Summary of the lesson 'The Scholarship Jacket'

The Scholarship Jacket (Marta Salinas)   The small Texas School that Martha went to had a tradition of awarding a scholarship jacket to the class valedictorian every year at the eighth grade graduation. The scholarship jacket was a beautiful gold and green jacket with a big gold ‘S’ on the left front side. The name of the winner would be printed in golden letters on the pocket. Martha’s sister Rosie had won it before, and Martha expected to win it this year as she had been a straight ‘A’ level student since her first grade.   Martha was a very thin girl so that her friends called her ‘string bean’ and ‘bean pole’. She was the daughter of a poor Mexican farm labourer. She was living with her grandparents due to the poverty in her own family. One day while going for the PE period, on the way she remembered that she hadn’t taken the PE shorts. She walked back to the classroom to take it. At the classroom door she overheard a heated argument between her history teacher Mr. Schmidt and math teacher Mr. Boone.  They were arguing about the scholarship jacket. Mr. Boone did not want to give the award to Marhta because she was a Mexican-American girl.  He wanted to favour Joann who was an American and the daughter of the school board member.  But Mr. Schmidt strongly opposed this suggestion as he believed that it was a racial discrimination, and more than that Joan’s grades were nowhere near Martha’s.  Upon hearing this conversation, Martha became totally upset and disappointed.   The following day, the principal told Martha that the policy of the scholarship had changed. The principal warned her that she had to pay 15 dollars for the award, otherwise it would be given to the other student. Martha went home all the way crying, and explained everything to her grandpa. Martha’s grandfather was somewhat a rich farmer. Though he was uneducated, he was a man of strong determination.  He believed that the scholarship jacket was the fruit of his granddaughter’s hard work. He refused to pay the money and told Martha to inform the principal that ‘if she paid, it wouldn’t be an award’.   Next day Martha informed the principal about her grandpa’s decision, which made him change his mind. The principal told Martha that he would recommend the management to give her an exemption, and she   would get the jacket free of cost.  Martha became extremely happy and rushed homeward crying – but this time it was a cry of joy and excitement.