More Resources

Richard Rodriguez, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood

Richard Rodriguez, Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood

Read Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood and check your comprehension by answering the following questions. Then “submit” your work.

1. How does Rodriguez feel about “bilingual education”?

He is for it because it is common practice in many countries.

Based on his own experience, he is against it.

He believes each district’s situation is different.

As a Hispanic himself, he is for it.

2. How did Rodriguez learn his first words of English?

listening to the nuns in the Catholic school

overhearing his parents speak English to strangers

from television

from his babysitter

3. Rodriguez felt that English should be

next in importance to Latin, the language of his Church.

the language that would rob him of his public identity.

his private language.

his public language.

4. What did the three nuns ask of Rodriguez’s parents?

that they speak English to him when they were in public

that they get their son an English tutor

that they speak English to him at home

that they encourage him to speak both languages as often as possible

5. According to the author, when did his childhood start to end?

the day he answered the question in class in English

the day he disobeyed his father and refused to speak to him in Spanish

the day he discovered that he enjoyed writing in English

the day he read the Spanish poem for his classmates