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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is a small masterpiece of animal storytelling. Rawls gives Gandy a whole scheme — the fake indifference, the patient wait, the sneak attack — and the reader begins to see why Gandy and Rowdy are bitter enemies. Copying it slowly teaches a young reader to watch an author build a personality through actions, not adjectives.
Rowdy hated every feather on Gandy's body. In the summer when it would get too hot for Rowdy to sleep under the house, he would go out in our yard in the shade of the red oak trees and dig himself a s...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 6 in four or five sentences. Include Grandma's kitchen, the gander Gandy, Mama's anger, Papa's help with the hole, and the walk to the bottoms at night.
Discussion Questions
- Gandy the goose is described as mean, sneaky, and full of fight — yet Mama calls him 'the best goose we ever had.' What does Gandy actually do for the farm, and what is Mama seeing that Jay Berry is missing?
- Rawls spends more than a full page describing the Rowdy-Gandy feud BEFORE Jay Berry ever slaps the net on the goose. Why does Rawls give us all that history first?
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
one of the light, flat things that cover a bird's body
Item 2
the warmest season of the year, between spring and fall
Item 3
a cooler spot where the sun is blocked by something, like a tree
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Critical Thinking
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