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Copywork
About This Passage
Roald Dahl chooses his words carefully in this passage to turn the tractors into living creatures. Notice ‘biting huge mouthfuls of soil’ — tractors do not bite, animals do, but Dahl gives the machines teeth. Then the tree that has been Mr Fox’s home since before the story began is ‘toppled like a matchstick’ — a whole tree made as small as a toothpick by the force of the machines. Finally the sentence ends with rocks flying, trees falling, and deafening noise all in one long rush, which makes the paragraph feel as loud as the scene itself. The passage uses three of our vocabulary words: toppled, matchstick, deafening.
The machines went to work, biting huge mouthfuls of soil out of the hill. The big tree under which Mr Fox had dug his hole in the first place was toppled like a matchstick. On all sides, rocks were se...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 5 in six or seven sentences. Begin with sunrise over Boggis, Bunce, and Bean still digging the house-sized hole; describe how the three farmers quarrel and blame each other for a rotten idea; explain Bean’s new plan to bring in mechanical shovels and his order that Boggis stay behind with a gun; describe the arrival of the two black caterpillar tractors biting the hillside; tell how Mr Fox does not recognize the sound and Mrs Fox fears an earthquake; name the Small Fox who notices daylight at the end of the tunnel; and end with Mr Fox shouting ‘Dig for your lives!’
Discussion Questions
- Roald Dahl spends the first half of Chapter 5 showing us Boggis, Bunce, and Bean quarreling. Boggis calls digging a ‘rotten idea,’ Bunce asks Bean if he has any more ‘stupid ideas,’ and Bean takes a swig of cider without offering it to the others. Why does the author spend so many pages showing the farmers arguing before he brings in the tractors, and what does their quarreling reveal about the kind of team Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are?
- Bean declares, ‘I’m not giving in till I’ve strung him up over my front porch, dead as a dumpling!’ This is a sentence about revenge, not about stealing chickens or cider. Analyze what Bean’s threat tells us about how the story has changed from a dispute over food to a personal hunt. Why does Dahl give Bean the angriest voice of the three farmers, and how does this prepare the reader for everything that Boggis, Bunce, and Bean will do next?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Extremely large in size or amount.
Item 2
Operated by machinery rather than by hand.
Item 3
Making a loud, heavy, metallic sound.
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Critical Thinking
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