What do you infer about the speaker’s state of mind in the opening stanza? What are some words that clue you in?

How does Etheridge’s use of anaphora (repetition at the beginnings of lines) affect her message? What feeling does this repetition develop?

What might Etheridge mean by the lines “Now I am throwing off the carelessness of youth / To listen to an inconvenient truth” (lines 22-23)? What is the impact of these lines? How do they connect to her overall message?

BASED ON I NEED TO WAKE UP SONG

Read the excerpt from the dark game: true spy stories from invisible ink to cia moles. yet, by the time robert e. lee surrendered to ulysses grant at appomattox, virginia, some four years later, about 620,000 soldiers had died on the battlefields, more than american battle deaths in all other wars from the revolution through the vietnam war. what is the author’s primary purpose for including this detail? to inform readers about the differences between three military conflicts to persuade readers of the seriousness of the american civil war to entertain readers with tales from behind the lines of battle to encourage readers to visit battlegrounds in appomattox, virginia