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Copywork
About This Passage
Two paragraphs that set up a joke and then drop the floor out of it. The first sentence plays a friendly naming game — red-eyed, black-toothed, white-tongued — three better names lined up in a row, each in its own quotation marks. Then comes the second paragraph: one short sentence that explains, with terrible calm, why the real name wins. Copy both paragraphs with their quotation marks and the punchline's exact words: 'you are probably dead.' Notice the word 'probably' — that small, polite hedge is what makes the sentence land. The writer is being careful and horrifying at the same time, which is this book's favorite trick.
Looking at one, you would have thought that it should have been named a “red-eyed” lizard, or a “black-toothed” lizard, or perhaps a “white-tongued” lizard. If you’ve ever been close enough to see t...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the lizard page in order: the twin opening sentences, the spots and the naming game, the wrong-colored eyes, the holes and the leap, and the food list. Then explain which sentence you would call the chapter's most important, and use the chapter's words to show why it outweighs the others.
Discussion Questions
- The chapter opens by matching two ideas: people do not believe in curses, and people do not believe in yellow-spotted lizards — yet a bite works 'whether you believe in it or not.' Why do you think the author sets the two ideas side by side this way? Use the chapter's opening words to explain what the real lizard danger makes us wonder about the curse.
- The chapter says 'everyone always speaks of its red eyes,' but 'in truth, its eyes are yellow, and it is the skin around the eyes which is red.' Why might everyone keep repeating the wrong description? Use the chapter's words about the eyes to explain what this mistake shows about how people look at dangerous things.
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Living by hunting other animals
Item 2
To accept that something is real or true
Item 3
People who study the world carefully and name what they find
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Critical Thinking
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