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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is the chapter's first moral compromise, narrated in Jay Berry's own voice with unusual clarity. Rawls does not excuse Jay Berry — he lets the narrator confess the guilt AND the reason. Copying this paragraph trains a middle-schooler to notice when a writer refuses to resolve a moral tension for the reader. The trick is dishonest; the tenderness of Rowdy's response is real; the justification ('I wouldn't even consider' going alone) is ordinary human cowardice dressed as practicality. All three stand on the page together.
I had one trick left and it was a good one because it had never failed. I sat down, buried my face in my arms, and made a lot of choking, sobbing sounds like I was crying. Rowdy couldn't stand this. H...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize Chapter 9 in five or six sentences. Include the apples, the Rowdy trick, the discovery of the whiskey still, Jimbo's insistence on the sour mash exchange, the shared drunkenness with Rowdy, the missing britches, and the confrontation with Mama.
Discussion Questions
- Analyze the moment Jay Berry first tries to call Jimbo by name in the bottoms. Rawls says he 'never felt so silly in all my life.' What does this self-consciousness reveal about the difficulty of beginning a friendship across a categorical barrier (boy-to-monkey, or any other wide gap), and why is embarrassment such a frequent guardian of the first step?
- Jimbo becomes 'madder than I had ever seen him' when Jay Berry refuses the offered sour mash. Examine the EMOTIONAL GRAMMAR of the refusal from Jimbo's perspective — what rule does Jimbo believe Jay Berry has broken, and what does this tell you about the ethics of accepting gifts you do not want?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
hidden by covering completely, the way Jay Berry hides his face in his arms to sell the fake cry
Item 2
producing the gasping broken sounds a person makes when they cannot breathe freely, often used to convey strong crying
Item 3
crying with audible, uneven breaths and shaking of the chest
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Critical Thinking
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