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About This Passage
E. B. White uses parallel structure — 'would go to his head...Wilbur was modest; fame did not spoil him' — to contrast what might have happened with what did. The semicolon is the hinge: before it, doubt; after it, the steady fact of Wilbur's character. The passage is a miniature lesson in how small sentences can carry a whole moral idea.
Some of Wilbur's friends in the barn worried for fear all this attention would go to his head and make him stuck up. But it never did. Wilbur was modest; fame did not spoil him. He still worried some ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Narrate Chapter 15 in six to eight sentences, weaving in the crickets' song, Wilbur's radiant performance, Charlotte's revelation about egg laying, and the quiet note the chapter ends on.
Discussion Questions
- E. B. White opens Chapter 15 with the crickets' song and its 'rumor of sadness and change.' How does this single image set the emotional and moral weather for everything that follows on the Zuckerman farm?
- Wilbur is 'modest; fame did not spoil him.' What does this chapter suggest about the difference between reputation and character, and how does White use Wilbur to teach it?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Repeating the same tone or pattern so steadily that it becomes tiresome.
Item 2
The shared judgment others hold of one's character based on past conduct.
Item 3
Free from pride or self-praise; unassuming in manner.
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Critical Thinking
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