Snakes Alive! Part 2

Snakes Alive! Part 2

Snakes Alive! Part 2
Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 5 to 7
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	7.55

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		anonymous, masthead, provocation, reappeared, enlist, bearing, cargo, represent, supposedly, ammunition, realization, version, design, flown, motto, tread
	content words:		Benjamin Franklin, Stamp Act, One Parliamentarian, Colonel Isaac Barre, Paul Revere, Massachusetts Spy, New England, Continental Army, Bunker Hill, In October

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Snakes Alive! Part 2
By Jane Runyon

¹     Benjamin Franklin used a rattlesnake to represent the unity needed in the new colonies. His snake, cut into pieces, warned that if the colonies did not work together, they might lose their freedom. The Stamp Act was introduced in the 1760's. It was Great Britain's way of forcing the colonists to pay for the soldiers they needed to fight wars in Europe. One Parliamentarian went so far as to tell the British people that it was only fair that the colonists be taxed. After all, hadn't the British carefully "planted" the colonies and fed them with kindness and support?

²     The colonists resented statements like this. Most of the colonists had come to the new world to escape from British rule. Now they were being taxed to help a country that didn't really want them. Colonel Isaac Barre referred to the colonists as "sons of liberty." It was these "sons of liberty" who eventually got tired of British rule and led the fight for freedom. It was at this time that Benjamin Franklin's idea of a united rattlesnake reappeared.

³     Colonists began using the snake as a symbol. Paul Revere used the snake fighting against an English dragon on the masthead of the Massachusetts Spy, a New England newspaper. The rattlesnake was now being drawn as one whole snake. There could be no hint of a broken country in this new endeavor.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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