“Sentry”

by Fredric Brown

English 9 - J. Crucil

What is a “sentry”?

noun, plural= sentries. 1. a soldier stationed at a place to stand

guard and prevent the passage of unauthorized persons, watch for fires, etc., especially a sentinel stationed at a pass, gate, opening in a defense work, or the like.

2. a member of a guard or watch (military)

3. Synonyms: guard, sentinel, lookout, watch, watchman, patrol.

Prediction- what do you think the story will be about?

Vocabulary

Sacred ground: A place that is considered

holy, important, protected, worthy of awe, or central to a culture.

Hideous (adjective) Horrible, ugly, frightening

looks, shocking or revolting. Repulsive (adjective) Tending to drive away,

aversion, offensive. Colonization (to colonize): a group of people who leave

their native country to form in a new land a settlement subject to, or connected with, the parent nation.

Negotiate (verb): to deal or bargain with

another or others, as in the preparation of a treaty or contract or in preliminaries to a business deal.

Infiltrate (verb): to move into (an organization,

country, territory, or the like) surreptitiously and gradually, especially with hostile intent:

“To draw a bead” (figure of speech / verb):

To take aim with a weapon.

Keep track of all vocabulary.

Read the story

Turn to pages 292-293 in your Sightlines 9 textbook.

Follow along as I read aloud. Ask questions for clarification. How close was your prediction? Did you like the story? How did you feel about the ending?

Narrator

Who tells the story? From which point of view does the

narrator tell the story? We automatically feel empathy or a

connection with the storyteller as we see things through their eyes.

How to Answer Questions

#3: Describe the setting of the story. Provide three specific examples.

Option A The story is on a

planet in the future.

Option B The story takes place

on a planet with a blue sun and gravity.

Option C “Sentry” takes

place on a planet with a “strange blue sun” in an un-named Galaxy. It is “wet and muddy” with a high, cold wind. We can assume the planet is Earth.

Conflict - the struggle of opposing forces / wants

Conflict moves the plot / builds suspense Character vs. character: Joe hates Bob Character vs. him or herself: Joe is

struggling to overcome his depression. Character vs. environment (can be anything

outside the character such as society, geography, weather, etc.): Joe is fighting against society’s expectations that he will follow the rules and laws of his community.

How to Answer Questions

Your Interpretation Quotes from the story

We feel bad for the sentry’s hard work and can understand how he feels.

“He was wet and muddy and hungry and cold and he was fifty thousand light years from home.”

He’s just a worker drone and has no control over his own life or the decisions of war.

“When the chips are down, though, it was still the foot soldier, the infantry, that had to take the ground and hold it, foot by bloody foot.”

#5. How does the author make us empathize with or feel sympathy for the narrator? Find quotes from the story to support your answer.

Irony

The opposite of what one expects to happen.

An unusual or surprise plot twist. We follow a sequence of events that

leads us in one predictable direction, but then, we arrive at a totally different place.

Theme

The main idea, central insight, or observation about the great universal themes made in a work of literature.

What is the author’s purpose? What do we learn about humans? NEVER phrased as a cliché, one-word topic, or

moral of the story. ALWAYS phrased as a full and complete

sentence that can be proven with evidence from the story.

Re-read the story to test your theory of the theme.