How can you use clues and resources to determine and verify the meanings of words?

Read the excerpt from "broken chain." alfonso studied the magazine pictures of rock stars for a hairstyle. he liked the way prince looked—and the bass player from los lobos. alfonso thought he would look cool with his hair razored into a v in the back and streaked purple. but he knew his mother wouldn’t go for it. and his father, who was puro mexicano, would sit in his chair after work, sullen as a toad, and call him "sissy.” what details from the passage would best support a paragraph about conflict between characters?

What difference do you notice between this passage and contemporary pose.

In the essay “drowning in dishes,” what is ironic about the fact that danial’s first position in his new job is the dishwashing station?