Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Rawls affords Grandma a whole paragraph of medical pantomime — the angry-turtle mouth, the peeled-back eyelids, the finger-punching — to show us a particular kind of love. Copying this passage slowly trains the ear to notice how humor and tenderness can share a single sentence: 'my mouth open like any angry turtle' is absurd AND accurate, and the narrator's tolerance of the examination is itself a small act of love.
Grandma was a pretty good doctor, too. No germ could escape her eagle eye. About three times a year she would take time out from her work and give me a complete examination. While these examinations w...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 6 in four to six sentences. Include Grandma's kitchen (the pie, the savings conversation, the examination), the Gandy catastrophe, Papa's defusing of Mama's anger, and the nighttime dig in the bottoms.
Discussion Questions
- Grandma examines Jay Berry 'about three times a year,' looks for dirt nobody else notices, and presses pie and milk on him in the same breath. What does this combination of vigilance and feeding tell you about Grandma's particular way of loving?
- Why does Rawls compare Jay Berry's open mouth to 'any angry turtle'? What tonal and characterizing work does the simile do that a straightforward description could not?
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
a microscopic organism, especially one that can cause disease
Item 2
to get away from something unwanted — detection, capture, or harm
Item 3
a careful, systematic inspection, especially of the body by a medical eye
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 6 more questions in the complete study guide
Get the complete study guide — free
Sign up and get your first book with every chapter included. Copywork, discussion questions, vocabulary, and critical thinking.
Sign up free