Out of the Dust
Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: ______________________
Section 2: Not Too Much To Ask through Breaking Drought
1. What did Billie Jo’s mother donate to people in need?
2. Why did Billie Jo think she had to be so vigilant about money at Mr. Hardly’s store?
3. What did Billie Jo do when it was discovered that Mr. Hardly had given her four extra cents in change?
4. What would Billie Jo’s mother have done if Billie Jo had taken a gift from Mr. Hardly?
5. Where did the wind storm take place in Fifty Miles South of Home?
6. Why does Billie Jo’s family set the table with plates upside down, glasses bottom up, and napkins
folded over the silverware?
7. What does Billie Jo’s father mean when he says, “The potatoes are peppered plenty tonight, Polly”?
8. What happened in Breaking Drought after seventy days?
Section 2 Part I: Using Prior Knowledge and Contextual Clues
Below are the sentences in which the vocabulary words appear in the text. Read the sentence. Use any clues you can find in the sentence combined with your prior knowledge, and write what you think the words in bold mean.
1. …and we’re all whittled down to the bone these days…
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2. I squinted back at him as I gave him Ma’s order.
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3. …and thinking about the secondhand music in a moldy box at the shop in
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4. We shake out our napkins, spread them on our laps, and flip over our glasses and plates, exposing neat circles, round comments on what life would be without dust.
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5. Breaking Drought
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Part II: Determining the Meaning: Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.
___ 7. whittled A. revealing
___ 8. squinted B. a long period of low rainfall
___ 9. moldy C. reduced gradually
___10. exposing D. musty or stale in odor or taste
___11. drought E. looked at with eyes partly closed