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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the passage that collapses the entire plot of Holes into one sentence of regret. Zero names a small decision — discarding smelly shoes on top of a parked car — and recognizes it as the hinge on which both boys' lives turned. Copying it slowly asks a student to feel how much weight an unremarkable moment can carry in a braided narrative.
I should have just kept them,” said Zero. “I’d already made it out of the shelter and everything. I ended up getting arrested the next day when I tried to walk out of a shoe store with a new pair of s...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In three to four sentences, summarize the conversation Stanley and Zero have on the hill, from the onion peeling through the revelation about Clyde Livingston's shoes.
Discussion Questions
- Zero says, 'We always took what we needed,' and then qualifies it with 'never more.' How does the second clause shape the first? What ethical distinction is Zero drawing, and does his distinction hold up under scrutiny?
- Throughout the chapter, Stanley physically peels an onion layer by layer while Zero reveals successive layers of his past — the shelter, the Cub Scouts, his mother, the shoes. What is Sachar claiming about the structure of truth and memory by pairing these actions?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
To make something impure or unsafe by adding a harmful substance; to pollute.
Item 2
Dark, clouded, and difficult to see through, often used of water.
Item 3
A facility that provides temporary lodging and aid to people without homes.
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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