Thinking about "The Rockpile," what is something your parents forbade you from doing when you were growing up? Explain what it was and why they might have set that rule.

 Something that my parents forbade me from doing growing up was using the stove when I was home alone. Even when I was in middle school, and I knew how to cook a few things, they still didn't want me to unless they were there, and I didn't start getting more permission to cook while I was by myself until late 8th grade/early 9th grade. At the time it seemed a bit over the top to me, but it makes sense. They were worried that I might not have been experience enough at the time to guarantee that I wouldn't accidentally hurt myself (which I did a lot at first, I had bad luck with knives), or accidentally start a fire (which I did once, but luckily it was small and I knew how to put it out.

Today in class we read a short story called The Rockpile by James Baldwin, and were assigned different roles in our groups to help analyze different parts of the story.

Reading and analyzing this short story has helped me to better understand it and also relate it to my own life.