Rez Dogs: Chapters 11–15

by Joseph Bruchac
In this novel in verse, a girl befriends a stray dog while quarantining with her grandparents on a Wabanaki reservation during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here are links to our lists for the novel: Chapters 1–5, Chapters 6–10, Chapters 11–15
20 words 59 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. tribal
    relating to or characteristic of a clan or social group
    There was only
    one person at Penacook
    who was six ten and
    drove a tribal police car.
  2. phony
    fraudulent; having a misleading appearance
    “Hey!” the voice
    of Sergeant Ed said
    in phony surprise.
    “Who is this?”
  3. deploy
    use or distribute systematically or strategically
    She could see why
    people loved the way
    Sergeant Ed deployed
    his sense of humor first
    in just about
    any situation.
  4. apparently
    seemingly; as far as one can tell
    “Just checking up on
    a report about some fierce dog
    been hanging around here.
    Apparently, not this one.”
  5. prompt
    serve as the inciting cause of
    Malsum dropped down
    and rolled over
    onto his back,
    prompting the sergeant
    to lower himself
    to one knee to rub
    the big dog’s chest.
  6. fierce
    marked by extreme and violent energy
    “If that real fierce dog
    ever shows up here again,
    you gimme a call, okay?”
  7. skedaddle
    run away, as if in a panic
    Good, now
    I got to skedaddle.
  8. enforce
    ensure observance of laws and rules
    “Who pointed out
    it’s there in the treaty
    we got the right
    to enforce traffic
    on any road
    goes through
    our reservation.”
  9. protest
    a public manifestation of dissent
    They’d both been
    watching on her iPad
    a story on the
    CNN newsfeed
    about the protests
    going on around the country,
    people standing up
    for racial justice.
  10. asparagus
    plant with long green stems that is eaten as a vegetable
    Within a few days,
    they would also be
    harvesting asparagus
    from the bed
    her grandfather had made
    more than fifty years ago.
  11. stump
    the base part that remains after a tree has been felled
    She sat on one
    of the cedar stumps
    her grandfather had placed
    around the garden
    to use as stools
    or tables or whatever
    they might be handy for.
  12. influenza
    an acute febrile highly contagious viral disease
    When those new people came
    they brought with them
    all kinds of germs.
    Measles, whooping cough,
    influenza, smallpox, all sorts
    of diseases that we never
    had any names for.
  13. eugenics
    the promotion of controlled breeding in human populations
    Especially when Malian
    pointed out to her
    what she’d just found
    on the Internet
    about something called
    the Eugenics Project
    in the nearby
    state of Vermont.
  14. sterilize
    make infertile
    It had been set up
    to sterilize
    what they called
    “unfit” people,
    a lot of them
    Native men and women,
    back in the 1930s.
  15. falter
    be or become weak, unsteady, or uncertain
    Ms. Mendelson’s face
    on Malian’s iPad disappeared
    as the connection faltered.
  16. resolve
    make clearly visible
    Only a second passed, but when
    the image resolved itself again,
    her teacher’s eyes looked wet.
  17. genealogy
    successive generations of kin
    Some had families
    that had been in Boston
    for generations—though
    none of the others
    were Native Americans.
    But no one had a genealogy
    longer than Francine Woo.
  18. archives
    collection of records especially about an institution
    She told the story of how
    her father made a trip
    to the archives in Beijing
    to look up their family history.
  19. admiral
    the supreme commander of a fleet
    Then she told the story
    about her ancestor
    who was a famous admiral.
  20. bounty
    payment or reward for acts such as catching criminals
    Should she tell them about
    the time two centuries ago
    when the colonial government
    offered bounties for Indian scalps?
Created on Tue Dec 21 08:29:16 EST 2021 (updated Mon Dec 27 08:51:52 EST 2021)

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