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Copywork
About This Passage
When Miss Minchin scolds the slow, unhappy Ermengarde and the other girls laugh, Sara feels so sorry for her that she wants to be her friend. The author stops to explain that this is simply how Sara is: she rushes to help anyone who is being hurt or made unhappy. A 'fray' is a fight or struggle, so the sentence pictures Sara leaping in to defend someone in trouble. Copying this sentence helps a young reader name Sara's most important quality, her instinct to protect the weak.
It was a way of hers always to want to spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 3 in your own words: how the slow, unhappy girl Ermengarde is scolded and laughed at during the French lesson, how Sara feels sorry for her and makes friends with her, and how Sara shows Ermengarde her doll Emily and tells her about pretending and about missing her own papa.
Discussion Questions
- When the other girls titter at Ermengarde's bad French, Sara does not laugh; she thinks, 'It isn't funny, really. They ought not to laugh.' Does Sara seem kind, proud, or a little of both when she refuses to laugh, and why? Use the chapter's details about how Sara acts to explain.
- Everyone at the school treats Ermengarde as 'the stupidest child,' but Sara chooses to befriend her. Why might Sara want to be friends with the very girl the others look down on, and what does that choice show about Sara? Use the chapter's details to explain.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
A person who is very slow at learning.
Item 2
Great worry, pain, or trouble.
Item 3
To love and admire someone very much.
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Critical Thinking
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