Page 28 - SpringBoard_ELD_Grade8_Flipbook

interpret the Text Using Close reading
Learning Target
Apply understanding of how short stories are structured to comprehend a text.
Read and Annotate
Read “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” and annotate the text as you read.
■ Use the My Notes area to write questions or ideas you have about the story.
■ Underline words and phrases that show how the protagonist feels at different parts of the story.
■ Put a star next to the protagonist’s call.
■ Circle unknown words.
The Drummer
by Ray Bradbury Boy of Shiloh
1 In the April night, more than once, blossoms fell from the orchard trees and lit with rustling taps on the drumskin. At midnight a peach stone left miraculously on a branch through winter flicked by a bird fell swift and unseen struck once like panic, which jerked the boy upright. In silence he listened to his own heart ruffle away away—at last gone from his ears and back in his chest again.
2 After that, he turned the drum on its side, where its great lunar face peered at him whenever he opened his eyes.
3 His face, alert or at rest, was solemn. It was indeed a solemn night for a boy just turned fourteen in the peach field near the Owl Creek not far from the church at Shiloh.1
4 “...thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three...”
5 Unable to see, he stopped counting.
6 Beyond the thirty-three familiar shadows, forty thousand men, exhausted by
nervous expectation, unable to sleep for romantic dreams of battles yet unfought, lay crazily askew in their uniforms. A mile yet farther on, another army was strewn helter-skelter, turning slow, basting themselves with the thought of what they would do when the time came: a leap, a yell, a blind plunge their strategy, raw youth their protection and benediction.
7 Now and again the boy heard a vast wind come up, that gently stirred the air. But he knew what it was—the army here, the army there, whispering to itself in the dark. Some men talking to others, others murmuring to themselves, and all so quiet it was like a natural element arisen from South or North with the motion of the earth toward dawn.
1 Shiloh (n.): site of a Civil War battle in 1862; now a national military park in southwest Tennessee
aCTiViTY 1.3
my notes
short story
ruffle: to flutter or move in a slow, wavy pattern
romantic: fondly imaginary
helter-skelter: in a confused or disorderly way
benediction: a prayer or blessing
Is he part of the army? He’s only 14!
Unit 1 • The Challenge of Heroism • Part 1: “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh” 5
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