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Copywork
About This Passage
This is the quiet minute in the middle of a loud chapter. Colin has been crying for hours about a lump he is sure is on his back. Mary makes him turn over, and there is no lump at all — only the little bones of a boy who has been in bed too long. Her ‘savage little face’ is not cruel. It is the face of somebody who has made up her mind to tell the truth, even when nobody else will.
It was a poor thin back to look at when it was bared. Every rib could be counted and every joint of the spine, though Mistress Mary did not count them as she bent over and examined them with a solemn ...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Retell Chapter 17 in your own words. Start with Mary waking up to Colin’s dreadful screams in the middle of the night. Tell how the nurse came to fetch her, how Mary ran to Colin’s room shouting ‘You stop!’, how she looked at his spine and found there was no lump, how Colin asked if he could live to grow up, and how Mary softly told him about the secret garden until he fell asleep.
Discussion Questions
- What in the story shows that Mary was very frightened when she first heard Colin screaming in the middle of the night — even before she got angry and ran to his room?
- How do you know that Mary’s angry shouting actually helped Colin stop screaming, instead of making his tantrum worse the way grown-ups must have feared it would?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
To cry out very loud with a high scared or angry voice
Item 2
Fierce and a little wild; not gentle on the outside
Item 3
Uncovered; with nothing hiding it
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Critical Thinking
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