Description
Author: Frank McCourt
Genre: British, Memoir, Historical
Frank’s mother, Angela, has no money to feed the children since Frank’s father, Malachy, rarely works, and when he does he drinks his wages. Yet Malachy — exasperating, irresponsible and beguiling– does nurture in Frank an appetite for the one thing he can provide: a story. Frank lives for his father’s tales of Cuchulain, who saved Ireland, and of the Angel on the Seventh Step, who brings his mother babies. Perhaps it is story that accounts for Frank’s survival. Wearing rags for diapers, begging a pig’s head for Christmas dinner and gathering coal from the roadside to light a fire, Frank endures poverty, near-starvation and the casual cruelty of relatives and neighbors–yet lives to tell his tale with eloquence, exuberance and remarkable forgiveness.
Level 4 Literature and Writing Discovery Guides are recommended for high school students (grades 9–12) who have acquired the skills and proficiency necessary to read and respond to a complex piece of literature.
In addition to tracing character development, students will research themes, symbols, and motifs, have weekly writing activities and culminate study with an original essay and creative project.
Each guide is designed to be completed in five weeks, which allows students to comfortably work through six units in a typical school year.
