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Unit 2 Pre-Assessment
Part 2
1 Hour, 15 Minutes

Directions: Read the short story below and answer the four questions that follow.

Principals and Principles

In San Francisco the weather never gets hot, and when it does it lasts only three days. On the first
day, the hot weather is a surprise, and everyone wanders around carrying their sweaters. On the
second day, everyone enjoys the heat. And on the third day, the cold weather returns and is just as
surprising, and everyone wanders around shivering.

One of these three-day heat waves arrived when I was in seventh grade, and on the first day everyone
was grumpy because we had all dressed for fog and gloom and now had to drag our sweaters all over
the school. We all agreed that the next day we’d dress for warm weather, but just as the day ended,
the principal made an announcement over the loudspeaker. “Students at Herbert Hoover Middle
School are not allowed to wear shorts,” she said, in the tone of voice she always used—a tone of
voice that sounded friendly but was actually unbearably wicked.

Everyone groaned—everyone but me. “She can’t do that,” I said, and reached into the back of my
binder. On the first day of school, we’d all received a pamphlet: “Student Rights and
Responsibilities.” For some reason I’d saved it, and I read one of our rights out loud: “Students have
the right to free dress.” I convinced everyone to wear shorts the next day in order to protest the
wicked principal’s unfair cancellation of one of our rights.

The next day was wonderful because we were all dressed for the heat and nobody had to drag their
sweaters around, but of course, I was sent to the principal’s office— someone had ratted on me. (To
this day, I suspect Nancy Cutler, but I can’t prove it.) She asked me if I had told everyone to wear
shorts. I said yes. She said shorts were distracting to some of the teachers. I said that free dress was
one of our rights. She said that shorts led students to have water fights. I said that free dress was one
of our rights. She said that she was the principal and she was in charge. I said that free dress was one
of our rights. She kept pointing at me. I kept pointing at the pamphlet. The principal was one of those
people who yelled at you until you cried, but I forced myself not to cry, biting my lip and blinking
very, very fast, until at last she gave up and I was allowed to return to my classmates, who applauded
me. In celebration, we all wore shorts the next day, too, even though we knew the cold weather
would return, and it did, and we were shivering and miserable.

In eighth grade we got a new version of the pamphlet. Instead of “Students have the right to free
dress,” it read, “Students have the responsibility to dress appropriately.” I threw it away. It didn’t
matter how they tried to change the rules, I would stand up for my rights anyway, because there
aren’t enough sunny days in the world, and everyone should enjoy them.
 1. Diagram the plot of the story.

3. Climax

4. Falling action
2. Rising action

1. Exposition
5. Resolution
2. Describe the setting of the story.

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3. Describe the most important theme (lesson or message) of the story and provide evidence from the
text to support your answer.

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 4. Evaluate a character from the story or evaluate the overall story itself. (When you evaluate something,
you analyze its strengths and weaknesses and make conclusions or judgements about it.) Your
response should be at least 100 words.

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