Decoding.
Read the passage.
Underline the words you donšt know
Try to replace them in the sentence with words that make sense.
Form a picture of the reading.
(If you canšt)
Try to put the sentence into your own words, if you donšt understand it the first time.
Reading:
As one of the soldiers,
who carried a basket in lieu of a gun, went down on his knee to open it, my convict
looked round him for the first time, and saw me. I had alighted from Joe's back
on the brink of the ditch when we came up, and had not moved since. I looked at
him eagerly when he looked at me, and slightly moved my hands and shook my
head. I had been waiting for him to see me, that I might try to assure him of
my innocence. It was not at all expressed to me that he even comprehended my
intention, for he gave me a look that I did not understand, and it all passed
in a moment. But if he had looked at me for an hour or for a day, I could not
have remembered his face ever afterwards, as having been more attentive.
The soldier with the
basket soon got a light, and lighted three or four torches, and took one himself
and distributed the others. It had been almost dark before, but now it seemed
quite dark, and soon afterwards very dark. Before we departed from that spot,
four soldiers standing in a ring, fired twice into the air. Presently we saw
other torches kindled at some distance behind us, and others on the marshes on
the opposite bank of the river. "All right," said the sergeant.
"March."
We had not gone far when
three cannon were fired ahead of us with a sound that seemed to burst something
inside my ear. "You are expected on board," said the sergeant to my
convict; "they know you are coming. Don't straggle, my man. Close up
here."
The two were kept apart, and each walked surrounded by a separate guard. I had hold of Joe's hand now, and Joe carried one of the torches. Mr. Wopsle had been for going back, but Joe was resolved to see it out, so we went on with the party. There was a reasonably good path now, mostly on the edge of the river, with a divergence here and there where a dyke came, with a miniature windmill on it and a muddy sluice-gate. When I looked round, I could see the other lights coming in after us. The torches we carried, dropped great blotches of fire upon the track, and I could see those, too, lying smoking and flaring. I could see nothing else but black darkness. Our lights warmed the air about us with their pitchy blaze, and the two prisoners seemed rather to like that, as they limped along in the midst of the muskets. We could not go fast, because of their lameness; and they were so spent, that two or three times we had to halt while they rested.
Actions:
1. Underline the words you donšt know.
2. Draw a picture of the final scene.
3. Put the underlined sentence into your own words?