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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the chapter's masterpiece of misdirection: Pinocchio sees evidence of his own past (the missing paw he himself bit off in Chapter 14) and the Fox steps in instantly to reframe it as nobility. Copying the passage forces the older student to slow down where Pinocchio sped up, and to feel the precise moment moral memory is overwritten by improvised fiction.
While they talked thus Pinocchio perceived that the Cat limped and that he lacked a right forepaw; so he asked him, "What has happened to your foot?" The Cat wished to reply but became confused. Then ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Read the chapter as a sequence of pedagogies — the Fairy's pedagogy of disfigurement, the Fox's pedagogy of urgency, Stupid-catchers' pedagogy of catalog. Which pedagogy is Collodi most committed to, and how do you know?
Discussion Questions
- Collodi opens the chapter with a clinical-sounding diagnosis — the Fairy 'wished to teach him a lesson and correct that ugly vice of telling stories' — and ends it with the Fox blessing Pinocchio for a good harvest. Argue what the chapter is doing by framing both the moralist and the swindler as teachers of a kind.
- The Cat in this chapter cannot speak when asked about his missing paw; the Fox supplies an entire heroic origin story instantly. What does Collodi reveal about the division of labor in deception by giving silence to one partner and eloquence to the other?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Became aware of by sight or insight.
Item 2
Reluctant to draw attention to one's own merits.
Item 3
Losing consciousness or strength, often from hunger or shock.
+ 3 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide
Critical Thinking
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