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Copywork
About This Passage
This short paragraph is one of the most important sentences in the book so far. In the outside world — in school, in the courts, in the places Stanley has come from — race is a very big deal, and there really would be 'racial problems' among a group of boys forced to live and work together. But at Camp Green Lake, the narrator tells us, that is not the main problem. Louis Sachar is doing something clever and a little bit dark here: the heat and dirt and exhaustion are so extreme that they 'erase' the surface differences between the boys. Everyone is the same 'reddish brown color — the color of dirt.' On the one hand this sounds unifying — they are a team. On the other hand it is a warning about what cruel places do to people: they strip away the things that make each person individual until all that is left is labor, dust, and thirst. Copying the passage slowly lets the student feel both sides of that — the strange comfort of 'we are all the same here,' and the sadness that what makes them 'the same' is that they are all being worn down to dirt.
Stanley was thankful that there were no racial problems. X-Ray, Armpit, and Zero were black. He, Squid, and Zigzag were white. Magnet was Hispanic. On the lake they were all the same reddish brown col...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 19 in five parts: (1) Stanley wakes up in the middle of the night to Squid crying, and Squid threatens him in the morning. (2) The narrator explains that at camp, all the boys are 'the color of dirt.' (3) Magnet steals sunflower seeds from Mr. Sir's truck and the boys toss the sack around. (4) The sack spills in Stanley's hole and Mr. Sir comes back. (5) Stanley tells Mr. Sir that HE stole and ate all the seeds alone, and he rides away in the truck to see the Warden.
Discussion Questions
- What does the contrast between Squid crying at night and Squid threatening Stanley in the morning ('You open your mouth again, and I'll break your jaw') tell you about the difference between who the boys REALLY are and who they have to pretend to be at Camp Green Lake?
- When the narrator says the boys were 'all the same reddish brown color—the color of dirt,' is that a good thing, a sad thing, or both? What lines in the rest of the chapter make you think so?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Feeling glad about something, often something good you received or something bad you avoided.
Item 2
Having to do with the different groups of people that human beings have divided themselves into by skin color, ancestry, or background.
Item 3
Things that go wrong or are difficult to deal with.
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Critical Thinking
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