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Copywork
About This Passage
Selected for rhetorical sophistication (Lee delivers Jem's most important developmental moment in the novel so far through three small details — the dirt streaks on his face, Scout's failure to hear him, Scout's intention to ask Calpurnia — and refuses to translate any of them into the adult language that would explain what has just happened to her brother), thematic weight (Jem has finally understood that Boo is a person whose attempts at kindness have been deliberately stopped by his own brother, and the understanding is too large for Jem to share with Scout), and instructional value for a young writer learning the prose of the meaningful unspoken.
When we went in the house I saw he had been crying; his face was dirty in the right places, but I thought it odd that I had not heard him. Why hadn't I heard him? I would have to ask Calpurnia in the ...
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Discussion Questions
Narration Prompt
Summarize this chapter, then explain what you think the author most wanted the reader to notice or feel. What techniques did the author use?
Discussion Questions
- Lee structures the chapter as a slow accumulation of evidence followed by a single act of erasure. The children find chewing gum, twine, soap figures, a spelling medal, a watch — and then Mr. Nathan Radley fills the knothole with cement. The accumulation has taken several chapters; the erasure takes one paragraph. Consider what Lee accomplishes by this asymmetric pacing. Why does she make the kindness slow to develop and the cruelty quick to implement, and what is she suggesting about the relative speeds at which good and harm operate in human life?
- Mr. Nathan Radley fills the knothole with cement and tells Jem the tree is 'dying.' Atticus looks at the tree and says it is healthy. The lie is small but pointed — Mr. Radley is silencing his own brother and lying about the silencing in front of children who can verify the lie immediately. Consider what this small scene reveals about Mr. Radley as a character. He is not given any interiority in the chapter; we never enter his perspective; he appears, lies, and disappears. What is Lee accomplishing by refusing to humanize Mr. Radley even as she humanizes Boo, and is the refusal a defensible authorial choice or a small failure of her own ethical principle of imaginative empathy?
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Vocabulary Builder
Item 1
Sources of irritation or distress, particularly the persistent small troubles that wear on patience over time
Item 2
Caused to become a particular state or condition through some specific action
Item 3
Establishing with certainty, particularly through deliberate inquiry or examination of evidence
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Critical Thinking
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