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The Secret Garden — Chapter 1

Study guide for 4th – 6th Grade

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Copywork

About This Passage

This passage captures the suspended, almost dreamlike middle of the chapter — Mary sealed in the nursery while death passes through the house. Copying it asks the student to sit with Burnett's precise emotional vocabulary for being forgotten.

During the confusion and bewilderment of the second day Mary hid herself in the nursery and was forgotten by everyone. Nobody thought of her, nobody wanted her, and strange things happened of which sh...

Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.

Discussion Questions

Narration Prompt

Narrate the whole arc of Chapter 1: begin with Mary's life in India and her mother the Mem Sahib, move through the cholera outbreak and the wailing servants, and end with Barney finding Mary alone in the nursery.

Discussion Questions

  1. The narrator writes that Mary was 'tyrannical and selfish a little pig as ever lived.' What evidence does Frances Burnett give in the chapter to prove this claim about Mary Lennox?
  2. How does the narrator's description of the Mem Sahib — her laughing eyes, her lace, her love of parties — help you understand why Mary grew up the way she did in India?

+ 3 more questions in the complete study guide

Vocabulary Builder

Item 1

A state where nothing is in its proper order and no one knows what to do.

Item 2

Not remembered, left out of mind by others.

Item 3

Hard to understand or explain, full of strange hints.

+ 5 more vocabulary words in the complete study guide

Critical Thinking

+ 5 more questions in the complete study guide

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More chapters of The Secret Garden

Chapter 1 (1st – 3rd)Chapter 1 (10th – 12th)Chapter 1 (Adult)Chapter 1 (7th – 9th)Chapter 2 (4th – 6th)Chapter 2 (1st – 3rd)View all chapters

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