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Copywork
About This Passage
This is chosen because it is the entire second chapter — a whole chapter in under a hundred words. Sachar collapses exposition into epigram: bad boys, hot sun, dig a hole, good boy — then the quiet sabotage of 'That was what some people thought.' Every sentence is doing double duty: stating the camp's stated purpose while inviting the reader to doubt it. Stanley's palindromic name and his poverty enter in four lines. The chapter is a masterclass in compressed setup.
The reader is probably asking: Why would anyone go to Camp Green Lake? Most campers weren't given a choice. Camp Green Lake is a camp for bad boys. If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 2 in a short paragraph of four or five sentences. Name the camp's stated theory of reform, identify the 'some people' who believed it, introduce Stanley Yelnats by name, and close with the choice the judge offered him. Treat the chapter as an argument in miniature, not as plot.
Discussion Questions
- Sachar writes: 'If you take a bad boy and make him dig a hole every day in the hot sun, it will turn him into a good boy. That was what some people thought.' Analyze the rhetorical effect of the second sentence on the first. Why does Sachar report the theory rather than stating it directly? What does the word 'thought' do that the word 'knew' could not?
- The judge gave Stanley a 'choice' between jail and Camp Green Lake. Given what the reader knows about the camp from Chapter 1, consider how the word 'choice' is being stretched here. When is a choice not really a choice? What does the scene tell you about the legal system's concern for Stanley?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Most likely; with reasonable certainty but not absolutely — Sachar opens the chapter by anticipating what the reader is probably asking.
Item 2
The people who stay at a camp — a neutral word made unsettling here, since these campers did not choose to come.
Item 3
An act of selection from among options — the key word of the chapter, repeatedly placed under pressure by context.
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Critical Thinking
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