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Icelandic Girl Fights For Right To Her Own Name (1240l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet

Vale Middle School Reading Article

Icelandic Girl Fights for Right to Her Own Name (1240L)

Instructions: COMPLETE ALL QUESTIONS AND MARGIN NOTES

Read the following article carefully and make notes in the margin as you read.

Your notes should include:

o Comments that show that you understand the article. (A summary or statement of the main

idea of important sections may serve this purpose.)

o Questions you have that show what you are wondering about as you read.

o Notes that differentiate between fact and opinion.

o Observations about how the writer’s strategies (organization, word choice, perspective,

support) and choices affect the article.

Your margin notes are part of your score for this assessment.

Answer the questions carefully in complete sentences unless otherwise instructed.

Student ____________________________Class Period__________________

Notes on my thoughts,

Icelandic Girl Fights for Right to Her Own Name

reactions and questions as I

read:

REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Call her the girl with no name. A 15-year-old is

suing the Icelandic state for the right to legally use the name given to her by her

mother. The problem? Blaer, which means "light breeze" in Icelandic, is not on a

list approved by the government.

Like a handful of other countries, including Germany and Denmark, Iceland has

official rules about what a baby can be named. In a country comfortable with a

firm state role, most people don't question the Personal Names Register, a list of

1,712 male names and 1,853 female names that fit Icelandic grammar and

pronunciation rules and that officials maintain will protect children from

embarrassment. Parents can take from the list or apply to a special committee

that has the power to say yea or nay. In Blaer's case, her mother said she learned

the name wasn't on the register only after the priest who baptized the child later

informed her he had mistakenly allowed it.

"I had no idea that the name wasn't on the list, the famous list of names that you

can choose from," said Bjork Eidsdottir, adding she knew a Blaer whose name

was accepted in 1973. This time, the panel turned it down on the grounds that

the word Blaer takes a masculine article, despite the fact that it was used for a

female character in a novel by Iceland's revered Nobel Prize-winning author

Halldor Laxness.

Andersen, A. Icelandic Girl Fights for Right to Her Own Name. Associated Press. January 3, 2013.

Icelandic Girl Fights For Right To Her Own Name (1240l) - Middle School Reading Article Worksheet