Name: Samuel baron Date:

An Hour With Abuelo

Judith Ortiz Cofer
DIRECTIONS: Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. A conflict is a struggle between opposing forces. What is the narrator's conflict at

the beginning of the story?

That there is not so many time of her vacation left and she has a stack of books at

his bed and she needs to read them if she wants to get into English AP classes

2. What was Abuelo's dream in life?

been a writer and a teacher

3. What caused Abuelo to give up his dream?

because of the war and the government of the United States obligated every

Puerto Rican to be in the U.S NAVY

4. How does Abuelo surprise the narrator?

he surprised that is steel so intelligent , because his body is a sack with bones

5. To confirm your understanding of the text, write a summary of “An Hour With

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 Abuelo.”
An hour with abuelo talks about a boy, called Arturo, who was studying to land

into AP English. His mother has begged him to spend at least one hour with his
abuelo (grandfather), who was in a nursing home. Arturo didn’t want to go because
he didn’t have any time, but his mother made him go. Later, he went to visit his
abuelo and was counting the minutes left of the hour he was supposed to stay with
his grandfather. His abuelo was writing something and Arturo asked him what he
was writing in order to pass time. His abuelo started reading his life story. It started
when he was a teacher at a school that was built by the parents of the students in
Puerto Rico. Later, the war came and he was forced to join, even though he tried to
communicate with the President of the United States. In the army he offered to
teach some of the soldier, but he was put on cleaning duty. When he returned to the
island things had changed. In order to be able to teach he needed a higher degree.
Since his parents were sick and he didn’t have a job, he became a farmer. After the
story ended, Arturo wanted to know more.But an old lady came to take him to a
poetry reading. After that, his abuelo tells Arturo that his time was over (implying
that the abuelo was the one who was counting the minutes) and the old lady takes
him to the poetry reading.

RESEARCH

Research to Clarify Choose at least one unfamiliar detail from the text. Briefly
research that detail. In what way does the information you learned shed light on
an aspect of the selection?
Research to Explore Choose something from the story that interests you, and
formulate a research question.

DIRECTIONS: Respond to these questions. Use textual evidence to support your

responses.

1. Evaluate Does the author's use of Spanish add to or distract from the story?
Explain, citing specific examples.
in the context to the story because like people can now what he is saying in

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 Spanish because the narrator puts like what does it mean in English .

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 2. (a) Connect Cite four details that the author includes to help readers understand
Abuelo. Explain what each shows about his character. (b) Evaluate How effective is
the author’s development of Abuelo’s character?

That he explained himself very well even if he is an old man for example he said “I

loved words from the beginning of my life

3.(a) Draw Conclusions How is the narrator changed by story events? (b) Support What
details in the text support your conclusion?

He changed from being so in a hurry because of the time and not paying attention

to the abuelo to being very attentive and impacted by the things abuelo said. Details

could be that at first the narrator was seeing his watch many times because he was

not interested to talking with abuelo and finally he was sad because the hour with

his abuelo passed.

4. Analyze The story uses first-person narration—it is told by a character in the story.
How does the choice of narrator contribute to the effectiveness of the ending? Cite
details to support your analysis.

It helps, interesting because the narrator lived the moment and easier to

understand. Details to help my idea could be that hi says it cracks me up, that the

abuelo was timing him and that he did not want to make his mother think he was in

a hurry.

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5. Essential Question: What can one generation learn from another? Both the
narrator and Abuelo experience a conflict between their own wishes and the duties
they must fulfill. How does learning about Abuelo’s conflict help the narrator to
resolve his own conflict? What does this story reveal about the surprising ways
people of different generations can learn from each other?

It helped his conflict because abuelo’s conflict was very difficult to solve and

affected him in a very bad way although he managed to solve it and he managed to

be a teacher .

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