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Copywork
About This Passage
Four sentences of pure institutional prose — the camp's constitution, delivered without one adjective of apology. Notice the grammar of command: 'You are to dig' is obligation wearing the second person, and 'Your shovel is your measuring stick' gifts Stanley possession of the very instrument that binds him. The specifications — five feet, every direction, 4:30 — carry the precision of law and none of law's stated purpose. Copy the paragraph attending to its rhythm: three sentences of obligation, then the short, almost domestic 'Breakfast is served at 4:30,' as if the camp's brutality and its hospitality shared one voice. They do.
You are to dig one hole each day, including Saturdays and Sundays. Each hole must be five feet deep, and five feet across in every direction. Your shovel is your measuring stick. Breakfast is served a...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter as an induction ceremony: paperwork, search, uniform, rules, and the staged tour of everything that is missing. Then name the chapter's central transaction — what Camp Green Lake takes from Stanley in his first hour, and what it hands him back. Defend your account with the order of events as the chapter gives them.
Discussion Questions
- Stanley arrives handcuffed and thirsty, watches two sodas pass him by, and still 'felt a little sorry for the guard and the bus driver' who get to leave. What does that response reveal about him, and why might Sachar establish it in Stanley's first hour at camp? Use the chapter's words about the sodas, the grumbling guard, and the long ride to defend your reading.
- Mr. Sir does not simply say that escape is impossible. He makes Stanley discover it step by step: first the questions about guard towers and fences, then the dare to run, then the line about becoming buzzard food. Why might a man with total authority prefer that kind of performance to a plain statement? Use the chapter's words from the exchange to support your answer.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Concerned with punishing and reforming offenders — the state's adjective for institutions of punishment.
Item 2
Land so empty and ruined that nothing useful lives or grows there.
Item 3
Rest from work — here, a category the institution schedules and assigns clothes for.
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Critical Thinking
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