Chapter 9

This chapter covers six months in 1978.  The political-social tension is beginning to touch citizens’ lives.  Reza is caught in the fray.  Reza’s teacher, Mr. Mehdian, helps to untangle the political events.

1. The responsibility of educators 
2. The responsibility of politicians 
3. The value of education

1. What news does Mostafa bring to his family?
2. Who stops Reza and why?
3. What major points do Reza and Farid learn from their conversation with Mr. Mehdian?
4.  Reza tells Hassan that Mr. Mehdian “is different.”  Discuss Mr. Mehdian’s role for Reza.
5. Analyze the symbolic meaning of the final “sketching” scene in this chapter.

Sketch the picture that Mr. Mehdian draws at the end of the chapter.

Selected text:

1. “Is everyone mad at Shah,” Hassan asked, “because he doesn’t give us our share of the oil money?”      
2. Waiting until the all the other students left in their fancy cars, Reza set out on his humble trek on foot.  Knowing the financial strain his family endured to pay for the class, he never asked for additional money for a bus.  He just walked the three miles home. Tonight, he mumbled the English words he had learned that night to forget about the biting cold in his feet and hands.  
3. His tears dropped, slightly smearing the sketches of his beloved Iran.  Iran in her adolescent years fumbling between hate for authority, the cry for an undefined freedom and the want to grow up without the responsibility of adulthood.

Figurative language describes something by comparing it with something else.  It is language that goes beyond the literal meaning of words in order to furnish new effects or fresh insights into an idea or a subject.  

Copy two sentences that are examples of figurative language.  For each sentence, explain the how the figurative language “goes beyond the literal meaning of words in order to furnish new effects or fresh insights into an idea or a subject.  “

Against the dramatic landscape of world altering events, Reza’s heroric journey unfolds.