Pre-Assessment

Pre-Assessment

The students will be given the following from Richard Nixon's Farewell to the White House Speech.  Below is a checklist/self evaluation the students will complete related to the text.  This evaluation introduces them to the concepts and skills they will be learning in this unit and gives the teacher a good understanding of the abilities of the students may already have coming into the unit in relation to the concepts and skills they will learn.

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We have been generous, and we will be more generous in the future as we are able to. But most important, we must be strong here, strong in our hearts, strong in our souls, strong in our belief, and strong in our willingness to sacrifice, as you have been willing to sacrifice, in a pecuniary way, to serve in government.

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Now, however, we look to the future. I had a little quote in the speech last night from T.R. [Theodore Roosevelt]. As you know, I kind of like to read books. I am not educated, but I do read books -- and the T.R. quote was a pretty good one. Here is another one I found as I was reading, my last night in the White House, and this quote is about a young man. He was a young lawyer in New York. He had married a beautiful girl, and they had a lovely daughter, and then suddenly she died, and this is what he wrote. This was in his diary.

He said, "She was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. As a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine. There had never come to her a single great sorrow. None ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright and sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure and joyous as a maiden, loving, tender and happy as a young wife. When she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun and when the years seemed so bright before her, then by a strange and terrible fate death came to her. And when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever."

That was T.R. in his twenties. He thought the light had gone from his life forever -- but he went on. And he not only became President but, as an ex-President, he served his country, always in the arena, tempestuous, strong, sometimes wrong, sometimes right, but he was a man.

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It is only a beginning, always. The young must know it; the old must know it. It must always sustain us, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

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Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

Richard Nixon - August 9, 1974

Self Assessment

Question/task related to the text	I don't know how to answer this question/complete the task	I might be able to answer or perform the task, but I wouldn't know for sure.	I am confident I can fully answer this question/complete task.
In the third paragraph Nixon quotes T.R. as writing “As a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died.” What figure of speech is this?
Identify one other use of figurative language in the text.
Explain how the figurative language affects the speaker's message.
In paragraph 2 Nixon uses the word “educated.” What are some denotative and connotative meanings of this word.
How do the denotative/connotative meanings of the word “educated” affect Nixon's message?
Identify one word that has both denotative and connotative meanings and give them.
Look at the first paragraph, what does the word “pecuniary” mean?
Show your own personal way of doing a close reading of the text as you consider each question.