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Copywork
About This Passage
Kate DiCamillo closes the book with a return to the opening song, but with one small alteration: Mercy can now fall asleep through it. The structural device is called ring composition — beginning and ending mirror each other to measure the change. Three sentences carry the whole arc of growth.
Mercy smiled. She closed her eyes. She was asleep before Mr. and Mrs. Watson ever finished the song.
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize the chapter and explain what Kate DiCamillo wants you to notice about endings.
Discussion Questions
- Kate DiCamillo uses ring composition — the book ends by returning to its opening. Mercy hears the song again and finally falls asleep. Why does the writer choose this structure? What does it allow her to do that a forward-moving ending could not?
- In chapter 1 Mercy was afraid in the dark. In chapter 12 she falls asleep peacefully. The book traces the resolution of a fear introduced in the first paragraph. Is this the structure of a small bildungsroman — a coming-of-age — for a pig?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
a structural device in which a narrative ends by returning to its opening, often with a small significant change
Item 2
a coming-of-age narrative tracing a character's interior growth
Item 3
the structural completion of a narrative's tensions
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Critical Thinking
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