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Copywork
About This Passage
This is Sara's startling reflection to Ermengarde about her own good fortune. Rather than taking credit for her cleverness or her happy temper, she traces them all to 'accidents', luck she did nothing to earn, repeating 'It just happened that' as if examining her life honestly from the outside. The parallel sentences build a quiet argument that her virtues may be the products of circumstance rather than merit. Copying this passage lets a student study how repetition and balanced syntax can carry a piece of genuine self-examination, and consider what it means that a privileged child questions whether she deserves her advantages.
A lot of nice accidents have happened to me. It just happened that I always liked lessons and books, and could remember things when I learned them. It just happened that I was born with a father who w...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize Chapter 4, then explain what you think Burnett most wants the reader to notice about Sara, and which techniques, such as the staged failure of the adults or Sara's speech about 'accidents,' the author uses to achieve that effect.
Discussion Questions
- Sara wonders whether her good temper is only an accident of having an easy life. What is the strongest reason to agree with her, and what is the strongest reason to trust her character anyway? After weighing both sides, which reading does this chapter support more strongly? Use the chapter's details to explain.
- Burnett lets the adults fail at length before Sara says almost anything. What does the long delay make us notice when Sara finally enters, and why might Burnett want the scene arranged that way? Use the chapter's details to explain.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Friendly, good-natured pleasantness.
Item 2
A person's natural temperament or usual mood.
Item 3
Harshness or sharpness of tone or manner.
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Critical Thinking
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