Introducing the Story

Literary Focus: Determining Characters’ Traits

Reading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters

Everyday Useby Alice Walker

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Everyday Useby Alice Walker

Everyday UseIntroducing the Story

Made by hand, the craft object bears the fingerprints, real or metaphorical, of the person who fashioned it. . . . Made by hand, the craft object is made for hands. Not only can we see it, we can also finger it, feel it.

Octavio Paz

As you read “Everyday Use,” learn all you can about the character traits of Mama, Dee, Maggie, and Hakim-a-barber. Pay attention to

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Everyday UseLiterary Focus: Determining Characters’ Traits

• what they think and feel

• what other characters say about them

• how they look

• what they say and do

As you read a story, you make inferences, intelligent guesses based on evidence in the story and your own prior knowledge.

Everyday UseReading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters

Prior Knowledge—what you already know about life, people, and storytelling

Evidence from Story—events, setting, descriptions, and so on

+ =Inference(educated

guess)

When you make inferences about characters, you’ll base many of your guesses on what the characters say and do.

Everyday UseReading Skills: Making Inferences About Characters

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At the beginning of “Everyday Use,” the narrator waits in her front yard for someone to arrive. The narrator comments that she and Maggie cleaned the yard the day before.

Based on this information, what can you infer about the narrator? about Maggie? What are their feelings about the upcoming visit?