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Out of the Dust - Lesson 23

Last updated about 2 years ago
5 questions
Lesson 23 Question Set
Directions: Read this passage in which Billie Jo describes a rainstorm. Then answer each item.
“First Rain”
from Out of the Dust
by Karen Hesse

Restless,
I tangle in the dusty sheets,
sending the sand flying,
cursing the grit against my skin,
between my teeth,
under my lids,
swearing I’ll leave this forsaken1 place.

I hear the first drops.
Like the tapping of a stranger
at the door of a dream,
the rain changes everything.
It strokes the roof,
streaking the dusty tin,
ponging,
a concert of rain notes,
spilling from gutters,
gushing through gullies,2
soaking into the thirsty earth outside.

Monday morning dawns,
cloaked in mist.
I button into my dress, slip on my sweater,
and push my way off the porch,
sticking my face into the fog,
into the moist skin of the fog.
The sound of dripping surrounds me as I
walk to town.

Soaked to my underwear,
I can’t bear to go
through the schoolhouse door,
I want only to stand in the rain.

1 forsaken: Hopeless
2 gullies: Cuts in the land that water runs through

Hesse, Karen. Out of the Dust. Scholastic, Inc., 1997, pp. 104–105.
1

This item has two parts. Answer PART A; then answer PART B.
Read these lines from the passage.

“It strokes the roof,
streaking the dusty tin,
ponging,
a concert of rain notes”

PART A: What does the phrase a concert of rain notes mean?

1

PART B: What does the phrase a concert of rain notes suggest about how Billie Jo feels about the rain?

1

PART AA: In the last verse of this passage, why does Billie Jo wait to enter the schoolhouse?

1

PART BB: Which detail supports the answer to PART A?

1

How does Billie Jo’s response to her environment change after it rains?