My Dominican heritage was never more apparent than when my extended the family attended school occasions. For my graduation, they all came, the whole lot of aunts and uncles and the many little cousins who snuck in without tickets. They sat in the first row in order to better understand the Americans' fast-spoken English. But how could they listen when they were constantly speaking among themselves in florid­sounding phrases, rococo consonants, rich, rhyming vowels?

Which influence does Alvarez write about in this passage?

popular culture
her culture
her friends
her neighbors

Demonstrating understanding of jem's development one way to demonstrate understanding of character and theme is by writing from the perspective of a character. for this assignment, compose a short poem from the perspective of jem. your poem should detail his feelings about either a. his father, atticus or b. mrs. dubose. the poem must accurately trace the progression of jem's attitudes and beliefs, highlighting the important events and shifts in his perspective detailed above. your writing should also sound like jem, using voice and word choice that reflects the voice and word choice found in the novel. the poem can be a free poem (meaning it does not need to rhyme or follow a particular format). it should be a minimum of twenty-lines in length, have a title, and follow conventional rules of spelling, grammar, and punctuation.