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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is the emotional pivot of Chapter 5. Rawls stages a comic moment (the stifled laugh, the watermelon simile) and then interrupts it with a short, bare sentence of suffering. Copying it slowly teaches attention to rhythm: how a long, image-crowded sentence can be corrected by a short declarative one, and how physical comedy can coexist with genuine shame.
Grandpa started fidgeting in his chair like something was biting him. He jerked out his old red handkerchief and made a big to-do about blowing his nose. I couldn't see very much of his face for the h...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 5 in five to seven sentences. Track the emotional arc: Jay Berry's flight from the bottoms, his confession to Papa, his evasive account to Mama, his visit to Grandpa, the unveiling of the net, and the embedded butterfly-professor story.
Discussion Questions
- Rawls compares Grandpa's face to a 'busted watermelon' rather than, say, a beet or a sunset. What tonal and regional work does this specific simile do, and why might that agricultural image matter for a novel whose central moral problem is a boy trying to turn nature into money?
- What does Grandpa's deliberate concealment of his laughter — jerking out the handkerchief, manufacturing a nose-blow — teach us about him as a moral educator? How does this compare to Daisy's laughter earlier in the same chapter?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
making small, restless movements because of discomfort, anxiety, or impatience
Item 2
pulled or yanked with a single sharp, sudden motion
Item 3
a small square of cloth carried for personal use, especially for wiping the face or nose
+ 3 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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