Maya Angelou, “Graduation”
In paragraph 43, Angelou says, “The man’s dead words fell like bricks around the auditorium
and too many settled in my belly. Constrained by hard-learned manners I couldn’t look behind
me, but to my left and right the proud graduating class of 1940 had dropped their heads.”
What prompts this reaction from Angelou and the other students? What had the man
said that made them feel this way? Response should be your own explanation, not a
quote from the passage.