MAKING MEANING

About the Author

Everyday Use
Concept Vocabulary
You will encounter the following words as you read “Everyday Use.” Before
reading, note how familiar you are with each word. Then, rank the words in
order from most familiar (1) to least familiar (6).

When Alice Walker WORD YOUR RANKING

(b. 1944) was eight, she
sidle
suffered an injury that
blinded her in one eye shuffle
and left her scarred. For
comfort, she turned to furtive
reading and writing poetry.
Later, she became a highly cowering
successful writer with many
bestsellers—among them awkward
the novel The Color Purple,
a 1983 Pulitzer Prize winner. hangdog
Her writing is renowned for
its keen observations about After completing the first read, come back to the concept vocabulary and
relationships and for its review your rankings. Mark changes to your original rankings as needed.
strong personal voice. Walker
has also published numerous
short-story collections and
many volumes of poetry. First Read FICTION
Apply these strategies as you conduct your first read. You will have an
opportunity to complete the close-read notes after your first read.

Tool Kit
First-Read Guide and
Model Annotation NOTICE whom the story ANNOTATE by marking
is about, what happens, vocabulary and key passages
where and when it happens, you want to revisit.
and why those involved react
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as they do.

CONNECT ideas within RESPOND by completing

the selection to what you the Comprehension Check and
already know and what you by writing a brief summary of
have already read. the selection.

 STANDARDS
Reading Literature
By the end of grade 11, read and
comprehend literature, including
stories, dramas, and poems, in the
grades 11–CCR text complexity
band proficiently, with scaffolding as
needed at the high end of the range.

764 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ANCHOR TEXT | SHORT STORY

Everyday Use
Alice Walker

BACKGROUND
Quilts play an important part in this story. Quilting, in which layers of
fabric and padding are sewn together, dates back to the Middle Ages
and perhaps even to ancient Egypt. Today, quilts serve both practical and
aesthetic purposes: keeping people warm, recycling old clothing, providing
focal points for social gatherings, preserving precious bits of family history,
and adding color and beauty to a home. Pay attention to how these
purposes relate to the tension that arises among the characters you meet in
this story.
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I
1 will wait for her in the yard that Maggie and I made so clean and
NOTES
wavy yesterday afternoon. A yard like this is more comfortable
than most people know. It is not just a yard. It is like an extended CLOSE READ
living room. When the hard clay is swept clean as a floor and the fine ANNOTATE: In paragraph 2,
sand around the edges lined with tiny, irregular grooves, anyone can mark the adjectives that
come and sit and look up into the elm tree and wait for the breezes describe Maggie.
that never come inside the house. QUESTION: Why does
2 Maggie will be nervous until after her sister goes: she will stand the author choose these
hopelessly in corners, homely and ashamed of the burn scars down adjectives?
her arms and legs, eyeing her sister with a mixture of envy and awe.
CONCLUDE: What portrait
She thinks her sister has held life always in the palm of one hand, that of Maggie do these
“no” is a word the world never learned to say to her. adjectives help paint?

Everyday Use 765

 3 You’ve no doubt seen those TV shows where the child who has
NOTES “made it” is confronted, as a surprise, by her own mother and father,
Totter: Move
in a feeble or tottering in weakly from backstage. (A pleasant surprise, of course:
unsteady way What would they do if parent and child came on the show only to
curse out and insult each other?) On TV mother and child embrace
and smile into each other’s faces. Sometimes the mother and father
weep, the child wraps them in her arms and leans across the table to
tell how she would not have made it without their help. I have seen
these programs.
4 Sometimes I dream a dream in which Dee and I are suddenly
brought together on a TV program of this sort. Out of a dark and
soft-seated limousine I am ushered into a bright room filled with
many people. There I meet a smiling, gray, sporty man like Johnny
Carson who shakes my hand and tells me what a fine girl I have.
Then we are on the stage and Dee is embracing me with tears in her
eyes. She pins on my dress a large orchid, even though she has told
me once that she thinks orchids are tacky flowers.
5 In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough,
man-working hands. In the winter I wear flannel nightgowns to bed
and overalls during the day. I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly
as a man. My fat keeps me hot in zero weather. I can work outside
all day, breaking ice to get water for washing; I can eat pork liver
cooked over the open fire minutes after it comes steaming from the
hog. One winter I knocked a bull calf straight in the brain between
the eyes with a sledge hammer and had the meat hung up to chill
before nightfall. But of course all of this does not show on television.
I am the way my daughter would want me to be: a hundred pounds
lighter, my skin like an uncooked barley pancake. My hair glistens in
the hot bright lights. Johnny Carson has much to do to keep up with
my quick and witty tongue.
6 But that is a mistake. I know even before I wake up. Who ever
knew a Johnson with a quick tongue? Who can even imagine me
looking a strange white man in the eye? It seems to me I have talked

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to them always with one foot raised in flight, with my head turned in
whichever way is farthest from them. Dee, though. She would always
look anyone in the eye. Hesitation was no part of her nature.

7 “How do I look, Mama?” Maggie says, showing just enough of

her thin body enveloped in pink skirt and red blouse for me to know
she’s there, almost hidden by the door.
sidle (SY duhl) v. move 8 “Come out into the yard,” I say.
sideways, as in an 9 Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run over by
unobtrusive, stealthy, or some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone
shy manner
who is ignorant enough to be kind to him? That is the way my
shuffle (SHUHF uhl) n.
Maggie walks. She has been like this, chin on chest, eyes on ground,
dragging movement of
the feet over the ground or feet in shuffle, ever since the fire that burned the other house to
floor without lifting them the ground.

766 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 10 Dee is lighter than Maggie, with nicer hair and a fuller figure. She’s
a woman now, though sometimes I forget. How long ago was it that NOTES

the other house burned? Ten, twelve years? Sometimes I can still hear
the flames and feel Maggie’s arms sticking to me, her hair smoking
and her dress falling off her in little black papery flakes. Her eyes
seemed stretched open, blazed open by the flames reflected in them.
And Dee. I see her standing off under the sweet gum tree she used to
dig gum out of; a look of concentration on her face as she watched
the last dingy gray board of the house fall in toward the red-hot brick
chimney. Why don’t you do a dance around the ashes? I’d want to
ask her. She had hated the house that much.
11 I used to think she hated Maggie, too. But that was before we raised
the money, the church and me, to send her to Augusta to school. She
used to read to us without pity; forcing words, lies, other folks’ habits,
whole lives upon us two, sitting trapped and ignorant underneath her
voice. She washed us in a river of make-believe, burned us with a lot
of knowledge we didn’t necessarily need to know. Pressed us to her
with the serious way she read, to shove us away at just the moment,
like dimwits, we seemed about to understand.
12 Dee wanted nice things. A yellow organdy dress to wear to her
graduation from high school; black pumps to match a green suit she’d
made from an old suit somebody gave me. She was determined to
stare down any disaster in her efforts. Her eyelids would not flicker
for minutes at a time. Often I fought off the temptation to shake her.
At sixteen she had a style of her own, and knew what style was.

13 I never had an education myself. After second grade the school

was closed down. Don’t ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer
questions than they do now. Sometimes Maggie reads to me. She
stumbles along good-naturedly but can’t see well. She knows she is
not bright. Like good looks and money, quickness passed her by. She
will marry John Thomas (who has mossy teeth in an earnest face)
and then I’ll be free to sit here and I guess just sing church songs to
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myself. Although I never was a good singer. Never could carry a

tune. I was always better at a man’s job. I used to love to milk till I CLOSE READ
was hooved in the side in ’49. Cows are soothing and slow and don’t ANNOTATE: In paragraph
bother you, unless you try to milk them the wrong way. 14, mark Maggie’s
14 I have deliberately turned my back on the house. It is three rooms, response to Dee’s
just like the one that burned, except the roof is tin; they don’t make declaration about never
shingle roofs any more. There are no real windows, just some holes bringing friends to
Mama’s house.
cut in the sides, like the portholes in a ship, but not round and not
square, with rawhide holding the shutters up on the outside. This QUESTION: What is
house is in a pasture, too, like the other one. No doubt when Dee sees surprising about this
it she will want to tear it down. She wrote me once that no matter response?
where we “choose” to live, she will manage to come see us. But she CONCLUDE: What might
will never bring her friends. Maggie and I thought about this and this response signal
Maggie asked me, “Mama, when did Dee ever have any friends?” to readers?

Everyday Use 767

 15 She had a few. Furtive boys in pink shirts hanging about on
NOTES washday after school. Nervous girls who never laughed. Impressed
with her they worshiped the well-turned phrase, the cute shape, the
furtive (FUHR tihv) adj.
done or acting in a stealthy scalding humor that erupted like bubbles in lye.1 She read to them.
manner to avoid being 16 When she was courting Jimmy T she didn’t have much time to pay
noticed; secret to us, but turned all her faultfinding power on him. He flew to marry
a cheap city girl from a family of ignorant flashy people. She hardly
had time to recompose herself.

17 When she comes I will meet—but there they are!

18 Maggie attempts to make a dash for the house, in her shuffling
way, but I stay her with my hand. “Come back here,” I say. And she
stops and tries to dig a well in the sand with her toe.
19 It is hard to see them clearly through the strong sun. But even
the first glimpse of leg out of the car tells me it is Dee. Her feet were
always neat-looking, as if God himself had shaped them with a
certain style. From the other side of the car comes a short, stocky
man. Hair is all over his head a foot long and hanging from his chin
like a kinky mule tail. I hear Maggie suck in her breath. “Uhnnnh,” is
what it sounds like. Like when you see the wriggling end of a snake
just in front of your foot on the road. “Uhnnnh.”
CLOSE READ 20 Dee next. A dress down to the ground, in this hot weather. A dress
ANNOTATE: In paragraph so loud it hurts my eyes. There are yellows and oranges enough to
20, mark sentence throw back the light of the sun. I feel my whole face warming from
fragments—groups of the heat waves it throws out. Earrings gold, too, and hanging down
words punctuated as to her shoulders. Bracelets dangling and making noises when she
sentences that do not
moves her arm up to shake the folds of the dress out of her armpits.
contain both a subject and
The dress is loose and flows, and as she walks closer, I like it. I hear
a verb.
Maggie go “Uhnnnh” again. It is her sister’s hair. It stands straight
QUESTION: Why does the up like the wool on a sheep. It is black as night and around the edges
author use fragments in are two long pigtails that rope about like small lizards disappearing
this description?
behind her ears.
CONCLUDE: How does the 21 “Wa-su-zo-Tean-o!”2 she says, coming on in that gliding way the

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use of fragments add to dress makes her move. The short stocky fellow with the hair to his
the drama or tension of navel is all grinning and he follows up with “Asalamalakim,3 my
the moment?
mother and sister!” He moves to hug Maggie but she falls back, right
up against the back of my chair. I feel her trembling there and when I
look up I see the perspiration falling off her chin.
22 “Don’t get up,” says Dee. Since I am stout it takes something of a
push. You can see me trying to move a second or two before I make
it. She turns, showing white heels through her sandals, and goes
back to the car. Out she peeks next with a Polaroid. She stoops down
quickly and lines up picture after picture of me sitting there in front

1. lye (ly) n. strong alkaline solution used in cleaning and making soap.
2. Wa-su-zo-Tean-o (wah soo zoh TEEN oh) “Good morning” in Lugandan, a language
spoken in the African country of Uganda.
3. Asalamalakim Salaam aleikhim (suh LAHM ah LY keem) Arabic greeting meaning “Peace
be with you” that is commonly used by Muslims.

768 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 of the house with Maggie cowering behind me. She never takes a
shot without making sure the house is included. When a cow comes NOTES

nibbling around the edge of the yard she snaps it and me and Maggie
cowering (KOW uhr ihng) adj.
and the house. Then she puts the Polaroid in the back seat of the car, crouching or drawing back
and comes up and kisses me on the forehead. in fear or shame
23 Meanwhile Asalamalakim is going through motions with Maggie’s
hand. Maggie’s hand is as limp as a fish, and probably as cold,
despite the sweat, and she keeps trying to pull it back. It looks like
Asalamalakim wants to shake hands but wants to do it fancy. Or
maybe he don’t know how people shake hands. Anyhow, he soon
gives up on Maggie.
24 “Well,” I say. “Dee.”
25 “No, Mama,“ she says. “Not ‘Dee,’ Wangero Leewanika Kemanjo!”
26 “What happened to ‘Dee’?” I wanted to know.
27 “She’s dead.” Wangero said. ‘‘I couldn’t bear it any longer, being
named after the people who oppress me.”
28 “You know as well as me you was named after your
aunt Dicie,” I said. Dicie is my sister. She named Dee. We
called her “Big Dee” after Dee was born. “I couldn’t bear it any
29 “But who was she named after?” asked Wangero. longer, being named
30 “I guess after Grandma Dee,” I said.
31 “And who was she named after?” asked Wangero.
after the people who
32 ”Her mother,” I said, and saw Wangero was getting oppress me.”
tired. “That’s about as far back as I can trace it,” I said.
Though, in fact, I probably could have carried it back
beyond the Civil War through the branches.
33 “Well,” said Asalamalakim, “there you are.”
34 “Uhnnnh,” I heard Maggie say.
35 “There I was not,” I said, “before ‘Dicie’ cropped up in our family,
so why should I try to trace it that far back?”
36 He just stood there grinning, looking down on me like somebody
inspecting a Model A car. Every once in a while he and Wangero sent
eye signals over my head.
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37 “How do you pronounce this name?” I asked.

38 “You don’t have to call me by it if you don’t want to,” said
Wangero.
39 “Why shouldn’t I?” I asked. “If that’s what you want us to call
you, we’ll call you.”
40 “I know it might sound awkward at first,” said Wangero. awkward (AWK wuhrd) adj.
41 “I’ll get used to it,” I said. “Ream it out again.“ not graceful or skillful in
movement or shape; clumsy
42 Well, soon we got the name out of the way. Asalamalakim had
a name twice as long and three times as hard. After I tripped over
it two or three times he told me to just call him Hakim-a-barber.
I wanted to ask him was he a barber, but I didn’t really think he was,
so I didn’t ask.
43 “You must belong to those beef-cattle people down the road,” I said.
They said “Asalamalakim“ when they met you, too, but they didn’t
shake hands. Always too busy: feeding the cattle, fixing the fences,

Everyday Use 769

 putting up salt-lick shelters, throwing down hay. When the white folks
NOTES poisoned some of the herd the men stayed up all night with rifles in
their hands. I walked a mile and a half just to see the sight.
44 Hakim-a-barber said, “I accept some of their doctrines, but farming
and raising cattle is not my style.” (They didn’t tell me, and I didn’t
ask, whether Wangero (Dee) had really gone and married him.)
45 We sat down to eat and right away he said he didn’t eat collards4
and pork was unclean. Wangero, though, went on through the
chitlins5 and corn bread, the greens and everything else. She talked a
blue streak over the sweet potatoes. Everything delighted her. Even
the fact that we still used the benches her daddy made for the table
when we couldn’t afford to buy chairs.
46 “Oh, Mama!” she cried. Then turned to Hakim-a-barber. “I never
knew how lovely these benches are. You can feel the rump prints,”
she said, running her hands underneath her and along the bench.
Then she gave a sigh and her hand closed over Grandma Dee’s butter
dish. “That’s it!” she said. “I knew there was something I wanted to
ask you if I could have.” She jumped up from the table and went over
in the corner where the churn stood, the milk in it clabber by now.
She looked at the churn and looked at it.
47 “This churn top is what I need,” she said. “Didn’t Uncle Buddy
whittle it out of a tree you all used to have?”
48 “Yes,” I said.
49 “Uh huh,” she said happily. “And I want the dasher, too.”
50 “Uncle Buddy whittle that, too?” asked the barber.
51 Dee (Wangero) looked up at me.
52 “Aunt Dee’s first husband whittled the dash,” said Maggie so low
you almost couldn’t hear her. “His name was Henry, but they called
him Stash.”
53 “Maggie’s brain is like an elephant’s,” Wangero said, laughing. “I
can use the churn top as a centerpiece for the alcove table,” she said,
sliding a plate over the churn, “and I’ll think of something artistic to
do with the dasher.”

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54 When she finished wrapping the dasher the handle stuck out. I
took it for a moment in my hands. You didn’t even have to look close
to see where hands pushing the dasher up and down to make butter
had left a kind of sink in the wood. In fact, there were a lot of small
sinks; you could see where thumbs and fingers had sunk into the
wood. It was beautiful light yellow wood, from a tree that grew in the
yard where Big Dee and Stash had lived.
55 After dinner Dee (Wangero) went to the trunk at the foot of my bed
and started rifling through it. Maggie hung back in the kitchen over the
dishpan. Out came Wangero with two quilts. They had been pieced by
Grandma Dee and then Big Dee and me had hung them on the quilt
frames on the front porch and quilted them. One was in the Lone Star
pattern. The other was Walk Around the Mountain. In both of them

4. collards n. leaves of the collard plant, often referred to as “collard greens.”

5. chitlins n. chitterlings, a pork dish popular among southern African Americans.

770 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 were scraps of dresses Grandma Dee had worn fifty and more years
ago. Bits and pieces of Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts. And one teeny NOTES

faded blue piece, about the size of a penny matchbox, that was from
CLOSE READ
Great Grandpa Ezra’s uniform that he wore in the Civil War. ANNOTATE: In paragraph
56 “Mama,“ Wangero said sweet as a bird. “Can I have these old 55, mark details that
quilts?“ describe the fabrics used
57 I heard something fall in the kitchen, and a minute later the kitchen in the quilts.
door slammed. QUESTION: Why does
58 “Why don’t you take one or two of the others?” I asked. “These the author include this
old things was just done by me and Big Dee from some tops your information?
grandma pieced before she died.”
CONCLUDE: How does this
59 “No,” said Wangero. “I don’t want those. They are stitched around
information affect readers’
the borders by machine.” sympathies?
60 “That’ll make them last better,” I said.
61 “That’s not the point,” said Wangero. “These are all pieces of
dresses Grandma used to wear. She did all this stitching by hand.
Imagine!” She held the quilts securely in her arms, stroking them.
62 “Some of the pieces, like those lavender ones, come from old
clothes her mother handed down to her,” I said, moving up to touch
the quilts. Dee (Wangero) moved back just enough so that l couldn’t
reach the quilts. They already belonged to her.
63 “Imagine!” she breathed again, clutching them closely to her
bosom.
64 “The truth is,” l said, “I promised to give them quilts to Maggie,
for when she marries John Thomas.”
65 She gasped like a bee had stung her.
66 “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!” she said. “She’d probably
be backward enough to put them to everyday use.”
67 “I reckon she would,” I said. “God knows I been saving ’em for
long enough with nobody using ’em. I hope she will!” l didn’t want
to bring up how I had offered Dee (Wangero) a quilt when
she went away to college. Then she had told me they were
old-fashioned, out of style.
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68 “But they’re priceless!” she was saying now, furiously; for

she has a temper. “Maggie would put them on the bed and in
five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!”
69 “She can always make some more,” I said. “Maggie knows
how to quilt.”
70 Dee (Wangero) looked at me with hatred. “You just will not
understand. The point is these quilts, these quilts!”
71 “Well,” I said, stumped. “What would you do with them?”
72 “Hang them,” she said. As if that was the only thing you
could do with quilts.
73 Maggie by now was standing in the door. I could almost
hear the sound her feet made as they scraped over each other.
74 “She can have them, Mama,” she said, like somebody used
to never winning anything, or having anything reserved
for her.

Everyday Use 771

 75 “I can ’member Grandma Dee without the quilts.”
NOTES 76 I looked at her hard. She had filled her bottom lip with
hangdog (HANG DAWG) adj. checkerberry snuff and it gave her face a kind of dopey, hangdog
sad; ashamed; guilty look. It was Grandma Dee and Big Dee who taught her how to quilt
herself. She stood there with her scarred hands hidden in the folds
CLOSE READ of her skirt. She looked at her sister with something like fear but she
ANNOTATE: In paragraph wasn’t mad at her. This was Maggie’s portion. This was the way she
76, mark the sentences knew God to work.
in which Mama expresses 77 When I looked at her like that something hit me in the top of my
Maggie’s feelings and head and ran down to the soles of my feet. Just like when I’m in
thoughts.
church and the spirit of God touches me and I get happy and shout.
QUESTION: Why does the I did something I never had done before: hugged Maggie to me,
author choose to have then dragged her on into the room, snatched the quilts out of Miss
Mama express Maggie’s Wangero’s hands and dumped them into Maggie’s lap. Maggie just
feelings? sat there on my bed with her mouth open.
CONCLUDE: How does 78 “Take one or two of the others,” I said to Dee.
this choice emphasize 79 But she turned without a word and went out to Hakim-a-barber.
differences in Mama’s 80 “You just don’t understand,’“ she said, as Maggie and I came out
relationships with her two to the car.
daughters?
81 “What don’t I understand?” I wanted to know.
82 “Your heritage,” she said. And then she turned to Maggie, kissed
her, and said, “You ought to try to make something of yourself, too,
Maggie. It’s really a new day for us. But from the way you and Mama
still live you’d never know it.”
83 She put on some sunglasses that hid everything above the tip of
her nose and her chin.
84 Maggie smiled; maybe at the sunglasses. But a real smile, not
scared. After we watched the car dust settle I asked Maggie to bring
me a dip of snuff. And then the two of us sat there just enjoying, until
it was time to go in the house and go to bed. ❧
“Everyday Use” from In Love & Trouble: Stories of Black Women by Alice Walker. Copyright © 1973, and renewed 2001 by
Alice Walker. Reprinted by permission of The Joy Harris Literary Agency, Inc.

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MEDIA CONNECTION

Discuss It How does listening to someone tell this

story help you understand Mama and the tensions among
the characters?
Write your response before sharing your ideas.

Alice Walker’s “Everyday Use”

772 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 Comprehension Check
Complete the following items after you finish your first read.

1. Early in the story, how does Mama describe herself?

2. According to Mama, how did Dee treat her and Maggie when she came home
from college?

3. Who arrives with Dee/Wangero on this visit?

4. Why has Dee changed her name to Wangero?

5. What household objects does Dee/Wangero want? Which ones does Mama give her?
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6. Notebook To confirm your understanding, write a summary of “Everyday Use.”

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 story?

Research to Explore Conduct research on an aspect of the text you find interesting. For
example, you may want to learn about the Black Power movement of the 1970s that led to
the cultural nationalism Dee/Wangero and Asalamalakim find appealing.

Everyday Use 773

 making meaning

Close Read the Text

1. This model, from paragraph 10 of the text, shows two sample
annotations, along with questions and conclusions. Close read
the passage, and find another detail to annotate. Then, write a
question and your conclusion.
EVERYDAY USE

ANNOTATE: These details contrast the two

daughters’ reactions to the fire.
QUESTION: Why does the author include
these details?
ANNOTATE:
CONCLUDE: The details emphasize Maggie’s
This question
involvement and Dee’s distance.
is sarcastic and
funny.
Sometimes I can still . . . feel Maggie’s QUESTION: What
arms sticking to me, her hair smoking does this detail
reveal about
and her dress falling off her in little black
Mama?
papery flakes. . . . And Dee. I see her
CONCLUDE:
standing off under the sweet gum tree. . . .
Mama is not naive;
Why don’t you do a dance around the she has good
ashes? I’d want to ask her. insight about her
daughters.

Tool Kit 2. For more practice, go back into the text and complete the close-read notes.
Close-Read Guide and 3. Revisit a section of the text you found important during your first read.
Model Annotation Read this section closely, and annotate what you notice. Ask yourself
questions such as “Why did the author make this choice?” What can you
conclude?

Cite textual evidence

Analyze the Text to support your answers.

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Notebook Respond to these questions.
1. Make Inferences What does Mama’s dream of being on Johnny Carson’s
show illustrate about her relationship to Dee/Wangero?
2. (a) Interpret What do the quilts symbolize, or represent?
(b) Compare and Contrast In what ways do the quilts hold different
meanings for Dee/Wangero and for Maggie?
 Standards 3. (a) What does Dee/Wangero plan to do with the items that she requests?
Reading Literature (b) Evaluate What is ironic about her request for these objects and her
• Cite strong and thorough textual
evidence to support analysis of professed interest in her heritage?
what the text says explicitly as well 4. Historical Perspectives How do Dee/Wangero’s and her companion’s
as inferences drawn from the text,
including determining where the text clothing and overall appearances reflect a change in African American
leaves matters uncertain. culture in the 1960s?
• Analyze the impact of the author’s
choices regarding how to develop 5. Essential Question: What do stories reveal about the human
and relate elements of a story or condition? What has reading this story taught you about family
drama. relationships?

774 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Analyze Craft and Structure

Literary Elements: Character Writers reveal key messages or themes in
stories through characterization—what characters say, what they do, and
how they interact with other characters.

Short stories often feature a main character as a first-person narrator. It is

through this character’s eyes that readers learn about events and perceive
the other characters. This first-person narrator serves as a guide through the
world of the story, presenting his or her thoughts, feelings, observations,
and perceptions. Inevitably, every narrator comes with biases, or leanings, so
readers have to decide how much they trust the narrator’s interpretation of
events. The perspective the first-person narrator brings to the story is a key
element that leads readers to the story’s themes, or insights about life.

CITE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE

Practice to support your answers.

Notebook Respond to these questions.

1. (a) Who is the narrator of “Everyday Use”? (b) Identify three thoughts and feelings
that the narrator shares with readers. (c) Do you trust this narrator’s account of
people and events? Explain.
2. In the chart, record details about Mama and Dee/Wangero related to their
appearances, life experiences, relationships, and values. Then, identify a possible
theme that Walker develops by setting up contrasts between these two characters.

MAMA DEE (WANGERO)

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THEME:

3. Think about the words and actions of Hakim-a-barber. How does the inclusion of
this character help develop other characters in the story?

Everyday Use 775

 LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Concept Vocabulary
sidle furtive awkward

shuffle cowering    hangdog

EVERYDAY USE

Why These Words? These concept vocabulary words help reveal the
tentative way Maggie acts in the story. Mama describes Maggie as cowering
behind her and as moving her feet in a shuffle. These words describe a
person who wants to be invisible.

1. How do the concept vocabulary words help you understand why Mama
and Dee/Wangero have different attitudes toward Maggie?

2. What other words in the selection connect to this concept?

Practice
Notebook The concept vocabulary words appear in “Everyday Use.”
1. Write three sentences, using two of the concept words in each sentence,
to demonstrate your understanding of the words’ meanings.
2. Choose an antonym—a word with an opposite meaning—for each
concept vocabulary word. How would the story be different if these words
were used to describe Maggie?

Word Study
 WORD NETWORK Exocentric Compounds Most compound words contain at least one word
part that connects directly to what is being named or described. For example,
Add words related to the
the compound word sunflower names a type of flower. Some compound
human condition from the
text to your Word Network. words, however, connect two words of which neither names the thing or

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person described. These exocentric compound words are often used to
name or describe people—for example, tattletale, birdbrain, and pickpocket.
In “Everyday Use,” the narrator describes Maggie as having “a dopey,
hangdog look.” Hangdog means “guilty” or “ashamed.”

1. Use a dictionary to find five examples of exocentric compounds. Record

 STANDARDS
them here.
Language
• Apply the understanding that
usage is a matter of convention, can
change over time, and is sometimes
contested.
• Resolve issues of complex
or contested usage, consulting
references as needed. 2. Use each of your choices in a sentence. Be sure to include context clues
• Vary syntax for effect, consulting that hint at each word’s meaning.
references for guidance as needed;
apply an understanding of syntax
to the study of complex texts when
reading.

776 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Conventions and Style

Dialect Writers may use dialect and regionalisms to add depth to characters
and settings.

• Dialect is a way of using English that is specific to a certain area or

group of people.
• A regionalism is an expression common to a specific place.

These nonstandard forms of language can make characters more realistic by

reflecting culture, customs, and educational levels.

Read It
1. Study the examples of dialogue in this chart. Then, use formal English to
rewrite each sentence. One example has been done for you.

From “Everyday Use” Formal English

“You know as well as me you was named after your “You know as well as I do that you were named after
aunt Dicie.” (paragraph 28) your aunt Dicie.”

“I’ll get used to it. . . . Ream it out again.”

(paragraph 41)

“The truth is . . . I promised to give them quilts

to Maggie, for when she marries John Thomas.”
(paragraph 64)

“I reckon she would. . . . God knows I been saving

’em for long enough with nobody using ’em.”
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(paragraph 67)

2. Connect to Style Find one other example of dialect or regionalism in

“Everyday Use.” Explain how the example develops a character or the
setting.

Write It
Notebook Use examples from “Everyday Use” to describe what would
be lost if Alice Walker had chosen to write dialogue using the same style that
she uses for description.

Everyday Use 777

 EFFECTIVE EXPRESSION

Writing to Sources
Narrative writing would be dull if it only reported basic events. However, vivid
descriptive details about setting and characters can bring a narrative to life
and engage readers. For example, recall how the narrator in “Everyday Use”
describes Maggie: “Have you ever seen a lame animal, perhaps a dog run
EVERYDAY USE
over by some careless person rich enough to own a car, sidle up to someone
who is ignorant enough to be kind to him?” This description helps readers
picture precisely how Maggie moves and acts around other people.

Assignment
Write a short narrative of 500 words or less in which you retell an event
from “Everyday Use” from the perspective of a character other than
Mama. You may choose to describe Dee’s visit or an event from the past.
Make sure your narrative is consistent with the characters and setting
created by Walker. Include descriptive details that illustrate the character’s
thoughts and engage the reader.
Include these elements in your narrative:
• a narrator other than Mama from “Everyday Use”
• a clear description of the event, including how the narrator feels
about it
• dialect or regionalisms in dialogue or narration, as appropriate

Vocabulary Connection Consider including a few of the concept

vocabulary words in your narrative.

sidle furtive awkward

shuffle cowering hangdog

 STANDARDS
Writing
Reflect on Your Writing
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Write narratives to develop real or
imagined experiences or events using After you have written your short narrative, answer these questions.
effective technique, well-chosen
details, and well-structured event 1. How did writing your narrative strengthen your understanding of
sequences.
Walker’s story?
Speaking and Listening
• Initiate and participate effectively
in a range of collaborative
discussions with diverse partners
on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and 2. What part of writing this narrative was most challenging, and how did
issues, building on others’ ideas and you handle it?
expressing their own clearly and
persuasively.
• Come to discussions prepared,
having read and researched material
3. Why These Words? The words you choose make a difference in your
under study; explicitly draw on that
preparation by referring to evidence writing. Which words did you choose to create vivid descriptive details?
from texts and other research on
the topic or issue to stimulate a
thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange
of ideas.

778 UNIT 6 • ORDINARY LIVES, EXTRAORDINARY TALES

 ESSENTIAL QUESTION: What do stories reveal about the human condition?

Speaking and Listening

Assignment
Have a partner discussion about what factors lead a person to embrace,
reject, or feel neutral about his or her heritage. Before working with your
partner, think about the two daughters’ perspectives on heritage, and
take notes about how the text inspires your own thoughts on the subject.
As you discuss, build on one another’s ideas, asking respectful questions,
listening politely, and adding your own insights. At the end of your
discussion, create an extended definition of heritage. Follow these steps to
complete the assignment.

1. Focus on the Text Choose examples from the story.

• Consider ways the author indirectly describes characters.
• Compare and contrast the three women’s attitudes toward objects in
the house.
• Discuss what the story’s resolution says about heritage.
2. Share Personal Experiences Share your own experiences with heritage
and traditions in your family. Consider questions such as the following:
• What are some objects in your home or family that are part of a
heritage or tradition?
• How and when are these objects used? Every day? Only on holidays?
• Does everyone recognize the objects as special?

3. Craft an Extended Definition To create an extended definition of

heritage, come to a consensus about the most important ideas to include.
• Summarize your notes in three main points.
• Summarize your personal experiences with heritage.
• Draft and refine an extended definition that includes all of your most
important thoughts.

4. Evaluate the Activity When you have finished, use the evaluation
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guide to analyze the way that you and your partner worked together to
discuss a topic and create an extended definition.

Evaluation Guide  evidence log

Rate each statement on a scale of 1 (not demonstrated) to 5 (demonstrated). Before moving on to a

new selection, go to your
Both partners contributed equally to the discussion. Evidence Log and record
what you learned from
Partners commented upon the text and also shared personal experiences. “Everyday Use.”

Partners were attentive to and respectful of the thoughts presented.

Partners worked collaboratively to create an extended definition of

heritage.

Everyday Use 779