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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage shows Paulsen's precise environmental seeing — murky edge-water, grasses, swimming bugs, an old beaver-felled log with limbs that become handles. Brian reads the environment as a tool-kit rather than as scenery, which is the mental shift the whole chapter is about.
Brian took small steps down the bank to the lake. Along the edge there were thick grasses and the water looked a little murky and there were small things swimming in the water, small bugs. But there w...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Narrate chapter five in your own words, from Brian waking up thirsty and sunburned through his inventory of possessions to his realization about the rudder and the searchers. Include the moment Brian first hears complete silence.
Discussion Questions
- What in the story shows you that Brian's mind was not really working at first, and what moment makes his thinking 'trigger' back on? How does Paulsen signal this change to the reader?
- How do you know that Brian's English teacher Perpich was important in this chapter, even though Perpich is not actually in the woods with him? What do Perpich's words do inside Brian's head?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Cloudy and dark so you cannot see through it clearly.
Item 2
Thick plants with long thin green blades that grow along shores and fields.
Item 3
The branches of a tree, or sometimes the arms and legs of a person.
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Critical Thinking
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