SAMPLE FAMOUS PEOPLE STORIES AND ASSOCIATED COMPREHENSION TESTS ========================================================================= LEVEL 03 STORY 01: The Wright brothers were inventors. They had a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, but they wanted to fly. Other people had tried to fly before them, but all those had failed. The Wrights did their initial plans and building in Ohio, but they needed a better place to test their glider. With its sand dunes and constant wind, Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, was perfect. The brothers moved back and forth between Ohio and North Carolina as they rebuilt their craft after each trial. In June, 1901, they moved to a permanent camp four miles south of Kitty Hawk. The place was called Kill Devil Hills. In the winter of 1902, they added an engine to the glider. That would make it fly under its own power. On December 17, 1903, they tested their plane. The first flight lasted only 12 seconds and went only 100 feet. But they had flown! LEVEL 03 STORY 01 TEST QUESTIONS: 1. The Wright brothers had a(n) ______ shop. A. airplane B. automobile *C. bicycle 2. The Wrights did their initial plans in *A. Ohio. B. Oklahoma. C. North Carolina. 3. In June, 1901, they moved to a permanent camp in A. Dayton, Ohio. B. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. *C. Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. 4. The first flight went only ______ feet. A. 12 B. 50 *C. 100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------- LEVEL 13 STORY 01: Diego Rivera was one of the premier artists to emerge in the last century, and also one of the most controversial. Born Diego María Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez, in Guanajuato, Mexico in 1886, his influence on painting, and muralism in particular, has lasted until today. Rivera's family moved to Mexico City when he was ten years old. There he secured a government scholarship to attend the San Carlos Fine Arts Academy; he remained at the school until 1902, when he was expelled for participating in the student revolts of that year. In 1907, Rivera had his first public exposition; it was a great success, and it earned him another scholarship, this time to the San Fernando de Madrid school in Spain. While he was overseas, he tried to expand his art by traveling to France, Belgium, Holland, and Great Britain, before finally moving to Paris in 1911. He was especially influenced by the Post-Impressionism style he found there, and mainly by the work of Paul Cézanne. As a result, he began to experiment with cubism and other emerging methods, creating works that were both original and full of harmony. In 1910, he also exhibited forty of his artworks in his native Mexico. Even though he had not fully developed his style by that time, the public was nonetheless receptive, and the exhibition was deemed a success. It was always Rivera's ambition to depict the events, ideas, and dreams of the Mexican Revolution within his work, but he had to find a suitable method to do so. He started with the fresco technique. This consists of painting directly on a wet mixture of sand and lime, which helps the color penetrate the canvas and become fixed when the base mixture dries. Then in 1920, he traveled to Italy to study the Renaissance frescos, as well as to investigate the mural techniques of the Italian Renaissance painter Giotto. His discoveries led him to separate himself from the established Cubist movement and allowed him to involve himself more deeply with the social scenes around him. Rivera's travels changed his work in other ways, as well. Back in Mexico in 1921, after Álvaro Obregón was elected president, he began to develop a narrative, lineal style, with the widespread use of flat colors. He painted what is considered his first important mural in 1922 -- the "Primera Energía." Its theme reflects the primal energy that animates both Man and Woman, with all their powers and potentialities. He also won high praise for the frescoes he created in 1927 for the National Agricultural School at Chapingo's auditorium. Upon his return, he also began to involve himself in politics. His murals, whether historic or symbolic in nature, reflected both the voice of the social-revolutionary ideal and the resistance to foreign oppression. In fact, the murals made him so famous that he became not only the leader of an artistic movement, but a political leader, as well. It was a situation that placed him directly in the middle of several great controversies. For example, the Hotel del Prado in Mexico City refused to show a great fresco that bore the words "Dios no existe" (God does not exist); however, Diego refused to erase the slogan to make it palatable to the authorities. It wasn't until 1956, when he returned from a trip to the Soviet Union in ill health, that he finally gave in to the pressure. But despite his philosophical obstacles, during the 1930s, Rivera's fame grew. He began to show his art in New York, and he was commissioned to paint big murals at the Detroit Art Institute and at New York's Rockefeller Center. However, his fresco "Hombre en la encrucijada (Man at the crossroads)" received tremendous criticism because one of his figures bore a striking resemblance to Lenin. The mural was destroyed by the Rockefeller Center and substituted with another artist's piece, but Diego later reproduced the original work for the Fine Arts Palace in Mexico City. Rivera considered the Rockefeller experience as just one obstacle among many. None of these were significant enough, however, to deter him from either his work or his politics; he was a lifelong atheist and revolutionary Marxist member of the Communist Party from 1923 to 1930, and again from 1954 until his death. It was a passion he shared with his wife and fellow painter, Frida Kahlo. (It was a tumultuous union -- they were married in 1929, divorced in 1940, and married again the following year.) But even so, events unfolding in the Soviet Union created an intense ideological dilemma for him. It started in February 1929, when Stalin gained the upper hand in his struggle against Trotsky and banished his opponent from Soviet territory. At the time, Rivera sided with Trotsky, and he convinced Mexican President Lázaro Cárdenas to give Trotsky asylum in their country. On January 9, 1937, Trotsky's ship arrived from Norway at a small station near Mexico City, and it was greeted not only by Rivera, but also by the Presidential train. From there he was transported to the Blue House, Rivera's magnificent residence in Coyoacán, which would remain his home for the next two years. Rivera continued his support of Trotsky's position, and in February 1938, he and another Trotsky admirer, the French Surrealist poet André Breton, signed a manifesto that appeared in "Partisan Review," a left-wing anti-Stalinist New York literary magazine. It called for the creation of an International Federation of Revolutionary Writers and Artists, an organization whose purpose was to resist Stalinist cultural domination in the arts. However, Rivera's inherent contrary nature caused a break between him and Trotsky in 1940; it also created a rift with his wife, who remained a staunch Stalinist, despite the mounting evidence of the man's brutal tactics. Trotsky, though hurt by the rift, was still gracious enough at the time to describe Rivera as "a genius whose political blunderings could cast no shadow either on his art or on his personal integrity." And Rivera's art was paramount, both in his life and in his influence on other artists. He used simplified forms and vivid colors in pencil drawings, book illustrations, murals, and political writings, to rescue and restore what he considered the most important moments in Mexico's history -- the land, the workers, the customs, and the popular way of life. It formed the foundation upon which much of the rest of Mexican muralism was based, a blending of styles ranging from Cézanne and Gaugin to Aztec and Mayan sculpture. And the work also reflected the artist -- a revolutionary who wanted to speak to a broad audience using direct language and a realistic style filled with social comment. The people responded positively, and his popularity grew. In his later years, Rivera primarily painted landscapes and portraits, developing a social style with even greater popular appeal. His most ambitious project, an epic mural based on Mexico's history created for the National Palace, was left unfinished due to his death, on November 25, 1957. Many of his works can be viewed in Mexico's Palacio Nacional ("Presidential Palace"), including frescoes that express Rivera's unique interpretation of Mexican history -- an artist who was also a committed ideologue -- and those that display Mexico's pre-Columbian past. LEVEL 13 STORY 01 TEST QUESTIONS: 1. Diego Rivera was one of the premier artists A. of Mexican descent. *B. to emerge in the last century. C. of the post-impressionism style. 2. He was especially influenced by the work of A. Vincent van Gogh. B. Frida Kahlo. *C. Paul Cézanne. 3. He painted what is considered his first important mural in 1922 -- *A. the "Primera Energía." B. "Dios no existe." C. "Hombre en la encrucijada." 4. His murals reflected the voice of *A. the social-revolutionary ideal. B. political controversy. C. the Communist Party.