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Copywork
About This Passage
Montgomery distills Matthew's character into a single rhetorically intricate sentence: the em-dash appositive and the paradox that silence can be 'more potent and effectual' than speech. Copying it trains students in periodic syntax and in how an author can argue a character's nature through sentence structure itself.
That was Matthew’s way—take a whim into his head and cling to it with the most amazing silent persistency—a persistency ten times more potent and effectual in its very silence than if he had talked it...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Reconstruct the chapter's movement: Anne's joyful waking, her rhapsody to Marilla, the silent breakfast, her refusal to go outdoors, the naming of the geranium, and the drive toward White Sands.
Discussion Questions
- Anne's grief at being unwanted lifts the instant she wakes to the cherry tree and the morning, and she insists she 'never can be in the depths of despair' once day comes. What does that change reveal about Anne, and should we read her resilience as chiefly a strength, a danger, or some mixture of both, and why? Use details from the chapter.
- Anne refuses to step outdoors, reasoning that 'there is no use in loving things if you have to be torn from them.' Construct the strongest case that her self-protection is wisdom, then the strongest objection that it is a failure of courage. Which does the chapter ultimately endorse, and why? Use details from the chapter.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Steadily and fixedly, without turning aside.
Item 2
Caught or stopped something on its way to another.
Item 3
Perceived or recognized something with careful attention.
+ 3 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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