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Copywork
About This Passage
This passage is the moment Dill — the smallest of the three children — answers the courthouse verdict by deciding to become a clown. Following Quintilian's method of imitatio, copying these short, plain sentences trains the writer to attend to how Lee builds an entire moral position out of a child's everyday speech. Dill's voice carries no big words and no fancy figures, only honest sentences a six-year-old could say at the breakfast table; what is important is that this is how a child holds up under the unbearable.
“I think I’ll be a clown when I get grown,” said Dill. Jem and I stopped in our tracks. “Yes sir, a clown,” he said. “There ain’t one thing in this world I can do about folks except laugh, so I’m go...
Full copywork activity with handwriting lines available in the complete study guide.
Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
In your own words, retell the morning after the trial. Who comes to the back steps with food? What does Aunt Alexandra say to Atticus that surprises Scout? What kind of cake does Miss Maudie make for Jem?
Discussion Questions
- What in the story shows that the Black families of Maycomb are saying thank you to Atticus by leaving food on the back steps?
- How do you know that Atticus is moved when he sees the kitchen table loaded with chicken, rolls, and pickled pigs' knuckles?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
A funny person who dresses in bright clothes and big shoes and makes people laugh, often at a circus or a fair.
Item 2
A traveling show with clowns, acrobats, and trained animals that performs under a big tent.
Item 3
All the way finished growing up; an adult, not a child anymore.
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Critical Thinking
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