English 10-2

Isherwood

Name:______________

Date:___________

Readers Response Journal Entries: Exploring Popular Non-fiction

The purpose of a literary journal is to give you the opportunity to write personal responses to the
text, and explore the text in a way that is meaningful to you.
Even though the journal will give you a lot of freedom in your writing, there are guidelines you
must consider when responding. You must write in complete sentences and should devote a
paragraph (5-6 sentences) to each of the following:
Additional Details

Write at least one page per entry.

Write neatly and do not double-space.
You may write in the first person, using I.
Each journal entry is worth 20 marks.
Take your time, and respond carefully and thoughtfully.
As you read and write, keep our Unit 2 Guiding Question in mind:
How does my family influence me?

First, give a brief summary of the section. Explain what happened to whom. Focus on
people, places, times, and why things happened as they did.

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

Make connections between this section and other texts you have read/viewed (text-totext), your own life (text-to-life), or historical/current world events (text-to-world). Write
down any experience the literature triggers for you.

Write about your reaction to the selection. How does it make you feel? Write about your
reactions to the characters and events, and the reasons you feel the way you do. Provide
specific examples.

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

Discuss what you think the author is implying in the selection. What does he or she
communicate to you, the reader? What is the author trying to teach you? Give support for
your ideas.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Each finished Journal Entry will consist of four well written paragraphs. You will
complete three journal entries in this unit. Please consult the rubric to see how you will
be assessed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

Unraveling a Dark Family Secret

By Nomi Eve
JULY 10, 2014
I was 21 years old and sitting with my
grandmother in her parlor as she knitted a
heavy winter blanket. It was the middle of the
summer in Israel, and that blanket made me
sweat just looking at it. I was pretending to
read, but really my head was on fire.
I was a nervous wreck because I was about to
betray my beloved grandmother and visit her
darkest secret. Her secret had a name, and I
was going to see him. I couldnt even begin to
tell her what I was about to do. Would she be
angry if she found out? Or would she
collapse?
The next morning, I was in a hot car, driving north along Israels Route 70
on a journey set in motion by a revelation cloaked in shame, regret and
sorrow. A few months before this car ride, my father had told me he had
another brother, one I didnt know about. The brother had been born
profoundly intellectually disabled and with physical deformities. He lived at
home until he was 5, when my grandparents sent him to live in an
institution.
My father told me that my secret uncles name was Raphael. He was given
this name like so many other afflicted children of his generation. Raphael is
one of the archangels, and his name means God, please heal.
My grandparents were secular Jews, but it didnt matter. With a child like
that, you tucked a prayer into his name, just for the heck of it.
The details were sketchy but devastating. One thread of the story was that
my grandmother had been given medication during pregnancy that affected
the fetus. Another was that she had tried unsuccessfully to abort.
I would never hear her version of what happened. But I did know that in her
youth, my grandmother had smuggled machine-gun parts in her babies
carriages to aid the resistance against the British. She knew well the
physical and mental demands of statehood and motherhood. And the
demands of raising such a child as Raphi in her place and time? Well, that
was another story entirely.

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

According to my father, my grandparents were overwhelmed with the

burdens of caring for Raphi and bowed to a doctors advice by sending him
to live in an institution. My grandmother visited him several times, but she
stopped when Raphi ceased to recognize her.
When my father finished telling me this story, he made me promise never to
mention Raphi in front of my grandmother. No one ever did, he said,
because it could make her angry or hysterical. He insisted I hide the secret
from her in my own life just as he did in his.
But I wasnt very good at hiding things, so I sought out my shadow uncle.
And thats why I was in that hot car, driving north. I needed to see my Uncle
Raphi with my own eyes.
A cousin of my fathers knew where Raphael was. Id made a phone call to
the institution, and the person I spoke to expressed surprise: A visitor for
him? Hes never had visitors.
I know, I said.
I asked a friend to come with me, because I couldnt face the journey alone.
We arrived midmorning. I stepped out of the car and exhaled. The place was
beautiful, a small village-like setting planted with flowers and greenery. I
was immediately grateful that my uncle, a ward of the state, lived in this
place.
We were shown to a little room and told that a social worker would bring
my uncle. After a few minutes, the social worker opened the door.
Here is Raphi, she said, ushering a man into a chair next to me. He had a
thin face, dark skin and dark eyes. He didnt look like my family at all we
are pale and blue-eyed. But this was my uncle, so I immediately started to
talk to him, explaining that I was his niece.
I am your family, I said, and I have come to say hello.
He was entirely nonverbal, but he had a nice expression on his gentle face.
I was flooded with a wave of love mingled with shock and awe. I was bound
to this stranger, and continued to chatter about my life and our family as if
this were a regular visit to a regular uncle. But then suddenly something
struck me as not quite right. I looked at the mans hands and counted his
fingers. They were all there. My father had told me that Raphi was born
missing fingers.
This ... uh, this isnt our Raphi, I said, turning sheepishly toward the social
worker. Our Raphi is missing fingers.

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

The social workers face went pale and she looked shocked, but then she
burst into a smile. Oh, that makes sense, she said, coming over and
putting a hand on the wrong Raphis shoulder. I brought you the wrong
Raphi. I didnt understand what you were doing with a Yemenite uncle
anyway. It is clear you arent Yemenite. She laughed at the absurdity and
nudged the wrong Raphi to follow her.
I watched the gentleman rise, his coffee-colored skin and delicate features.
He was as Yemenite as I was Ashkenazi, a Jew of Eastern European origin.
My people are pasty white and coined in the forge of the shtetl. This man
came from the billowing skirt of Arabia. For a brief moment, we had been
family, but now we were not.
This place is full of Raphaels, the social worker said at the door with a
chuckle. Ill go get you the right one.
My friend and I were left alone again. We giggled nervously at the absurdity.
The wrong uncle! A place chock-full of Raphis! A place full of people named
for the angel of healing. Imagine that.
The door opened again. This time, I knew him right away. Our Raphi was a
different version of my father. The same coloring. Same pale eyes and pale
skin. He was smaller, missing fingers, with an oversize head and an out-ofproportion torso, like a fun-house-mirror image of our family, a distortion
kept in the dark.
Raphi, I am your niece, I said. But he couldnt understand me. He had no
language. His eggshell-blue eyes looked past me, not focusing on anything.
He was holding up misshapen hands, stumps for fingers, and making subtle
movements with them. So I put mine up too, and let him use my hands in
his hand dance.
He brushed his stumps against my skin. I swayed with him. This lasted for
five minutes that felt like five years maybe I am still there, up north in
Israel, hand dancing with my shadow uncle in a pretty place under the glare
of an unforgiving sun.
My friend and I drove home, south down Route 70. That night, I sat again
in the parlor with my grandmother. She was knitting as I pretended to read.
But then the secret had its way with me and barged out of my mouth. I
confessed that I had been to visit the son she abandoned 60 years ago.
My grandmother knew me better than I knew myself. Who knows, maybe
she even knew where Id been that day, where I was going before Id made
the plan myself. It was time, I guess, for darkness to heed to light.
She didnt quite smile, but her face was soft. Eventually she said, So, this is
how it is.

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014

English 10-2

Isherwood

I nodded. I didnt tell her about the way I had held up my hands and her son
had used them to dance. Instead I said, Savta, you arent going to believe
what happened.
She raised an eyebrow. What?
I told her about the wrong uncle, about the social workers mistake, and
how that place was full of Raphis, and how for a few moments I had
belonged to a different one.
Her eyes widened: No. Really?
Really, Savta, they brought me the wrong Raphi, I said. He didnt look
anything like us. He was Yemenite, and he had well, he had all of his
fingers. But for a few moments, he was my uncle, and I was his niece.
She looked incredulous, but then she opened her mouth and laughed. I
laughed with her. It was so absurd. Who could make up a story as sad and
ridiculous as all that? We laughed hard and long, and then the smile
disappeared from her face.
He didnt know who I was, she said tearfully. He didnt know I was his
mother.
I reached for her. We embraced, and I felt as if I were meeting my
grandmother for the very first time.
I picked up my book and she picked up her knitting. She didnt say anything
else. She didnt ask how Id found her son or how he was. She didnt ask
what he looked like or how the years had touched him. She just continued to
knit her impossibly heavy blanket, stitch by difficult stitch.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/13/fashion/modern-love-unraveling-a-dark-familysecret.html?_r=0

Adapted from Dr. Rillah Sheridan-Carson, University of Alberta 2014