Making Inferences PDF

Making Inferences Making Inferences means.... Some ways I can make inferences are... Read the excerpt above. As you read, underline or highlight phrases that give you clues about the character’s motivations, emotions, or the impact of the event. Questions: 1. What clues in the te...

Making Inferences Making Inferences means.... Some ways I can make inferences are... Read the excerpt above. As you read, underline or highlight phrases that give you clues about the character’s motivations, emotions, or the impact of the event. Questions: 1. What clues in the text help you understand the main character’s feelings? - Inference: "I think the character feels __ because ___" - Evidence from the text: 2. What can you infer about the impact of this event on the larger community? - Inference: “I can infer that this event impacted the larger community by” - Evidence from the text: 3. Why do you think the author included these specific details?  Directions: Read the excerpt. As you read, underline or highlight phrases that identify key details to infer the emotional and social impact of the events. “Our Hearts are Sickened”: Letter from Chief John Ross of the Cherokee, Georgia, 1836 By President Andrew Jackson’s election in 1828, the only large concentrations of Indian tribes remaining on the east coast were located in the South. The Cherokee had adopted the settled way of life of the surrounding—and encroaching —white society. They were consequently known, along with the Creek, Seminole, Chickasaw, and Choctaw, as one of the “Five Civilized Tribes.” “Civilization,” however, was not enough, and the Jackson administration forced most of these tribes west during the first half of the 1830s, clearing southern territory for the use of whites. Chief John Ross was the principal chief of the Cherokee in Georgia; in this 1836 letter addressed to “the Senate and House of Representatives,” Ross protested as fraudulent the Treaty of New Echota that forced the Cherokee out of Georgia. In 1838, federal troops forcibly displaced the last of the Cherokee from their homes; their trip to Indian Territory (Oklahoma) is known as the “Trail of Tears.” [Red Clay Council Ground, Cherokee Nation, September 28, 1836] In truth, our cause is your own; it is the cause of liberty and of justice; it is based upon your own principles, which we have learned from yourselves; for we have gloried to count your [George] Washington and your [Thomas] Jefferson our great teachers; we have read their communications to us with veneration; we have practised their precepts with success. And the result is manifest. The wildness of the forest has given place to comfortable dwellings and cultivated fields, stocked with the various domestic animals. Mental culture, industrious habits, and domestic enjoyments, have succeeded the rudeness of the savage state. We have learned your religion also. We have read your Sacred books. Hundreds of our people have embraced their doctrines, practised the virtues they teach, cherished the hopes they awaken, and rejoiced in the consolations which they afford. To the spirit of your institutions, and your religion, which has been imbibed by our community, is mainly to be ascribed that patient endurance which has characterized the conduct of our people, under the laceration of their keenest woes. For assuredly, we are not ignorant of our condition; we are not insensible to our sufferings. We feel them! we groan under their pressure! And anticipation crowds our breasts with sorrows yet to come. We are, indeed, an afflicted people! Our spirits are subdued! Despair has well nigh seized upon our energies! But we speak to the representatives of a Christian country; the friends of justice; the patrons of the oppressed. And our hopes revive, and our prospects brighten, as we indulge the thought. On your sentence, our fate is suspended; prosperity or desolation depends on your word. To you, therefore, we look! Before your august assembly we present ourselves, in the attitude of deprecation, and of entreaty. On your kindness, on your humanity, on your compassion, on your benevolence, we rest our hopes. To you we address our reiterated prayers. Spare our people! Spare the wreck of our prosperity! Let not our deserted homes become the monuments of our desolation! But we forbear! We suppress the agonies which wring our hearts, when we look at our wives, our children, and our venerable sires! We restrain the forebodings of anguish and distress, of misery and devastation and death, which must be the attendants on the execution of this ruinous compact. Discuss: How did these events shape the outcome of that historical period? Questions: 1. What clues in the text help you understand the main character’s feelings? - Inference: "I think the character feels __ because ___" - Evidence from the text: 2. What can you infer about the impact of this event on the larger community? - Inference: “I can infer that this event impacted the larger community by” - Evidence from the text: 4. What can be inferred about the Cherokee people's relationship with American culture? A) They resisted American cultural influence. B) They embraced many aspects of American culture and values. C) They maintained their traditional practices without change. D) They were completely unfamiliar with American customs. 5. What does Chief John Ross imply about the Cherokee’s hopes for their future? A) They expect to be completely abandoned by the government. B) They believe their prosperity depends on the decision of Congress. C) They have no faith in American institutions. D) They are indifferent to the outcome. 6. What can be inferred about the tone of Chief Ross’s letter? A) It is filled with anger and confrontation. B) It is hopeful yet desperate and pleading. C) It is joyful and celebratory. D) It is indifferent and detached. 7. What do Ross's words about the “ruinous compact” suggest about the Treaty of New Echota? A) The treaty is beneficial to the Cherokee. B) The treaty will bring lasting peace to the region. C) The treaty is unfair and will cause suffering. D) The treaty is irrelevant to the Cherokee's future.