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Before Reading

from The Story of My LifeAutobiography by Helen Keller

KEYWORD: HML6-832VIDEO TRAILER

Sometimes the things we most want to do are the hardest to accomplish. It can be discouraging to discover our limits and frustrating to find ourselves facing unexpected challenges. Fortunately, many serious obstacles can be overcome with creativity and determination. In this excerpt from The Story of My Life, Helen Keller describes triumphing over her limitations.

QUICKWRITE Helen Keller found a way to succeed despite being both blind and deaf. Think of someone else—from your life, a book, or a movie—who also had to deal with some type of limitation. Write a brief paragraph describing this person and his or her efforts to conquer a major difficulty.

Do we have to accept our LIMITS?

832

READING 6C Describe different forms of point of view, including first- and third-person. 7 Identify the literary language and devices used in an autobiography. RC-6(B) Ask literal, interpretive, evaluative, and universal questions of text.

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Meet the AuthorHelen Keller1880–1968

Overcoming All Obstacles Before Helen Keller was two years old, she developed a fever that left her blind and deaf. The young girl was highly intelligent, but her parents did not know how to communicate with her properly. Anne Sullivan, a teacher from the Perkins Institution for the Blind, became Keller’s tutor.

Lifetime of Learning Sullivan taught Keller sign language and Braille, a system of raised dots that enables blind people to read. When Keller was ten, she learned about a blind and deaf child who had learned to speak by studying the movements of people’s lips. Keller was determined to do the same. She eventually learned to speak aloud in English, French, and German. Keller graduated from Radcliffe College in 1904.

Teaching Others As an adult, Keller became a spokesperson for people with disabilities. She helped stop deaf and blind people from being placed in hospitals for the mentally ill. She also spoke about preventing the diseases that caused childhood blindness. In 1964, Keller received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor that can be given to an American civilian.

literary analysis: autobiographyThe most personal kind of nonfiction writing is autobiography—a writer’s account of his or her own life. In biographies, the subject is a person other than the writer. In autobiographies, the writer is the subject. Autobiographies

• are told from the first-person point of view, using first-person pronouns (I, me, we, us, our, my, mine)

• include literary language and devices to provide descriptions of people and events that have influenced the writer

• share the writer’s personal thoughts and feelings about his or her experiences

As you read The Story of My Life, think about the information the author decides to include about herself.

reading strategy: monitorMonitoring is the process of checking your understanding as you read. One way to do this is to ask questions about what you have just read. As you read Helen Keller’s autobiography, note any passages that you find confusing. Record them in a chart like the one shown. Next to each passage, write what you think it means.

Keller’s Words My Questions

“Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me” (line 14)

Why is Helen Keller so bitter and angry?

vocabulary in contextHelen Keller uses the following words to tell how she came to understand the world around her. To see how many you know, match each vocabulary word from the Word List with the numbered word or phrase closest in meaning.

word list

consciousness sensation uncomprehendingrepentance tangible

1. not understanding 3. feeling 5. regret 2. awareness 4. touchable

Complete the activities in your Reader/Writer Notebook.

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Author Online

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1. dumb: unable to speak; mute. 2. deep languor had succeeded: a complete lack of energy had followed.

T he most important day I remember in all my life is the one on which my teacher, Anne Mansfield Sullivan, came to me. I am filled with wonder when I consider the immeasurable contrasts between the two lives which it connects. It was the third of March, 1887, three months before I was seven years old.

On the afternoon of that eventful day, I stood on the porch, dumb,1 expectant. I guessed vaguely from my mother’s signs and from the hurrying to and fro in the house that something unusual was about to happen, so I went to the door and waited on the steps. The afternoon sun penetrated the mass of honeysuckle that covered the porch, and fell on my upturned face. My fingers lingered almost unconsciously on the familiar leaves and blossoms which had just come forth to greet the sweet southern spring. I did not know what the future held of marvel or surprise for me. Anger and bitterness had preyed upon me continually for weeks and a deep languor had succeeded2 this passionate struggle. a

Have you ever been at sea in a dense fog, when it seemed as if a tangible white darkness shut you in, and the great ship, tense and

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My LifeHelen Keller

TheThe Sto Story ofof

834 unit 7: biography and autobiography

a AUTOBIOGRAPHYReread lines 6–15. In what way does the first-person point of view help show Keller’s thoughts and feelings?

tangible (tBnPjE-bEl) adj. possible to touch; real

What can you infer about the relationship between Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan by looking at this photograph of them?

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anxious, groped her way toward the shore with plummet and sounding-line,3 and you waited with beating heart for something to happen? I was like that ship before my education began, only I was without compass or sounding-line, and had no way of knowing how near the harbor was. “Light! Give me light!” was the wordless cry of my soul, and the light of love shone on me in that very hour. b

I felt approaching footsteps. I stretched out my hand as I supposed to my mother. Someone took it, and I was caught up and held close in the arms of her who had come to reveal all things to me, and, more than all things else, to love me.

T he morning after my teacher came she led me into her room and gave me a doll. The little blind children at the Perkins Institution had sent it and Laura Bridgman4 had dressed it; but I did not know this until afterward. When I had played with it a little while, Miss Sullivan slowly spelled into my hand the word “d-o-l-l.” I was at once interested in this finger play and tried to imitate it. When I finally succeeded in making the letters correctly I was flushed with childish pleasure and pride. Running downstairs to my mother I held up my hand and made the letters for doll. I did not know that I was spelling a word or even that words existed; I was simply making my fingers go in monkey-like imitation. In the days that followed I learned to spell in this uncomprehending way a great many words, among them pin, hat, cup and a few verbs like sit, stand and walk. But my teacher had been with me several weeks before I understood that everything has a name. c

One day, while I was playing with my new doll, Miss Sullivan put my big rag doll into my lap also, spelled “d-o-l-l” and tried to make me understand that “d-o-l-l” applied to both. Earlier in the day we had had a tussle over the words “m-u-g” and “w-a-t-e-r.” Miss Sullivan had tried to impress it upon me that “m-u-g” is mug and that “w-a-t-e-r” is water, but I persisted in confounding the two. In despair she had dropped the subject for the time, only to renew it at the first opportunity. I became impatient at her repeated attempts and, seizing the new doll, I dashed5 it upon the floor. I was keenly delighted when I felt the fragments of the broken doll at my feet. Neither sorrow nor regret followed my passionate outburst. I had not loved the doll. In the still, dark world in which I lived there was no strong sentiment or tenderness. I felt my teacher sweep the fragments to one side of the hearth, and I had a sense of satisfaction that the cause of

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3. plummet and sounding-line: a weighted rope used to measure the depth of water. 4. Perkins Institution . . . Laura Bridgman: The Perkins Institution was a school for the blind, located

in Massachusetts. Laura Bridgman (1829–1889), a student at the Perkins Institution, was the first deaf and blind child to be successfully educated. Like Keller, Bridgman became quite famous for her accomplishments.

5. dashed: threw or knocked with sudden violence.


b AUTOBIOGRAPHYWhat literary devices does Keller use in this paragraph? How does she describe her experience of being blind?

c

MONITORWhat does Keller not understand about the words she is spelling?

uncomprehending (OnQkJm-prG-hDnPdGng) adj. not understanding


my discomfort was removed. She brought me my hat, and I knew I was going out into the warm sunshine. This thought, if a wordless sensation may be called a thought, made me hop and skip with pleasure.

We walked down the path to the well-house, attracted by the fragrance of the honeysuckle with which it was covered. Someone was drawing water and my teacher placed my hand under the spout. As the cool stream gushed over one hand she spelled into the other the word water, first slowly, then rapidly. I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten—a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that “w-a-t-e-r” meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! There were barriers still, it is true, but barriers that could in time be swept away. d

I left the well-house eager to learn. Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me. On entering the door I remembered the doll I had broken. I felt my way to the hearth and picked up the pieces. I tried vainly6 to put them together. Then my eyes filled with tears; for I realized what I had done, and for the first time I felt repentance and sorrow. e

I learned a great many new words that day. I do not remember what they all were; but I do know that mother, father, sister, teacher were among them—words that were to make the world blossom for me, “like Aaron’s rod, with flowers.”7 It would have been difficult to find a happier child than I was as I lay in my crib at the close of that eventful day and lived over the joys it had brought me, and for the first time longed for a new day to come. �

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6. vainly: without success. 7. like Aaron’s rod, with flowers: a reference to a story in the Bible in which a wooden staff suddenly

sprouts flowers.

the story of my life 837

consciousness (kJnPshEs-nGs) n. awareness of one’s own thoughts

d

AUTOBIOGRAPHYReread lines 64–78. Which literary language in this passage might not have been included in a biography?

repentance (rG-pDnPtEns) n. sorrow or regret

e

MONITORReread lines 79–86. Why does Keller suddenly feel sorry for breaking the doll?

sensation (sDn-sAPshEn) n. a feeling

This house on the Keller property was where Sullivan often took Helen for lessons.

Compare Helen’s description of the well-house (lines 64–69) to this photograph of it. What do you learn from each source?


After Reading

Comprehension 1. Recall How does Helen Keller know that something unusual is happening

on the day Anne Sullivan arrives?

2. Recall What is the first word Sullivan tries to teach Keller?

3. Summarize How does Keller’s world change once she begins to understand the connection between language and meaning?

Literary Analysis 4. Monitor Look back at the chart you used to ask questions as you read.

Choose one passage that you found difficult to understand, and explain what clues helped you answer your questions.

5. Identify Sensory Details Although Keller lacked the senses of sight and hearing, she was able to observe many things using her remaining senses. In a graphic organizer like the one shown, record words and phrases that Keller used to help her readers understand what she was describing.

6. Analyze Autobiography Consider what Keller shares about her experiences. How would the story of Keller’s life be different if Anne Sullivan had written it?

7. Evaluate Literary Devices Keller was aware that many of her readers would never experience the challenge of missing one or more senses. Reread lines 16–23, focusing on the analogy, or point-by-point comparison, in which Keller describes herself as a ship lost in the fog. Is this an effective way for her to share her feelings? Explain.

Extension and Challenge 8. Inquiry and Research In the 1800s, blind and deaf people had few

resources. Many were confined to hospitals. Fortunately, this is no longer the case. Research two or three of the technological advances that now help people overcome their physical limits. Share your discoveries with the class.

Do we have to accept our LIMITS?How was Helen Keller able to overcome her disabilities?

Touch

“the wonderful cool something” (line 76)

Smell


READING 6C Describe different forms of point of view, including first- and third-person. 7 Identify the literary language and devices used in an autobiography. RC-6(B) Ask literal, interpretive, evaluative, and universal questions of text.

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Vocabulary in Context vocabulary practiceComplete each sentence using the appropriate vocabulary word.

1. After the ride ended, he still had the ______ of being upside-down. 2. Her happiness was ______, like a warm blanket wrapped around her. 3. The teacher looked at him in a(n) _______ way, so he repeated himself. 4. A feeling of ______ is natural after you do something hurtful or wrong. 5. When I hit my head, I lost ______ and my mind went blank.

academic vocabulary in writing

Which of Helen Keller’s characteristics helped her overcome her limits? What can you conclude about Keller based on what she has achieved? Use at least two Academic Vocabulary words in your discussion.

vocabulary strategy: analogiesAn analogy is a kind of word puzzle. You are given two words and can complete the analogy by identifying another pair of words with a similar relationship. You may be asked to complete analogies that describe a whole to part relationship. Here is an example of such an analogy.

foot : toe :: ____ : finger

Consider that something whole consists of more than one part. A foot is made up of toes, so the correct answer is hand, which is made up of fingers.

You may also be asked to complete analogies that describe a part to whole relationship. Here’s is an example.

petal : flower :: ____ : tree

A petal is a part of a flower, so the correct answer is branch, which is a part of a tree.

PRACTICE First, determine whether each analogy describes a part to whole or whole to part relationship. Then, complete each analogy.

1. beach : sand :: lawn : ____ 2. continent : country :: ____ : city 3. corn : cob :: ____ : pod 4. article : newspaper :: chapter :: ____ 5. letter : word :: word : ____

• achieve • appreciate • characteristics • conclude • obvious

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InteractiveVocabulary

consciousness

repentance

sensation

tangible

uncomprehending

the story of my life 839

READING 2C Complete analogies that describe part to whole or whole to part.

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