read this page from joy luck club, by amy tan,

the old woman remembered a swan she had bought many years ago in shanghai for a foolish sum. this bird, boasted the vendor, was once a duck that stretched it's neck in hopes of becoming a goose, and now look! - it is too beautiful to eat.
then the woman and the swan sailed across an ocean many thousand miles wide, stretching their necks toward america. on her journey she cooed to the swan, "in america i will have a daughter just like me. but over there nobody will say her worth is measured by the loudness of her husband's belch. over there, nobody will look down on her, because i will make her speak only perfect american english. and over there she will always be too full to swallow any sorrow! she will know my meaning, because i will give her this swan - a creature that became more than was hoped for."

but when she arrived in the new country, the immigration officials pulled her swan away from her, leaving the woman fluttering her arms and with only one swan feather for a memory. and then she had to fill out so many forms she forgot why she had come and what she had left behind.

now the woman was old. and she had a daughter who grew up speaking only english and swallowing more coca-cola than sorrow. for a long time now the woman had wanted to give her daughter the single swan feather and tell her, "this feather may look worthless, but it comes from afar and carries with it all my good intentions." and she waited, year after year, for the day she could tell her daughter this in perfect american english.

1. what words did amy tan use in a repetitive way? why did she do that?

2. which line or lines aren't literally true (something like "swallowing sorrow") in the story?
why are they there? why do you think she writes her story that way?

3. do you see any explanation sections in the passage? does tan give you any extra insight into the characters? why do authors do that?

4. list three "why" questions about the storyline, or the characters, or themes, did you keep in your mind as you read? did they you figure out any parts of the story?

5. how did your second reading go? tell me two or three new things you understood after you read it the second time.