Another Genre’s View Read the following texts and answer the questions to help you with your assignment. Access the Two Texts Side by Side worksheet on your assignment page and use the questions and hints to help you complete your assignment.

Section 1:

The Blackness, by Muriel Ross

Why is it so quiet? Why can’t I move? And why is it so dark? I try to recall where I am, but I cannot remember. Blackness surrounds me.

I hear a familiar voice that makes my heart flutter like a thousand butterflies. It is the voice of my friend, Maddy. She visits her grandparents here on the Gulf of Mexico every summer. She usually brings me crumbs, but today, I cannot smell anything except the sour smell of oil.

Her voice sounds worried, different from the usual cheerful greeting that she calls me with every day at dusk. I try to turn toward her, but I can’t move very well. My feet feel mired (Mired: stuck) as if in quicksand.

Question 1: What genre is this text? How do you know?

Section 2:

I hear her come closer. Her words help me understand that something has happened to my home.

“Oh, Grandma! What is all this? They are all covered in it! It’s black. Ugh! The smell is so strong I can’t stand it.” Maddy’s tears stream down her face, mingling with mine. I hear her crying, but all is dark, like a moonless night. Where is the smiling sun? I try to stretch out to feel the warmth, but my wings do not respond.

Question 2: What do you notice about the type of language being used to tell the story?

Section 3:

Dazed, I call out to my friends hoping they will find me in the blackness, but everything is so still. I hear nothing, except for Maddy’s desperation. Her sobs, uncontrollable.

“Go get some towels, Maddy. Run!” Her Grandma tells her, a quiet urgency in her voice.

“Hey little one,” Grandma coos as she bends over me. I can feel her breath on my head. “We’ve got you and we are going to do all we can for you.” All they can? I hear Maddy’s hurried footsteps and feel the towel’s softness enveloping me as she picks me up in her arms. She is gentle, her sobs quieting as she takes me to her home, seemingly miles and miles from my nest along the shoreline.

I hear the phone ring. I hear the news on the television.

“Spill...oil...negligence...BP...bl ame...”

“What are we going to do?”

I hear the door banging and neighbors’ voices, shrill and urgent, coming in and out of the house. All of the sounds tell me that the emergency is intensifying.

Question 1: What type of details are included? To what senses does the text appeal?

Section 4:

I still cannot see anything. Maybe it is good that I cannot see. If I could, I might see my home, blackened with the oil of a mishandled well deep in the ocean. I would see my friends, covered in slick crudeness. I would desperately observe the choking, billowing smoke, polluting the Gulf sky, my home. I would see my family unable to fly through the air, unable to dive into the ocean for the delicious meals we used to find there. I fear our fish are no more; they are stuck in the depths of the black, watery grave.

Question 4: What is the effect of the words the writer uses? What do they make you think or feel?

Section 5:

What are we going to do? What are we going to do? I hope the humans will do something to bring light to all of the blackness.

I hear Maddy, making sweet, soothing sounds as she begins to clean my feathers gently. I hear that sound often. It’s the sound humans make on the beach when their babies are frightened.

Question 5: What is the purpose of this short story? What does the writer want readers to think or do as a result of reading the story?

Question 6: What is the story’s theme? What is the writer saying about the relationship between nature and people?