My Brother Sam is Dead...Perspective Journal 2
Name______Advisory______
Below you will find a summary and some direct quotes from chapter 7. This week you will be writing your perspective journal on this chapter of the story from either the viewpoint of Life (Father) or Tim. Remember, for this assignment you are pretending to be either Tim or his father, and you are writing an account of what happened in this chapter from the viewpoint of “I”, or first person. This chapter is an exciting and yet frightening chapter that changes the course of the story significantly. This should be evident in your journal response. How would these events make Tim or Father feel?
Chapter 7 Summary
The summer of 1776 has ended and Tim's family begins preparing for the winter months in Chapter Seven. The war is still distant and though no one is really desperate, provisions, like cloth and leather, are running short locally because the soldiers need them for clothing and shoes. Sam has sent two letters and Susannah plans on sending one back to him. Life disapproves but to Tim's delight is overruled and turns his attention to planning his annual cattle run to the Hudson River.
The cattle run to Verplancks is essential to Tim's family, as he explains:
Tim: "The idea of our trip was to drive cattle to Verplancks Point where we could sell them, and then use the money to buy supplies we needed at the tavern and store."
Yet, a cattle run across Westchester County was dangerous and Life, knew it:
Life: "The woods are full of those cow-boys over there. They claim they're patriots gathering beef for the troops, but really they're nothing more than thieves. And we don't have our gun anymore."
Despite the danger, Life doesn't have much of a choice but to take Tim with him, as he states: "There's nobody else to do it."
Tim is thrilled, "there would be a lot of exciting things on the trip-" perhaps something would happen that he could boast to Sam about. As they make their way out of Redding, the trip is every bit as good as he imagined:
Tim: "It seemed pretty exciting when we passed a house, especially if there were some people there. A couple times there were children staring out the windows as we went by. It made me feel proud of myself for being a man while they were still children, and I shouted at the oxen and smacked them on their rumps with my stick, just to show off how casual and easy I was with the oxen and how used I was to managing them."
Tim is mimicking Sam when he shows off "how casual and easy" he is with the oxen. He may not know how to load a musket but he certainly knows livestock. Like Sam, his focus is more on the glory than the danger of the trip, but that changes abruptly once they near the New York line.
Tim narrating: "There were six of them, and they were carrying weapons- mostly muskets, but one or two of them had swords and pistols. They were dressed in ordinary clothing- brown shirts and trousers and muddy boots…They charged up to us, surrounded us, and stopped."
Tim continually calls these men Cow-boys but Cow-boys were loyal to the British and these men are definitely not fond of the British.; They are Skinners. Skinners, like the Cow-boys were "land-going" raiders preying on enemy civilian supplies. Though "Skinners" sympathized with the Patriots, they were comprised largely of tramps and bandits, serving their own interests more often than those of any cause.
The group of men that come to Tim and Life's rescue are Loyalists. This is evident in their conversation with Life:
Life: "Who were those people? Cow-boys?"
Man: Cattle thieves is a better name. We had reports that they were riding this morning, and we've been looking for them all day. You're a Loyalist, I take it?"
Life: "I'm interested in making a living, not fighting a war, my boy and I are just trying to get this beef to Verplancks Point the way I do every year."
Man: "Verplancks Point? It'll go to New York, then. We'll see that it gets there. There are still a lot of people loyal to His Majesty in these parts."
The men escort them to the New York line and summon another group to take them to North Salem. To Tim's disappointment New York State doesn't look or feel any different than Connecticut, it was just like being home. The reality was that it was not "just like being home" as Tim states, he is no longer isolated from war-time activities, he is in the thick of them.
This chapter begins the symbolic journey of Tim's maturation and position on the war. Simultaneously, it lays the groundwork for Life's tragic end.
When Life states: "I'm interested in making a living, not fighting a war." He is exposing a theme in the novel, which is the unfairness of war. Life is simply a man that wants to live his life as he always has and that position has placed him and his son in great danger.
Grading Criteria / Continue DevelopingToward Mastery / Good Work / Excellent Work / Comments and Suggestions
Perspective Writing
· Journal entry is clearly written from the perspective of the chosen character.
Perspective Development:
· Journal entry is developed thoroughly to reflect an understanding of the character’s emotions
· The journal uses specific examples from the story to support their ideas
Author’s Craft:
· Writing has a powerful voice that exemplifies how the characters are actually feeling about what is happening
· Inferences are thoughtful and possible interpretations as to how the characters in the story were actually feeling
Conventions
· Limited spelling and grammatical errors
Overall Grade