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Copywork
About This Passage
Paterson reveals Jess's inner world through his art — he draws absurd, impossible situations for animals. The passage shows rather than tells: we learn Jess has imagination, humor, and a need for creative escape. The vocabulary is vivid (impossible fixes, turning over and over) and the detail about 'crazy animals with problems' is both funny and revealing — Jess puts creatures in trouble because he understands what trouble feels like.
he loved to draw animals mostly not the regular animals like Miss Bessie or the chickens but crazy animals with problems for some reason he liked to put his beast into impossible fixes this one was a ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell someone what happened in this chapter in order. When you get to the most important part, slow down and tell it carefully — what happened, why it mattered, and what you think about it.
Discussion Questions
- Jess loves to draw, but when he told his dad he wanted to be an artist, his dad got angry. Now Jess hides his drawings under his mattress. Was Jess right to hide something he loves, or should he have kept telling people about it? What in the story makes you think so?
- Jess draws 'crazy animals with problems' — like a hippopotamus falling off a cliff. Why do you think Jess likes to draw animals in trouble instead of happy animals? What in the story makes you think his drawings tell us something about how Jess feels inside?
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Critical Thinking
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