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Copywork
About This Passage
Lowry is describing a mechanism, not an activity. The Eights giggle and cluster at first, then — without any overt instruction — begin to 'gravitate' toward what 'suits them.' She allows the reader to see that the community has built a system in which the appearance of free choice is indistinguishable from the outcome the Elders will eventually record as an Assignment. Copying this passage teaches students to notice how a writer describes a social mechanism using the calm vocabulary of natural development.
He remembered when he had become an Eight, as Lily would do shortly, and had been faced with that freedom of choice. The Eights always set out on their first volunteer hour a little nervously, gigglin...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In a paragraph, reconstruct Chapter 4 as a sequence of small revelations: Jonas searches the bikeports for Asher, encounters the attendant's casual language about release, bathes Larissa in a scene that echoes his father bathing Gabriel, and hears Larissa's account of Roberto's release — ending on Jonas's sly joke about enlarging the Releasing Room.
Discussion Questions
- Lowry places Jonas's thought about Benjamin — 'as skilled now as the Rehabilitation Directors themselves' — right beside the observation that they 'had never talked about the boy's accomplishments' because of the rule against bragging. What is Lowry proposing about a community that silences its most successful members' own voices, and what does it cost a culture to have no comfortable way of naming achievement?
- Larissa describes Roberto's release as 'wonderful' and his face as 'pure happiness,' and yet she cannot say where he went or why only the committee knows. Consider the moral shape of this moment: what does Lowry ask the reader to make of a celebration whose destination is invisible, and how does Larissa's untroubled tone complicate our judgment?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
In every case; without exception
Item 2
Being drawn toward something as if by a natural pull
Item 3
Grew or matured gradually over time
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Critical Thinking
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