Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Chosen for its celebration machinery: a short claim — jubilee — then proof piled up in a catalog of five places, then a dash that opens into 'everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.' The writer even tucks a joke inside parentheses, giving the sparrow a hometown, and spells the bird's call into words anyone can sing. Copying this passage gives practice with list commas, a dash that widens a sentence, parentheses that whisper an aside, and song written down as speech.
Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp - everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs. From the edge of the woods, the...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell the chapter in two movements: first the summer essay — school out, haying, the bird jubilee, summer treats — then the barn event: the goose's quiet last day of waiting, Charlotte's announcement, seven goslings, the dud egg handed to Templeton, the gander's warning, and Mr. Zuckerman's count. End by naming the one thing in the happy day that the barn is still worried about.
Discussion Questions
- Early summer sounds beautiful in this chapter, but Avery's pockets keep filling — a trout 'warm and stiff and ready to be fried for supper,' then a grass snake. Do the pocket details make the season feel gentler, rougher, or both at once? Use the words of the pocket moments and the details of the summer pages to explain what kind of summer the chapter is showing.
- Charlotte announces the goslings like a speech at a banquet: every one of us will be 'gratified to learn' of the goose's 'four weeks of unremitting effort and patience,' and she ends, 'May I offer my sincere congratulations!' Why might Charlotte give plain barn news such grand dress? Use the words of her announcement to explain what the formality does for the goose's work.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary
Item 1
Impossible to live in or defend — a place you would have to give up.
Item 2
Pleased and satisfied; given what you hoped for.
Item 3
Wide rows of cut grass left lying by the mower.
+ 7 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 5 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