Score 1:

1. In “Unpacking Echoes,” what lesson does Diana learn from her experience with Lady? Support your answer with textual evidence.

2. Score 1: • Hearing “echoes” means learning from what’s around you without having to be told. Lady just wanted to be loved by someone, and Diana was off to college alone. They found each other, and it was without words or discussion that they connected as their hearts did all the talking.

3. Score 2: • One lesson Diana learns is how to understand someone without words. Through the dog’s “pleading eyes” that “followed here every move,” Diana understood that it needed help. These unspoken words connected her to her new dog; the echoes gave her “something that made sense.”

4. Score 3: • This experience teaches Diana the difference a little kindness can make. The duality of humanity is depicted in” the others who had kicked” lady in Diana’s “outstretched hand.” Even though Lady was “obviously neglected,” the dog gives humans, Diana, a “last chance” and demonstrates the kind and forgiving attitude mankind should emulate.

5. Score 3: Diana Learns to listen to a deeper voice, the “echoes” of her conscience, as she makes a hard choice. Diana says the dog makes her feel “guilty” since her tendency to care for animals conflicts with her need to survive financially. When she finds Lady in her trunk, Diana hears the deeper voice telling her to make the humane choice in this “moment without words.”

6. How are stray animals offered assistance in both “Unpacking Echoes” and “Homelessness: Not Just a People Problem?” Explain your answer and support it with evidence from both selections.

7. Score 1: • Stray animals in both stories are taken care of. In “unpacking Echoes,” Lady was given a home. In “Homelessness” the animals are given temporary homes and medical care until a permanent home is found.

8. Score 2: • In both stories, animals are assisted through adoption. In “unpacking Echoes,” Diana takes in a stray dog, lady, who is “obviously bound for college” with Diana. In “Homelessness,” there are many solutions proposed to pet homelessness such as Madelyn Congdon, who “has taken in motherless kittens” for “almost five years now.” These two stories show that the most effective way to help may simply bring these animals home.

9. Score 3:“Look, stop making me feel guilty” is a common response to stray animals, but “those who love animals” will help instead of putting off their guilt. Overwhelming financial constraints do not blind Diana to the dog “with pleading eyes” who was “neglected” and “close to starvation.” Madelyn Congdon has made caring for stray animals a significant part of her life by providing a home to the “motherless” and “traumatized” kittens waiting adoption. Both articles show how caring people can be a part of the solution to the ever-expanding problem that is not just for people.