Fierce by Aly Raisman (adapted excerpt)

The smell of chicken roasting in the kitchen wafted into the room. I was attempting to keep an eye on my two-year-old sister, Chloe, who toddled around while my two-month-old sister, Madison, slept in her portable crib nearby.

As we waited for my dad to get home from picking up my brother, Brett, from hockey practice, Mom popped the tape into the VCR and stood back with an air of satisfaction. ​

“I was going through some old tapes and came across this. I think you’ll like it, Aly,” she said with a knowing smile as she fiddled with the remote. ​

Watching TV with my mom was our special time together, and I cherished it. Raising four young children didn’t leave a lot of time for kicking back, but whenever she wasn’t too busy, we would sit down on the couch and pick out a tape to watch. ​

Our choice usually involved our favorite sport—you guessed it: gymnastics. Gymnastics wasn’t broadcast as often as the endless stream of football and basketball games, but on the rare occasions gymnastics competitions were televised, we made sure to tape them. I would watch those tapes over and over until I knew all the routines by heart. ​

My mom would eventually get tired of yet another screening of a US Championships or an invitational, but I couldn’t get enough. When I wasn’t doing homework or at gymnastics practice, I was parked in front of the TV, watching one of those tapes. ​

One day I want to be just like them, I thought, enchanted by the figures flying across the screen. I had already decided that I would be a gymnast when I grew up. Well, either that or a pop star, like Britney Spears, my favorite singer. That sounded good, too. ​

As they lined up, the faces of the seven US team members—Amanda Borden, Amy Chow, Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Dominique Moceanu, Jaycie Phelps, and Kerri Strug—projected concentration, confidence, and strength. In their American flag leotards, they were my Supergirls. All they were missing were capes.

Now, write a short paragraph about an inference you can make about the author’s family in Fierce. Support your argument with textual evidence and commentary. As you write, consider the following questions: ​

What can the reader infer about the author’s family?​
What details in the text led to that inference? ​
How did those details lead to that inference? ​
Once you’ve finished drafting your paragraph, edit it. Make sure that it is coherent and well organized. Proofread it to ensure that you use standard English conventions, including commas to offset phrases.