Nalyze and explain how the American Gothic painting and poem portray rural American values. Use evidence from the text to support your answer. Artist Grant Wood was inspired to draw his now-famous “American Gothic” painting after a visit to a small Iowa town. Using his sister and his dentist as models for a farmer and his daughter, he sought to create a piece that would be a positive statement about rural American values, traditions, and culture. While Wood’s painting focuses first on the subjects and then the setting, John Stone used this painting to do the opposite, first choosing to highlight what was “outside of the canvas’s frame” and then moving to the portrayed subjects.

American Gothic
Poem by John Stone

Just outside the frame
there has to be a dog
chickens, cows and hay
and a smokehouse
where a ham in hickory
is also being preserved
Here for all time
the borders of the Gothic window
anticipate the ribs
of the house
the tines of the pitchfork
repeat the triumph
of his overalls
and front and center
the long faces, the sober lips
above the upright spines
of this couple
arrested in the name of art
These two
by now
the sun this high
ought to be
in mortal time
about their businesses
Instead they linger here
within the patient fabric
of the lives they wove
he asking the artist silently
how much longer
and worrying about the crops
she no less concerned about the crops
but more to the point just now
whether she remembered
to turn off the stove.

Read the following passage: he roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless step. the pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue— but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. the once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. there were times, indeed, when i thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. which of the above ideas might be considered foreshadowing? he is wandering all over the chamber his skin tone is really pale his voice is quivering the narrator thinks he is laboring with an oppressive secret

Read the excerpt below from the poem "exile" by julia alvarez and answer the question that follows. i let myself lie back in deep waters, my arms out like jesus' on his cross, and instead of sinking down like i'd always done, magically, that night, i could stay up, floating out past the driveway, past the gates, in the black ford, papi grim at the wheel, winding through the back roads, stroke by difficult stroke, out on the highway, heading toward the coast. which literary device is used in the comparison between the speaker's experience of fleeing the country and floating in the ocean? i let myself lie back in deep waters, my arms out like jesus' on his cross, and instead of sinking down like i'd always done, magically, that night, i could stay up, extended metaphor symbolism simile theme

Read the excerpt from the war of the worlds, in which the crowd begins to disperse just before the first martian exits the cylinder.when i returned to the common the sun was setting. scattered groups were hurrying from the direction of woking, and one or two persons were returning. the crowd about the pit had increased, and stood out black against the lemon yellow of the sky—a couple of hundred people, perhaps. there were raised voices, and some sort of struggle appeared to be going on about the pit. strange imaginings passed through my mind. as i drew nearer i heard stent's voice: "keep back! keep back! "a boy came running towards me."it's a-movin'," he said to me as he passed; 'a-screwin' and a-screwin' out. i don't like it. i'm a-goin' 'ome, i am."what options accurately depict the impact of the boy's words on pacing within the excerpt? (select all that apply.)the war of the worldsthe setting is in england, so the boy's words provide the reader with the dialect of the area. even though that slows down the plot, the boy's words contain important information.the plot's forward movement is slow at the beginning of the excerpt because there is little action. the boy's words increase the tension and counteract that lag.the narrator is not close enough to see clearly into the pit, so the boy's words provide the narrator with the information he needs, which moves the plot forward.the boy's words serve to speed up the pacing of the plot because, as he is talking to the narrator, he is running past him to get away.the narrator is not close enough to see clearly into the pit, so the boy's words provide the narrator with the information he needs, which moves the plot forward.wrong? the boy's words serve to speed up the pacing of the plot because, as he is talking to the narrator, he is running past him to get away.