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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is the unsung hinge of the entire transformation. Collodi gives us five months of ordinary, unmagical labor — daybreak, water, mats, a little cart for Geppetto, reading and writing in the evenings — and tucks it between the encounter with the Fairy's Snail and the morning Pinocchio wakes up as a real boy. The chapter quietly insists that the magic that arrives in the next paragraph is the public form of what these months have already privately accomplished. Copying this passage trains attention to how virtue accumulates through unglamorous repetition rather than through dramatic scenes.
From that day, for five months afterward, Pinocchio continued to get up in the morning at daybreak to draw water for the farmer; and he gained only a little milk for his trouble. He was not contented ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell the story of this last chapter from the moment Pinocchio swims with Geppetto on his back to the moment he wakes up as a real boy. Be sure to include the Tunny's rescue, the ruined Fox and Cat, the Talking Cricket and the blue Goat's house, the donkey Lamp Wick, the five months of labor, the Snail's news, the forty cents, and the dream of the Fairy.
Discussion Questions
- When the Tunny tells Pinocchio 'I followed your example. You taught me the way; and after I saw you go, I went also,' what does this say about the kind of difference Pinocchio's bravery has made? How is this rescue the Tunny's gift back for a lesson Pinocchio gave him in the dark belly?
- The Fox and Cat reappear as ruined creatures — the Cat truly blind now, the Fox missing his tail. How does Pinocchio's response to their begging — three proverbs about stolen money — show that he has changed? What kind of wisdom is he wielding instead of force or anger?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
the salty water that comes out of the skin when you work hard or are hot; Pinocchio finishes drawing one hundred buckets of water 'wet with perspiration from head to foot.'
Item 2
feeling so embarrassed and ashamed you wish you could disappear; Pinocchio feels mortified when the farmer laughs at the idea of having a donkey for a school friend.
Item 3
dry stalks of grain used for animal beds and for weaving mats; Pinocchio learns to make straw mats and sells them to buy food for his daily wants.
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Critical Thinking
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