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Copywork
About This Passage
Even when things are at their worst, Parker stays patient and tries to give his friends hope. It matters because later in the chapter Parker changes: terrible suffering presses even this patient man toward a frightening idea, so the reader sees how hunger and despair can darken a hopeful heart.
He suffered with great patience, making no complaint, and endeavoring to inspire us with hope in every manner he could devise.
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell what happens in this chapter in order: how the friends try to reach the locked store-room for food, how the narrator dives down again and again and brings up a bottle to drink, how he dips his weak friends in the cool sea to help them, and how they hope when they see land and a ship — only to be let down each time. At the very end, after the last ship is gone, Parker turns serious and makes a terrible suggestion: that one of them should die so the others might live. Slow down at the moment you find bravest or most surprising and tell what you think about it.
Discussion Questions
- One by one, Peters, Parker, and Augustus try to reach the locked store-room for food but cannot, so the narrator dives down again and again himself. Why do you think the narrator keeps trying even when it is so hard and tiring? What part of the chapter helps you decide?
- When the friends find the bottle, it feels like a great rescue at first, but later it makes the day worse for Peters, Parker, and Augustus. Do you think the bottle brings them more help or more harm in this chapter, and why? What part of the story helps you decide?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Sudden sharp feelings of pain.
Item 2
Rest or sleep.
Item 3
A time of having no food at all.
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Critical Thinking
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