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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is worth study for its tonal control. Baum narrates a terrifying event in the calm, explanatory register of a science primer, the still center, the equal pressure on every side, the steady climb, then closes the long periodic sentence with a disarming simile, as easily as you could carry a feather. Copying it reveals how diction and sentence rhythm can domesticate the impossible, making a flying house feel not horrifying but almost gentle.
The north and south winds met where the house stood, and made it the exact center of the cyclone. In the middle of a cyclone the air is generally still, but the great pressure of the wind on every sid...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Give a concise summary, then identify the single most important sentence or moment in the chapter and explain what it reveals about Baum's larger concerns.
Discussion Questions
- What central concern do you think this chapter brings into focus, and why? Consider the contrast between Dorothy and the gray world around her, and use the chapter's details and structure to defend your reading.
- Of all the moments available to him, Baum lingers longest on the gray monotony of Kansas rather than on the spectacular cyclone. Why does that emphasis deserve our attention, and what would we miss about the book's concerns if we read past it? Use the chapter's details to explain.
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Vocabulary
Item 1
Worn thin and hollow, as if hardship had carved the body down.
Item 2
Grave and colorless, emptied of brightness or cheer.
Item 3
Deeply serious and unsmiling, heavy with gravity.
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Critical Thinking
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