Coming to America: Finding Your Voice After the first reading, have students reflect on and discuss the following comprehension
questions in pairs or triads, and then debrief their answers as a whole group:
1. What does here mean at the end of the first paragraph, and why do you think it is in
quotation marks?
2. Why does Hinojosa put quotation marks around the phrase "real America"? What is she
implying about that idea?
3. What details does Hinojosa include to describe the differences between her mother and
the immigration agent? How do those details support the statement, "My mom didn't
feel very powerful?
4. How did Hinojosa's mother make the big Texan feel small
5. What lesson does Hinojosa say she learned from her mother in her coming to
America" story?

paine is arguying that they had tried everything before coming to the conclusion that they needed to fight for their freedom.

argument: "every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual."

claim 1: "our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the kings of europe absolute."

claim 2: "wherefore, since nothing but blows will do, for god’s sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child."

the answer should be the first one. "many people find his lyrics very moving."

it by far makes the most grammatical sense and is very objective, removing any first person from the original sentence and keeping with the sentence fluency.