"Two Kinds"

There are "only two kinds of daughters." Find out what kinds they are, and how this view affects a mother-daughter relationship in an excerpt from Amy Tan's novel "The Joy Luck Club."

Here are all the word lists to support the reading of Grade 10 Unit 1's texts from SpringBoard's Common Core ELA series: What Is Cultural Identity, Ethnic Hash, Two Kinds, Honestly Frida, Legal Alien, By Any Other Name, HAPA, Where Worlds Collide, My Mother Pieced Quilts, Everyday Use, Two Ways to Belong in America, An Indian Father's Plea
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. prodigy
    an unusually gifted or intelligent person
    "Of course, you can be a prodigy, too," my mother told me when I was nine.
  2. reproach
    disgrace or shame
    I would be beyond reproach.
  3. modest
    humble in spirit or manner
    She was proudly modest, like a proper Chinese Child.
  4. discordant
    lacking in harmony
    But I was so determined not to try, not to be anybody different, and I learned to play only the most ear-splitting preludes, the most discordant hymns.
  5. conspire
    act in agreement and in secret towards a deceitful purpose
    A few weeks later Old Chong and my mother conspired to have me play in a talent show that was to be held in the church hall.
  6. plead
    appeal or request earnestly
    For the talent show I was to play a piece called "Pleading Child," from Schumann's Scenes From Childhood.
  7. stricken
    grievously affected especially by disease
    By then I saw my mother's face, her stricken face.
  8. devastate
    cause extensive destruction or ruin utterly
    But my mother's expression was what devastated me: a quiet, blank look that said she had lost everything.
  9. fiasco
    a complete failure or collapse
    I had assumed that my talent-show fiasco meant that I would never have to play the piano again.
  10. nonchalantly
    in a composed and unconcerned manner
    "I'm not going to play anymore," I said nonchalantly.
  11. obedient
    dutifully complying with the commands of those in authority
    "Only two kinds of daughters," she shouted in Chinese. "Those who are obedient and those who follow their own mind! Only one kind of daughter can live in this house.
  12. assert
    insist on having one's opinions and rights recognized
    In the years that followed, I failed her many times, each time asserting my will, my right to fall short of expectations.
  13. inevitable
    incapable of being avoided or prevented
    So I never found a way to ask her why she had hoped for something so large that failure was inevitable.
  14. sentimental
    marked by tender, romantic, or nostalgic emotion
    Last week I sent a tuner over to my parent's apartment and had the piano reconditioned, for purely sentimental reasons.
  15. contented
    satisfied or showing satisfaction with things as they are
    "Pleading Child" was shorter but slower; "Perfectly Contented" was longer but faster.
Created on Tue Oct 07 10:00:49 EDT 2014 (updated Wed Oct 08 18:17:05 EDT 2014)

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