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Copywork
About This Passage
This is Kate Barlow's prophecy in the middle of Chapter 28. Trout has just fired his rifle over her head. Instead of begging, Kate tells him that his whole family — 'you, and your children, and their children' — will waste their lives digging. Sachar is telling the reader that the digging we see at Camp Green Lake a hundred years later is Kate's curse coming true.
"Go ahead and kill me, Trout," said Kate. "But I sure hope you like to dig. 'Cause you're going to be digging for a long time. It's a big vast wasteland out there. You, and your children, and their ch...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 28 from Kate Barlow's point of view. Start with returning to the dead lake and living alone in the cabin. Include Trout and Linda breaking in, the long walk with blistered feet, the lizard, and the last laughing breath. Keep Kate's voice — steady, tired, not afraid.
Discussion Questions
- Kate hears Sam's voice calling 'Onions! Sweet fresh onions' across the empty lake, and she says, 'I know it is hot, but I feel so very cold. My hands are cold. My feet are cold. My face is cold. My heart is cold.' What does repeating the word 'cold' four times tell you about how she has been living? Is the cold really about the weather?
- Linda Miller was once a 'cute freckle-faced girl with beautiful red hair' in Kate's fourth-grade classroom. Now her face is 'blotchy' and her hair is 'dirty and scraggly,' and she is hitting her old teacher with a shovel. What does Sachar want the reader to understand about what happens to people who grow up in a town built on an injustice?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Using a tool or your hands to make a hole in the ground.
Item 2
A large empty area where nothing useful grows or lives.
Item 3
The number that comes after ninety-nine; ten times ten.
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Critical Thinking
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