Literature_Grade 9_With Friends Like These

2. Written Response
Answer the following questions based on your
knowledge of the selection.
To what does the author compare a person's sense of self?
What ideas are conveyed through this simile?

3. Written Response
To what does the author compare a person's sense of self?
What ideas are conveyed through this simile?
 The author compares the person’s sense of self to a whirlpool.
Ideas about who the person is swirl around him or her, exerting
a powerful force. At the same time, just as a whirlpool is
created by the currents in a larger body of water, the person’s
sense of being is shaped by the larger reality of the world and
the way the brain interprets and sees this reality.

4. Written Response
To Explain how a friend can both validate and invalidate a
person's sense of self. Give specific examples.

5. Written Response
To Explain how a friend can both validate and invalidate a
person's sense of self. Give specific examples.
 If a friend acts in a way that fits our sense of who we are in
relationship to that friend, then we are validated. For example, if
a friend loves a gift we buy him or her, we gain confidence in
ourselves. However, if a friend acts differently from our
understanding of him or her, we begin to doubt ourselves. For
example, if a friend who has been timid takes up sky diving, we
may see it as a challenge to our ability to accurately perceive
others, or worry that we are somehow inferior because we have
not changed.

6. Written Response
Infer Reread the first paragraph. What tone, or attitude, is
created by the author’s use of the first-person pronouns we and
our? Why do you think she chose to introduce her topic to
readers in this way?

7. Written Response
Infer Reread the first paragraph. What tone, or attitude, is
created by the author’s use of the first-person pronouns we and
our? Why do you think she chose to introduce her topic to
readers in this way?
 The first-person pronouns create a welcoming, friendly tone
and imply that the author and readers share common
experiences. By introducing the topic in this way, the author
engages readers’ interest by showing how it relates to their own
experiences.

8. Written Response
Connect In lines 9-27, the author develops her ideas with
information from the fields of neuroscience and psychology.
How does she connect this information back to the idea that
“friendships are essential to our sense of who we are”?

9. Written Response
Connect In lines 9-27, the author develops her ideas with
information from the fields of neuroscience and psychology.
How does she connect this information back to the idea that
“friendships are essential to our sense of who we are”?
 She describes how humans construct a sense of self based on
guesses about reality that are informed by experience. When
these guesses turn out to be correct, people feel validated. In
line 28, the author connects the need for validation to
friendship: “Friends are central to this all-important sense of
validation.

10. Written Response
Analyze In lines 74-83, the author discusses people’s
capacity to accept change. Why does she introduce these ideas
immediately before the section “Falling Out”?

11. Written Response
Analyze In lines 74-83, the author discusses people’s
capacity to accept change. Why does she introduce these ideas
immediately before the section “Falling Out”?
 Lines 74-83 explain that self-confidence is needed to allow
friends to change because when a friend changes in an
unexpected way, one has to change one’s image of both the
friend and oneself. This leads directly into the “Falling out”
section, which begins with the idea that if one cannot adapt to a
friend’s changes, the friendship will end. Without the
information about self-confidence and change, this idea would
not make sense.