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Copywork
About This Passage
Five sentences that perform a complete turn of thought. The first three build the family's creed — shared trait, named virtue, quoted motto — and then 'But perhaps' opens a trapdoor under all of it: what if the hopefulness is the curse's cleverest part? Copy the unit attending to its hinge — the way 'as well' quietly adds hope to the curse's inventory, and the conditional 'If... then...' that prices hope in units of pain. This is the chapter thinking on the page, building an idea and then auditing it, and the syntax of that audit — concession, condition, consequence — is worth absorbing by hand.
All of them had something else in common. Despite their awful luck, they always remained hopeful. As Stanley’s father liked to say, “I learn from failure.” But perhaps that was part of the curse as ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think Sachar most wanted the reader to carry off the bus: Stanley's innocence, the family's way with bad luck, or the window where hope meets the dried lake. Name the moment you would call the chapter's center, and defend the choice.
Discussion Questions
- The chapter keeps interrupting the bus ride: the guard and the handcuffs give way to Camp Fun and Games, Mrs. Bell, the curse, the song, Kate Barlow — then back to the bus. Why might Sachar braid Stanley's present with his family's past instead of telling them separately? Use the chapter's structure — where each interruption lands — to explain what the braiding builds.
- Camp Fun and Games is a camp Stanley invented for stuffed animals: soccer with a marble, obstacle courses, bungee jumping off a table on broken rubber bands. What does the game reveal about the boy who made it — and why does the chapter let us see it just before the real camp? Use the chapter's details about the game and about Stanley's life at school to explain your reading.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Refusing to quit a hard thing; effort stretched across years.
Item 2
Everyone who comes after a person in a family line — children, grandchildren, onward.
Item 3
Paper and envelopes meant for writing letters.
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Critical Thinking
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