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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's thesis on reputation, and it rewards rhetorical reading. Charlotte meets Wilbur's claim to truth with a flat dismissal, then drives it home with a two-word fragment ('Not a particle.') before stating the principle her whole plan rests on: 'People believe almost anything they see in print.' White immediately undercuts the gravity with a comic pivot to spelling, refusing to let the aphorism harden into a sermon. Copying it means studying how a writer states a serious idea about persuasion and then deflates his own solemnity in the same breath.
"That doesn't make a particle of difference," replied Charlotte. "Not a particle. People believe almost anything they see in print. Does anybody here know how to spell 'terrific'?"
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary of Chapter 12, then identify the single moment you find most important and explain what it reveals about White's larger argument on how Wilbur is being saved.
Discussion Questions
- The old sheep wins Templeton by warning him he will starve if Wilbur dies, and Charlotte plans to save Wilbur by weaving a word into her web for people to read. What does this chapter suggest about how creatures are actually moved to act, and why is that picture convincing, or not? Ground your answer in the sheep's words to Templeton and Charlotte's explanation of the web.
- White could have written this rescue as a tense council; instead he fills it with a roll call, a gander spelling in absurd doubled letters, and a goose answering in triplicate. Explain how the comedy changes the way the danger to Wilbur registers, weighing what it gains against what it risks. Use specific comic details and the chapter's words to make your case.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Causing intense interest or excitement, often beyond what the plain facts deserve; Charlotte calls Wilbur this even as 'terrific' is chosen to manufacture exactly that excitement in the public.
Item 2
Highest in rank or quality; the lamb's slogan reaches for this grand praise, which Charlotte rejects because it sounds less like honor than dessert.
Item 3
The smallest imaginable speck; Charlotte uses it to insist the truth about Wilbur matters not even this much to a plan built on what people will believe.
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Critical Thinking
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