Page 316 - SpringBoard_ELA_Grade7_Flipbook

Using language to develop Theme
ACTIvITy 4.7
Learning Targets
• Analyze a narrative poem and explain how a writer uses language for effect.
• Compare and contrast a narrative poem and informational text that address the same period in history.
• Write a monologue that interprets a narrative poem from the point of view of one character.
Preview my Notes In this activity, you will read and compare an informational text and a poem about
highwaymen.
Setting a Purpose for Reading
• As you read the article, mark the text to note key ideas and supporting details.
• Circle unknown words and phrases. Try to determine the meaning of the words by using context clues, word parts, or a dictionary.
Informational Text
The Highwaymen of Hounslow Heath
1 Once part of the extensive Forest of Middlesex, and now largely buried beneath the runways of London Airport, Hounslow Heath was for more than 200 years
the most dangerous place in Britain. Between the 17th and early 19th centuries, the Heath occupied perhaps 25 square miles. No one was really certain where its boundaries lay, and no one cared, for it was a tract of country to be crossed as quickly as possible. Though Hounslow itself was not large, it was after London the most important of coaching centres. Across the Heath ran the Bath Road and the Exeter Road, along which travelled wealthy visitors to West Country resorts and courtiers travelling to Windsor. All provided rich pickings for highwaymen lurking in copses bordering the lonely ways.
2 The first of the legendary highwaymen were Royalist officers who “took to
the road” when they were outlawed under the Commonwealth. These were men familiar with the relatively newfangled pistols, which gave them an advantage over their victims, usually only armed with swords.
3 Perhaps because they concentrated on the wealthy, the highwaymen became popular heroes. No one, except the victims, grieved when the dukes of Northumberland and St Albans were held up on the Heath at the end of the
17th century. And when one audacious villain pasted notices on the doors of rich Londoners telling them they should not venture forth with less than a watch and 10 guineas, the whole town was convulsed with laughter.
Famous Highwaymen on the Heath
4 While many of the highwaymen were thugs pure and simple, it cannot be denied that some of them had a certain flair. There was Twysden, Bishop of Raphoe, who was shot and killed while carrying out a robbery on the Heath— though it was later given out that he had died of “an inflammation.” Others returned money to needy victims and released women and children unmolested, including the children of the Prince of Wales, held up at Hounslow in 1741. There are even accounts of robberies in which the victim is referred to as “a man” and the robber as “a gentleman.”
Word CoNNeCTIoNs
Etymology
The word newfangled comes from new and the obsolete word fangol, “inclined to take.” The original word was used to describe people who were drawn to new things or ideas. Over time it came to
be used for the new things themselves, with the meaning “recently invented, of the newest style.”
Unit 4 •
How We Choose to Act 289
leArNING sTrATeGIes:
Summarizing, Marking the Text, Rereading, Close Reading, RAFT, Drafting
audacious: bold, daring
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