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Copywork
About This Passage
This is Sara's first impression of Miss Minchin, filtered through the child's unusually perceptive eye. Burnett builds the portrait with deliberate parallelism, repeating 'large, cold, fishy' for both eyes and smile, and pairs it with a quiet irony: the very large smile spreads only when Miss Minchin sees the wealthy Captain Crewe. Copying these sentences lets a student examine how repetition, the cataloguing colon, and a carefully timed detail can render character and expose motive at once.
She was very like her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. She had large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile. It spread itself into a very large smile when she saw ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize Chapter 1, then explain what you think Burnett most wants the reader to notice or feel about Sara, and which techniques, such as her private thoughts or the contrast with Miss Minchin, the author uses to achieve that effect.
Discussion Questions
- Burnett reveals Sara mostly through her private thoughts and a few telling actions, instead of openly praising or condemning her. What conclusion about Sara does that restrained, show-don't-tell approach lead you to draw, and why is it more effective than a direct authorial verdict? Use the chapter's details to explain your reading.
- The chapter ends with Miss Minchin saying Sara has been treated 'as if she were a little princess.' What does Miss Minchin seem to mean by that phrase, and does the rest of the chapter support her meaning or complicate it? Use the chapter's details to explain why you read it as you do.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
The main public roads or streets that run through a city.
Item 2
Regarded by others as proper, decent, and deserving of respect.
Item 3
An organized business or institution, such as a school.
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Critical Thinking
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