Out of the Dust
Name: ___________________________________________________ Date: ______________________
Section 3: Dazzled through Fields of Flashing Light
1. About what is Billie Jo dazzled in the poem of that name?
2. What happens to Billie Jo’s father when he watches her mother play the piano?
3. When did Billie Jo’s mother first teach her to play the piano?
4. What does Billie Jo’s mother say is the main reason that Billie Jo’s father still believes in rain?
5. Why won’t Billie Jo’s mother allow her to play for Sunny of Sunnyside?
6. What did Billie Jo’s mother say when told that Billie Jo scored at the top of the eighth grade at her
school on an achievement test?
7. What is the main event that happens in Fields of Flashing Light?
Section 3 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. …I remember being dazzled by her whenever she played the piano.
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2. …but sometimes I think she’s just plain jealous when I’m at the piano and she’s not.
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3. While Ma and Daddy slept the dust came, tearing up fields where the winter wheat, set for harvest in
June, stood helpless.
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4. The wind snatched that snow right off the fields…
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Part II: Determining the Meaning: Match the vocabulary words to their dictionary definitions.
___ 12. dazzled A. envious
___ 13. jealous B. seized or grabbed
___ 14. harvest C. amazed or bewildered with spectacular display
___ 15. snatched D. gathering in of a crop