Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Chosen because this passage is White's great exercise in dramatic irony — the announcer reaches for supernatural forces because he cannot imagine the natural one — and because it carries three vocabulary words (mysteriously, phenomenon, supernatural) in the very sentences that miss the true explanation.
Many of you will recall that never-to-be-forgotten day last summer when the writing appeared mysteriously on the spider's web in Mr. Zuckerman's barn, calling the attention of all and sundry to the fa...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 20 in your own words, noting especially the layered perspectives: the loud speaker's public announcement, Wilbur's inner trembling, Charlotte's solitary listening from the pigpen, and Templeton's hidden work from under the straw.
Discussion Questions
- The loud speaker praises Wilbur in four escalating terms — this radiant, this terrific, this humble pig — borrowing directly from Charlotte's web. What is the rhetorical effect of the announcer recycling Charlotte's vocabulary without knowing its source, and why does White let this theft go uncorrected?
- When the announcer declares that spiders cannot write, Charlotte answers only to herself: Oh, they can't, can't they? Compare this private correction with Charlotte's public words in the web. What is the difference between writing something for the world and murmuring something to yourself, and what does Charlotte's choice reveal about her at this point in the novel?
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
In a manner that cannot be explained or understood; in a puzzling, hidden way
Item 2
A remarkable event, fact, or appearance that is observed and studied, especially one whose cause is unclear
Item 3
Beyond the ordinary laws of nature; attributed to forces that cannot be explained by science
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 6 more questions in the complete study guide
Get the complete study guide — free
Sign up and get your first book with every chapter included. Copywork, discussion questions, vocabulary, and critical thinking.
Sign up free