Guided Annotations Worksheet on The Devil’s Highway
Frances Santos
Overview
- This worksheet is adapted from “Guided Annotations [Resource]” by Frances Santos.
- Through the worksheet, students learn how to engage in close reading while evaluating the writer’s rhetorical choices regarding allusions, diction, and imagery.
Worksheet
Directions for students: As you read the text in the left-hand column (or after you have read it once all the way through), respond to the questions and tasks in the right-hand column.
| Focus Text | Critical Questions & Tasks |
| Directions for teachers:
Copy and paste the opening section from Chapter 1 of The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea (available through the Google Books preview or library).[1]
NOTE: The “opening section” of Chapter 1 is ten paragraphs or roughly the first page or two, depending on what format you’re using. It begins with the “Five men stumbled out…” and ends with “Their full-sun 110-degree nightmare.”
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Directions for teachers: Feel free to use the following questions and tasks in conjunction with the article. Adjust positioning as necessary.
Rhetorical Choices: Explain the allusion made to Desolation. What is the rhetorical purpose of this allusion?
Rhetorical Choices: Define “writhed” and “eldritch bones.” What do those diction choices reveal about the desert?
Rhetorical Choices: In context, the repeated use of “damned” can have a dual meaning. Discuss the dual meaning used here and how that helps support the author’s claim about the desert.
Rhetorical Choices: Discuss how the dove imagery supports the author’s claim.
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Click here to download a Word Doc version of the Guided Annotations worksheet for an excerpt from The Devil’s Highway by Luis Alberto Urrea:
The Devil’s Highway Guided Annotations worksheet
Attribution:
Santos, Frances. “Guided Annotations Worksheet on The Devil’s Highway.” Strategies, Skills and Models for Student Success in Writing and Reading Comprehension. College Station: Texas A&M University, 2024. This work is licensed with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).
- Urrea, Luis Alberto. The Devil’s Highway: A True Story. Little, Brown, 2008. ↵
