A Walk To The Jetty

FAST-R Formative Assessments of Student Thinking in Reading
Name “A Walk to the Jetty” • Fiction
+ Date Teacher/Class
A teenage girl from the island of Antigua is being sent to live with relatives in England where she will
attend nursing school. As she walks with her parents along the jetty where a boat awaits her, she re-
members the walks to the jetty she used to take with her father in years past. This young girl has mixed
feelings about leaving. Read this excerpt from the novel Annie John to see what happens. Answer the
questions that follow.
A Walk to the Jetty

by Jamaica Kincaid
1 My heart now beat fast, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep my
mouth from falling open and my nostrils from spreading to the ends of my face. My
old fear of slipping between the boards of the jetty and falling into the dark-green
water where the dark-green eels lived came over me. When my father’s stomach
started to go bad, the doctor had recommended a
walk every evening right after he ate his dinner.
Spotlight On: Jamaica Kincaid
Sometimes he would take me with him. When he
took me with him, we usually went to the jetty, and Jamaica Kincaid, whose original
name is Elaine Potter Richardson,
there he would sit and talk to the night watchman was born on the island of Antigua in
about cricket1 or some other thing that didn’t inter- 1949. She was educated in British
est me, because it was not personal; they didn’t talk schools because Antigua was an
about their wives, or their children, or their parents, English colony that was not given its
or about any of their likes and dislikes. They talked independence until 1981.
about things in such a strange way, and I didn’t see In 1965, she was sent to New York
what they found funny, but sometimes they made to work as a nanny and eventually
left the position to pursue a
each other laugh so much that their guffaws2 would
college education. She changed her
bound out to sea and send back an echo. I was name in 1973 because her family
always sorry when we got to the jetty and saw that disapproved of her writing.
the night watchman on duty was the one he enjoyed She continues to be an advocate for
speaking to; it was like being locked up in a book education and for the school-aged
filled with numbers and diagrams and what-ifs. For children growing up in Antigua.
the thing about not being able to understand and “I was always being told I should
enjoy what they were saying was I had nothing to be something, and then my whole
upbringing was something I was not:
take my mind off my fear of slipping in between the it was English” (Cudjoe 219).
boards of the jetty.
1 cricket — an outdoor game played with bats, a ball, and wickets by two teams of eleven players each
2 guffaw — a hearty burst of laughter
FAST-R: Formative Assessments in Student Thinking in Reading. The passage text by Jamaica Kincaid is from Annie John (1985). Copyright © 1985 by Jamaica Kincaid. Some questions were
drawn or adapted from the G7 MCAS Spring 2005 test. All other materials are Copyright 2007 by the Boston Plan for Excellence.
2 Now, too, I had nothing to take my mind off what was happening to me. My
mother and my father—I was leaving them forever. My home on an island—I was
leaving it forever. What to make of everything? I felt a familiar hollow space inside. I
felt I was being held down against my will. I felt I was burning up from head to toe. I
felt that someone was tearing me up into little pieces and soon I would be able to see
all the little pieces as they floated out into nothing in the deep blue sea. I didn’t know
whether to laugh or cry. I could see that it would be better not to think too clearly
about any one thing. The launch was being made ready to take me, along with some
other passengers, out to the ship that was anchored in the sea. My father paid our fares,
and we joined a line of people waiting to board. My mother checked my bag to make
sure that I had my passport, the money she had given me, and a sheet of paper placed
between some pages in my Bible on which were written the names of the relatives—
people I had not known existed—with whom I would live in England. Across from the
jetty was a wharf, and some stevedores3 were loading and unloading barges. I don’t
know why seeing that struck me so, but suddenly a wave of strong feeling came over
me, and my heart swelled with a great gladness as the words “I shall never see this
again” spilled out inside me. But then, just as quickly, my heart shriveled up and the
words “I shall never see this again” stabbed at me. I don’t know what stopped me from
falling in a heap at my parents’ feet.
3 When we were all on board, the launch headed out to sea. Away from the jetty,
the water became the customary blue, and the launch left a wide path in it that looked
like a road. I passed by sounds and smells that were so familiar that I had long ago
stopped paying any attention to them. But now here they were, and the ever-present
“I shall never see this again” bobbed up and down inside me. There was the sound of
the seagull diving down into the water and coming up with something silverish in its
mouth. There was the smell of the sea and the sight of small pieces of rubbish float-
ing around in it. There were boats filled with fishermen coming in early. There was the
sound of their voices as they shouted greetings to each other. There was the hot sun,
there was the blue sea, there was the blue sky. Not very far away, there was the white
sand of the shore, with the run-down houses all crowded in next to each other, for
in some places only poor people lived near the shore. I was seated in the launch be-
tween my parents, and when I realized that I was gripping their hands tightly I glanced
quickly to see if they were looking at me with scorn, for I felt sure that they must have
known of my never-see-this-again feelings. But instead my father kissed me on the
forehead and my mother kissed me on the mouth, and they both gave over their hands
to me, so that I could grip them as much as I wanted. I was on the verge of feeling that
it had all been a mistake, but I remembered that I wasn’t a child anymore, and that now
when I made up my mind about something I had to see it through. At that moment, we
came to the ship, and that was that.
3 stevedore— one who loads or unloads ships or barges
FAST-R: Formative Assessments in Student Thinking in Reading. The passage text by Jamaica Kincaid is from Annie John (1985). Copyright © 1985 by Jamaica Kincaid. Some questions were
drawn or adapted from the G7 MCAS Spring 2005 test. All other materials are Copyright 2007 by the Boston Plan for Excellence.

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FAST-R Formative Assessments of Student Thinking in Reading

Name “A Walk to the Jetty” • Fiction

A Walk to the Jetty

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