Important Question for The Summer of The Beautiful White Horse - Grade Eleven, English

 I kicked into the muscles of the horse. Once again it reared and snorted. Then it began to run. I didn’t know what to do. Instead of running across the field to the irrigation ditch, the horse ran down the road to the vineyard of Dikran Halabian where it began to leap over the vines.

1. Who is I in the above extract?

2. How did the horse come into his possession?

3. Whom did the horse actually belong to?

4. What was the excuse that the boys used for having taken the horse?

Every family has a crazy streak in it somewhere, and my cousin Mourad was considered the natural descendant of the crazy streak in our tribe. Before him was our Uncle Khosrove, an enormous man with a powerful head of black hair and the largest moustache in the San Joaquin valley, a man so furious in temper, so irritable, so impatient that he stopped anyone from talking by roaring, It is no harm; pay no attention to it.

1. Who is Mourad?

2. What crazy streak did Uncle Khosrove have?

3. Where had the family come from?

4. In what way was Mourad a natural descendant of his uncle Khosrove?

We were poor. We had no money. Our whole family was poverty-stricken. Every branch of the Garoghlanian family was living in the most amazing and comical poverty in the world. Nobody could understand where we got  money enough to keep us with food in our bellies, not even the old men in the family. Most important of all, though, we were famous for our honesty. We had been famous for our honesty for something like eleven centuries, even when we had been the wealthiest family in what we liked to think was the world. We were proud first, honest next, and after that we believed in right and wrong. None of us would take advantage of anybody in the world, let alone steal.

1. Who are ‘we’ and where had they come from?

2. What was the economic condition of the family?

3. Had they always been poor as a family?

4. In spite of being poor, the Garaghlonian family would never hurt others. List some more of the qualities that are unique to them. List at least two-three qualities.

Character sketches

1. Draw a character sketch for Uncle Khosrove.

2. Draw a character sketch for Mourad.

3. Draw a character sketch for the narrator.

4. Draw a character sketch for John Byro.

Long answer-type questions to be answered in 125-150 words.

1. You are the narrator of the lesson, The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse. Draft a letter to John Byro explaining why you had taken his horse and explain what prompted you to return it.

2. Draft a character sketch for Aram and Mourad.

3. Why do you think that Aram and Mourad return the horse to John Byro?