Two Thousand Miles to the Reef
Characters:
- NARRATOR 1
- NARRATOR 2
- HOLDEN: An eleven-year-old boy with blond hair and blue eyes, eager to explore.
- SHANNON: Holden’s forty-year-old travel companion and close friend, an avid reader.
- CAPTAIN REYES: An airline pilot.
- KEKOA: A marine naturalist and snorkel guide on the Big Island of Hawaii.
NARRATOR 1: At thirty-six thousand feet above the Pacific Ocean, the cabin of the commercial jet is quiet except for the low hum of the engines.
NARRATOR 2: Eleven-year-old Holden presses his forehead against the cool plastic window, his blue eyes wide as he stares down at an unbroken sheet of dark water. Beside him, Shannon turns a page in her thick history book.
HOLDEN: (restless) Shannon, we left Los Angeles four hours ago, and there’s still nothing down there. How did ancient navigators ever find these islands without radar? If you miss by ten miles, you’re just sailing into emptiness.
SHANNON: (smiling, marking her page with a boarding pass) According to this book, Polynesian wayfinders read the ocean the way you and I read a street map. They watched the stars, the flight paths of land-nesting seabirds, and even the way distant islands bent the pattern of ocean swells.
- navigators:
- People who direct the route or course of a ship, aircraft, or other form of transportation, especially by using instruments or maps.
- archipelago:
- A large group or chain of islands scattered across a body of water.
- terrain:
- A stretch of land, especially with regard to its physical features and surface characteristics.
- solidified:
- Made or became hard or solid, such as liquid lava cooling into solid rock.
- sanctuary:
- A protected natural area where wildlife and habitats are kept safe from harm or destruction.
- buoyant:
- Able to float in or rise to the surface of a liquid, or able to keep things floating.
- excrete:
- To separate and expel waste matter from the body after digestion.
- parasites:
- Organisms that live in or on another organism of a different species and benefit by deriving nutrients at the other's expense.
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Main Idea
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Context Clues
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Summarize
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Purpose
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Structure
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Language & Tone
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Vocabulary
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1According to Shannon, what three natural indicators did ancient Polynesian wayfinders use to navigate the ocean without radar?
- 2Why does the water in Kealakekua Bay stay calm enough for massive coral gardens to thrive, and how do human visitors help protect the coral?
About this reader's theater passage for 8th Grade
“Two Thousand Miles to the Reef” is a reader's theater reading passage about Hawaiian Adventure, written for 8th Grade. It takes about 7 minutes to read (1,038 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.