Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
This is the only direct window Rawls gives us into how the grown-up world of the Cherokee hills worked. He teaches 4th-6th graders that a story can pause its plot to show how an entire community handled real danger in a time before vaccines and modern medicine. Copying it introduces the rhythm of a social-history paragraph: statement, consequence, behavior, result.
People in the Cherokee hills were so scared of hydrophobia they didn't talk about it in loud voices. They usually spoke about it in whispers. When news spread through the hills that a mad animal was p...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 8 in five or six sentences. Track the arc from Daisy's hydrophobia panic through Mama's doctoring, Rowdy's wheelbarrow ride, the glass-of-water test, and finally Grandpa's tactical shift to friendship.
Discussion Questions
- Rawls spends a whole paragraph describing the real grown-up fear of hydrophobia before he shows Daisy's reaction. What does that paragraph do for our understanding of Daisy — and why does it matter that Rawls explains the FEAR before he shows the CHILD's version of it?
- Daisy proposes chaining Jay Berry to a fence post because she has read that is what you do with an animal that might go mad. She is scared AND she is wrong. Is it possible to be right about caring for someone but wrong about HOW to care for them? Support your answer with the text.
+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide
Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
very quiet voices used when something is too frightening to say out loud
Item 2
moving around slowly and quietly as if looking for something to attack
Item 3
shut tight so that no one can open it without a key
+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
+ 5 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