"The Chicago Journey" is a one page, fictional passage about a clild and his mother hurrying to catch a train to hear an acceptance speech from an election (Obama). It is followed by questions which require students to provide evidence from the story; it includes analyzing the characters, determining the theme, discribing how the narrator feels and then writing a summary of the passage using evidence from the text. This passage aligns with Common Core Anchor Reading Standards 1 and 2 requiring close reading, textual evidence, main idea, integrating ideas from different sources, and summarizing.