1a. In "Paul Revere's Ride," what signal do Paul Revere and his friend decide upon? What does Paul Revere do when he receives the signal?
2a. What sound does Revere's friend hear? What town does Revere enter at midnight? at one? at two?
3a. What happens when the British arrive the next morning? What hints or clues foretell that there will be bloodshed?
1b. What do you think motivates Paul Revere to take on this task? What do Revere's actions reveal about his character?
2b. What does Revere's friend do as a result of hearing the sound? How does the poet show the passing of time during the night?
3b. What consequences did Revere's ride have in the short-term? What lasting effects did it have on history?
4a. What elements in this poem work to create suspense? What elements work to indicate the importance of the events described?
4b. What is the overall mood of the poem?
5a. Our view of history is colored by our individual point of view. For example, a British history book would probably not take the same outlook on the American Revolution as would one written in the United States. What might a British historian have to say about Paul Revere's ride?
5b. Imagine that you are one of the messengers on the midnight ride. What would you be feeling and thinking during the mission?
Narrative Poem. Explain how "Paul Revere's Ride" can be considered narrative verse. Summarize briefly the story the poem tells.
Rhythm and Stress. On your paper, fill in a graphic organizer like the one below to help you analyze the meter in a stanza or two of the poem. What does the rhythm remind you of? For each line, indicate in the right-hand column the number of syllables and mark in the left-hand column slash marks (/) over strongly stressed syllables. The first line has been filled in for you.
Stress Number of syllables
1. Imagine that you are a British commander and, on your own paper, create a wanted poster for Paul Revere, offering money in return for his capture. Use your imagination to draw a picture of Paul Revere, but use details from Longfellow's poem to write a short description explaining the "crime" for which he is wanted.
2. Choose some historical event with which you are familiar, such as the Boston Tea Party or the Battle of Gettysburg. Imagine that you are a young person living at the time when this event took place, and write a brief journal entry describing the event and your feelings about it.
3. Now that you have learned a little about Paul Revere, write an epitaph for him. An epitaph is a very short piece of writing, either in poetry or in prose, written to honor a dead person. Often, epitaphs are written on gravestones.
Using Context Clues. Sometimes when reading, you will come across a word you do not understand. Your first resource should be a dictionary. Sometimes, however, a dictionary is unavailable, or the word you need may not be in a general dictionary. You may have to use a specialized dictionary. When this happens, you can often figure out the meaning of the word from context clues. Read the sentences below, defining the underlined words based on context clues.
1. Ray was persnickety about his appearance—he never had one hair out of place, all of his clothes were freshly ironed, and he only wore well-shined shoes.
2. While Noreen seemed genuinely pleased, in her quiet way, to meet the new student, Lisa's overly friendly greeting seemed smarmy and insincere.
3. Kat needed to find out how many pages her school literary magazine would take up, so she did a castoff, estimating how many lines she wanted to fit on each final page and comparing this with the amount of material she had.
4. Kingston's favorite shirt was a bright cerulean color as blue as the sky on the sunniest summer afternoon.
5. While once Joleen was a lackadaisical students who never studied, she became interested in her classes and got straight A's this year.
Working with Negatives. All kinds of negatives, such as not and never, affect verbs, but they are not verbs. They are always adverbs, because they add to the meaning of the verb. The verb tells us what a positive action is, and the negative says that the writer or speaker means the opposite of that.
In the English language, negatives work like minus signs in math—two negatives equal a positive. When you use a double negative, they cancel each other out and the sentence is the same as if no negatives were used.
Make each of the sentences mean the opposite—add negatives to make sentences positive; subtract negatives to make them negative. Correct any double negatives.
1. Many Americans know the story of Paul Revere.
2. Haven't you never heard of him?
3. Revere didn't never make it to all the villages.
4. British soldiers stopped Revere.
5. Revere is remembered today as a great American patriot.
