E n g L i s h jenni Currie Santamaria

Read the story again. Answer the question.
Why was the Battle of Huck’s Defeat important?
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“PAUL REVERE’S RIDE”
I. PRE-READING
A.
Background information
The night before the irst battles of the American Revolution, Paul Revere rode 
through Middlesex County in Massachusetts to warn the colonists that the 
British army was coming. The colonists were prepared for the British, and they 
won this irst battle. Revere was not the only rider that night, but everyone 
knows his name because of this poem about his ride. It was written in 1861 by 
the famous poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It is a long poem—the lines 
here are from the beginning and near the end.
B.
Words to know before you read
lantern 
light
aloft 
up high
belfry 
bell tower
signal 
something that gives information
to arm 
to get weapons
shore 
the side of a river

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Better Reading English
Look at the previous definitions. Write the meaning of these lines:
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light
C.
Reading strategy
This poem uses rhyme—words that have the same sound—at the end of each 
line. In many cases, the rhymes are in pairs called “rhyming couplets” as in the 
irst two lines, which rhyme 
hear 
and 
Revere.
In the following poem, look through the words at the end of each line. Which 
lines are rhyming couplets? On the following blanks, write the line numbers and 
the rhyming words. (In one case, there are three rhyming lines together.)
Example: 
lines 1 and 2, hear/Revere
II. READ
Read the text. Mark the words you don’t know, but don’t stop reading to look 
them up.
“Paul Revere’s Ride”
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
1
Listen my children and you shall hear 
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere, 
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-ive; 
Hardly a man is now alive 
Who remembers that famous day and year.
6
He said to his friend, “If the British march 
By land or sea from the town to-night, 
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch 
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,— 
One if by land, and two if by sea;

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The Early United States
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III. COMPREHENSION CHECK
Write the answers to the questions.
1.
What was the date of Paul Revere’s ride?
2.
The British came in ships. How many lanterns did Revere’s friend hang in 
the church tower?
3.
What did Revere tell the people to do?
4.
Where did the farmers stand while they were shooting?
IV. VOCABULARY BUILDING
Read the words and the definitions. Both definitions are possible for each word. 
Use the context of the poem to help you decide which meaning of the word 
defines its use in the poem.
1.
shore
a. 
to support or hold up
b. 
the land at the edge of a river
11 
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm 
Through every Middlesex village and farm, 
For the country folk to be up and to arm.”
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You know the rest. In the books you have read 
How the British Regulars ir
ed and led,— 
How the farmers gave them ball for ball, 
From behind each fence and farmyard wall, 
Chasing the redcoats down the lane, 
Then crossing the ields to emerge again
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Under the trees at the turn of the road, 
And only pausing to ire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere; 
And so through the night went his cry of alarm 
To every Middlesex village and farm,—
121
A cry of deiance, and not of fear, 
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door, 
And a word that shall echo for evermore!

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