s meal. Ellen sees that she won’t be home to eat them. She is about to leave her own home, just as her parents once left theirs.
Find the theme
Put the two parts together. Dad left Vermont, Mom left Russia, and now Ellen is leaving the farm. Each of them moves on from a familiar place. So the sentences show that leaving what you know is something many people go through. Ellen’s “funny feeling” is wistful, a quiet sadness, like missing home before you go.
Check each choice
- A does not fit. It is so broad it could fit almost any story. These sentences show leaving home, not many challenges.
- B does not fit. Ellen’s feeling is quiet and wistful. Nothing shows her stressed or confused.
- C fits. Parents and daughter all move on from a familiar home.
- D does not fit. Dad praises Mom’s cooking, but the sentence never says learning it was easy.
Choose the answer
The sentences link Ellen’s leaving to her parents’ own leaving long ago. So the answer is C.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
B is the closest wrong choice, because a “funny feeling” before a big change could sound like stress. But Ellen is not mixed up or panicked. She simply realizes she will be gone tomorrow. The sentences tie that moment to her parents’ moves from Vermont and Russia. That shared experience of leaving is C.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from Winter Wheat” as shown on the test
