1a. What does the grandmother want to teach the girl?
2a. How does the girl respond?
3a. What does the speaker say in the final three lines of the poem?
1b. Why does she want to teach her grandchild this?
2b. What is the girl's reason for responding this way? Explain this reason in your own words.
3b. What does she mean by this?
4a. What words does the grandmother speak in this poem? What is her attitude as she speaks? What might the grandmother have been thinking but not saying? What does the granddaughter say? What does she think? What attitude does she portray? What attitude might she be hiding?
4b. To what does the title "Legacies" refer? Explain why the author might have used this title.
5a. Consider "Legacies," "Grandma Ling," and "Grandma Traub." Which poem creates the most true-to-life grandmother? Which poem creates the strongest portrait of the relationship between granddaughter and grandmother? Explain your answers.
5b. For each of the three poems, write a sentence or two that tells something about the relationship between each grandmother and granddaughter. Do any of the images or ideas expressed in "Legacies," "Grandma Ling," or "Grandma Traub" apply to your real-life relationships with your grandparents? your parents?
Irony. How is the title of the poem "Legacies" ironic? What meaning is Giovanni trying to convey through her use of irony?
Free Verse. What might Giovanni have been trying to achieve by using unconventional techniques? Look back to your handwritten copy of the poem, and read it aloud or to yourself, concentrating on line breaks and the lack of punctuation. How does the lack of punctuation influence your reading of the poem? Does it add to the meaning of the poem? How do the line breaks influence your reading of the poem? How might you read or interpret the poem differently if Giovanni had abided by all the rules of language, grammar, and style? What do you notice about the length of the lines in the poem? How might the title of the poem relate to the style in which it was written?
1. Write a letter to a grandparent or an older person in your life asking about one thing you would like to learn from him or her.
2. Make a list of things that are important to you that you would one day like to pass on to your own children or younger people in your life.
3. Write a free-verse poem about a relationship between yourself and a family member.
Honing Communication Skills. Advice for dealing with communication problems among family members.
Example
The girl was called by her grandmother from the playground. The grandmother called the girl from the playground.
1. The girl was taught how to make rolls by her grandmother.
2. The girl was being given a legacy by her grandmother.
3. The girl received instructions from her grandmother on how to bake.
4. Grandma Ling was visited by her granddaughter, Amy.
5. The grandmother was hugged by Amy.
6. Amy Ling's mother was adopted by Grandma Traub.
7. Grandma Traub was delighted with her Chinese grandchildren.
8. Amy was given dolls by Grandma Traub.
9. Amy was read to by Grandma Traub.
10. Amy was given fresh donuts and tapioca puddings to eat by Grandma Traub.
