... wash and my stepsister which one's to wash and they left riding in a wagon, pulled by two mules or horses. I finished washing and rinsing the white clothes and hung them on the line to dry My stepsister was punching down some overalls in the big black wash pot outside where we boiled them to get ... frozen as had as a rock. But in the afternoon when school was out, it was muddy. My mother bought me galoshes with 2 hooks to wear, also a white rubber rain coat. We didn't have plastic or nylon then. The kids at school made fun of my overshoes, but I wore them anyway. Amy used to come out ......

• Word Count: 5522
• Approx Pages: 22
• Grade Level: High School

... I hung out with a very rough crowd. I may not have been an angel myself but that was the only way to survive in my neighborhood. Just being white was a crime and I've witnessed this countless times. I remember watching helplessly as a nun got chased down the street by a group of people just because she ... had light skin. My siblings and I grew up being called vulgar racial slurs and attacked when walking down the street for just being born white and living where we lived. As I got older the fights grew more and more violent, what use to be just fist turned into knives and guns ... stro...

• Word Count: 1595
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

... about something. My great, great grandma took me to a garden full of red roses because she would always have me go and get her some red roses from the roses patch we had. So we stayed there for a while then she said she had, had a surprise for me waiting in a little cottage near a stream. So I went into the cottage to see ... what she had for me. I stepped into the cottage and saw her holding a teddy bear. The teddy bear was white with a red ribbon around the teddy bears neck in a bow. She said that if I ever needed to talk to her about anything, anything at all to talk to bear and ... ...

• Word Count: 1002
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... . But Dee and her mother had different views on the situation. Dee's mother said that Maggie has worked on these quilts and if they start to wear out, she could patch them up. Dee thought of them more as treasures then as just quilts, but it took her a long time to realize the value that the quilts actually had. Alice Walker ... mind. The mother herself represents the oppression of African American people. The fact that she only had a second grade education demonstrated that she did not have the same opportunities as a white man. She is portrayed as the strong willed African American wom...

• Word Count: 1121
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... . She was able to hitch a ride with some family members in 1974. My mom then began to work in labor farms as well. Her first job was working in a strawberry patch farm in Sanger. That is how the story of my mother and father all began. Something so new and strange to me. I felt ashamed, like I was a bad son, never asking ... of their lives together. They then wed in 1976, and so then began their life together. Their first child was born on 1977. They described her as looking like Snow White, so fare and beautiful. They decided to name her Merna. They then had another child, Lorena, a lit...

• Word Count: 2440
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School

... could not have painted a more elegant scene. Like a well-polished gymnast, I would walk along the edge of the rock fence that extended far past the wildflower patch, just to see Betsy, my favorite black and white jersey cow. She loved eating out of my hand, and still vivid in my thoughts is the feel of the wet, slimy slobber Betsy gave me ... ...

• Word Count: 1180
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School