Preview
Copywork
About This Passage
Notice how Hinton lets a small, soft picture carry a huge, hard truth. Ponyboy is curling up like a tired child to sleep on his friend's legs. He is thankful for a jacket. He is rattling along on a train. But the very last thing the sentence says is that there is a gun next to his hand. The chapter has just turned Ponyboy from a boy who watches sunsets into a boy who sleeps next to a loaded gun, and Hinton lets him fall asleep anyway. The author trusts the reader to feel how strange and sad that mix is. Nothing is being explained — the cozy and the terrible are simply lying right next to each other, and you are asked to notice them both.
I stretched out and used Johnny's legs for a pillow. Curling up, I was thankful for Dally's jacket. It was too big, but it was warm. Not even the rattling of the train could keep me awake, and I went ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Tell Chapter 4 in your own words. Begin with Ponyboy and Johnny in the cold park, follow the blue Mustang circling, walk through what the five drunk Socs say and do, describe the moment Ponyboy is held under the fountain, explain how Ponyboy wakes to find Johnny saying 'I killed him,' show the boys going to Buck Merril's house to find Dally, list what Dally gives them (a gun, fifty dollars, a jacket, instructions), and end with the train ride to the country and the climb to the old church on Jay Mountain.
Discussion Questions
- When Bob calls Ponyboy 'white trash with long hair,' Ponyboy says he felt the blood drain from his face — and then he spits at the Socs. Johnny gasps and his eyes burn. What in the story makes you think those words hurt Ponyboy and Johnny more than being hit? How do you know Hinton wants the reader to feel that words can wound a person as deeply as fists?
- Johnny tells Ponyboy, 'I had to. They were drowning you, Pony. They might have killed you.' But Johnny is also the boy who has been carrying that switchblade since Socs beat him up four months ago. What in the story makes you think Johnny used the knife to save his friend's life and not to take revenge? How can you tell from his face and his voice afterward — sitting still, 'greenish-white,' eyes huge — that he did not want to hurt anyone?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Reached out so the body becomes longer, the way you do when you wake up or are getting ready to sleep
Item 2
Bending the body into a small, round shape, like a sleepy cat
Item 3
Shaking and making lots of small clattering noises, the way a moving train sounds
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Critical Thinking
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