Poetry and Novels in Verse for Middle School Students: "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" by Ray Bradbury

Step into a world where words waltz and rhymes rap with this collection of vocabulary lists for poetry and novels in verse for Grades 6–8. Tailored for middle school students, these lists offer a front-row ticket to a linguistic carnival, where metaphors juggle and similes spin.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. solemn
    dignified and somber in manner or character
    His face, alert or at rest, was solemn.
  2. askew
    turned or twisted to one side
    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.
  3. strew
    spread by scattering
    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.
  4. benediction
    the act of praying for divine protection
    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.
  5. rivet
    fasten with a metal fastener
    There wasn’t a man-boy on this ground tonight did not have a shield he cast, riveted or carved himself on his way to his first attack, compounded of remote but nonetheless firm and fiery family devotion, flag-blown patriotism and
    cocksure immortality strengthened by the touchstone of very real gunpowder, ramrod, minnieball and flint.
  6. legitimate
    authorized, sanctioned by, or in accordance with law
    “Run off from home or joined legitimately, boy?”
  7. clod
    a compact mass
    Counting both sides, there’s a hundred thousand men, give or take a few thousand out there tonight, not one as can spit a sparrow off a tree, or knows a horse clod from a minnieball.
  8. cavalry
    troops trained to fight on horseback
    Seen the waves rolling in like a well-ordered cavalry charge to the sand?
  9. brisk
    quick and energetic
    One following the other in good time, in brisk time.
  10. resolute
    firm in purpose or belief
    Move the blood up the body and make the head proud and the spine stiff and the jaw resolute.
  11. humble
    marked by meekness or modesty; not arrogant or prideful
    God willing, many nights from tonight, many years from now, when you’re as old or far much older than me, when they ask you what you did in this awful time, you will tell them—one part humble and one part proud—‘I was the drummer boy at the battle of Owl Creek,’ or the Tennessee River, or maybe they’ll just name it after the church there.
  12. muted
    being or made softer or less loud or clear
    He lay next to it, his arm around it, feeling the tremor, the touch, the muted thunder as, all the rest of the April night in the year 1862, near the Tennessee River, not far from the Owl Creek, very close to the church named Shiloh, the peach blossoms fell on the drum.
Created on Fri Jun 05 09:18:37 EDT 2020 (updated Mon Jun 08 13:08:23 EDT 2020)

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