📖 Reading Literature: The Portrait (Grade 11)

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Read the story. Then answer using details from the text.

The Portrait

For her senior art project, Selin painted her grandmother from a photograph taken in 1968: a young woman in a leather jacket, laughing on the back of a motorcycle in Istanbul.

Her classmates assumed it was a movie star. When Selin explained who it was, they were quiet for a moment. "I can’t picture your grandmother like that," one said.

Neither could Selin, at first. She had only known the small woman who moved carefully, who worried about drafts and salt and whether Selin had eaten. Painting her younger face, brushstroke by brushstroke, felt like an act of excavation.

At the exhibition, her grandmother stood in front of the canvas for a long time. Then she turned to Selin with the same laugh from the photograph. "I had forgotten," she said, "that I was ever that brave."

1. What is unusual about the photograph?

2. Why can’t classmates picture the grandmother that way?

3. Why does painting feel like "excavation"?

4. What does the grandmother’s final line reveal?

Theme: State the theme and explain how it develops over the text.

Answer key: 1) it shows the grandmother young and daring on a motorcycle · 2) they see older people only as they are now · 3) Selin is uncovering a hidden, earlier identity of her grandmother · 4) she had lost touch with her own past courage; art restored that memory · Theme: People contain past selves that are easy to forget, and art can help recover them.

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Worksheets › Grade 11 English › Reading Literature › Reading Literature

Grade 11 (ages 16–17)Reading comprehensionFree printable PDF

About this grade 11 worksheet

Free Grade 11 English worksheet (Common Core RL.11-12.1): read "The Portrait" and answer questions about key details, characters and theme. Skill: Key ideas and details in literature. Level: Grade 11 — also suits Year 12 (UK).

For teachers: skills & standards

CCSS RL.11-12.1: Key ideas and details in literature
CCSS RL.11-12.2: Key ideas and details in literature
CCSS RL.11-12.3: Key ideas and details in literature
Works as a morning-work page, a centre/station activity, homework or an early-finisher task.

Frequently asked questions

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What age is it for?

It is designed for Grade 11 (ages 16–17), but use it with any child who is ready.

What skills does it build?

Key ideas and details in literature.

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More “Reading Literature” printables (rl.11-12.1–3: key ideas and details in literature)

Reading Literature: The Inheritance of Silence (Grade 11) · Reading Literature: Overtime (Grade 11) · Reading Literature: The Census Taker (Grade 11) · Reading Literature: Small Talk (Grade 11)

All 5 reading literature sheets → · Grade 11 English: all 10 skills → · All Common Core grades

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