What do you remember?
Write two things you remember from last lesson in Reading. No peeking: just what's in your head.
- Looks: easy to fake. A detail: follow it.
- Find the words. Quote them exactly. Say what they show.
- Dexterity: skill, moving easily. Use the scene, not the sound. Silver hops like a bird on one leg.
- Hall: Jim is stuck. Tavern: Black Dog is gone. The place decides.
Anything you missed? That's the bit to hold on to today.
Make your first call
Your buddy says he hates camping: bugs, cold, no signal, sleeping on rocks. But his grandpa flew bush planes in Alaska, and your buddy stays up late watching survival shows. Your group is planning a three-day canoe trip, and someone asks if he's in.
Is he coming on the canoe trip? Make a call, say what you're basing it on, and say what you honestly can't know yet.
Saved. You'll come back to this at the end.
Chapter 1: An Unexpected Party
This is the start of a new book, and a long one: The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien. You'll read it in your own copy. Today's part runs from the very first line, “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”, to where Gandalf “scratched a queer sign” on the door. It takes about fifteen minutes.
Who's who: Bilbo Baggins is the hobbit. A hobbit is a small person, about half our height, with hairy feet and no shoes. The Bagginses are his father's family: rich, proper and quiet. The Tooks are his mother's family, and they're known for adventures. Gandalf is a wizard who comes looking for someone to share an adventure.
As you read, keep score. Which lines make Bilbo sound like a homebody, and which hint at something more in him? You'll use them in the films.
The Hobbit, chapter 1: An Unexpected Party
What happens: A hobbit who hates adventures is sitting outside his front door after breakfast, smoking his pipe. A wizard comes up the path. He's looking for someone to share an adventure.
What happens next?
A wizard turns up at the door of a hobbit who hates adventures. What do you think Bilbo does?
Which side of Bilbo will win?
Which side has the words?
One question, two readings. Put each line under the reading it backs. A line that backs neither one goes under none.
Use it right away
The narrator: “This is a story of how a Baggins had an adventure” What's still open?
Homebody or adventurer: where do you lean on Bilbo after one chapter? Back your lean with a line from the book, then name one thing the chapter leaves unsettled.
Respectable? Read the whole clue.
Follow the whole clue
“people considered them very respectable”. What does respectable mean? The clue right after it comes in two parts. Fix the chain.
- The clue starts: “not only because most of them were rich”.
- so
- ? Which step goes here?✓ Yes. “Not only” always means there's more. Don't stop at rich.✗ That's stopping at the first clue. “Not only” tells you more is coming.✗ The clue isn't about houses. It gives the reasons people thought well of them.
- so
- Read on: “but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected”.
- so
- ? Which step goes here?✓ Yes. People think well of rich folk, and of folk who never do anything odd. Rich only fits one of the two.✗ Boring doesn't fit rich. And the neighbours mean respectable as praise.✗ Neither reason says anything about age.
- so
- Check it: put “well thought of” back into the sentence. It reads right: decent, proper, approved of by the neighbours. ✓
Use it right away
The clue: “not only because most of them were rich, but also because they never had any adventures or did anything unexpected” Which meaning fits both reasons?
Someone tells you respectable just means rich. Set them straight in your own words, using both parts of the clue.
A theme is a guess. Test it.
Two tries at the theme
Two readers wrote down a theme for chapter 1. They start the same way. Read both.
Theme: a quiet, comfortable life is best. Bilbo says adventures are “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” So that's what the book is saying.1
Maybe:2 a quiet, comfortable life is best. Bilbo says adventures are “Nasty disturbing uncomfortable things! Make you late for dinner!” But the narrator says something in him from the Took side “only waited for a chance to come out3”. Better guess for now: there may be more to a person than the comfortable life he chooses. Test in later chapters.4
Which draft handles the theme better?
- One character's opinion, taken as the book's message.
- The first guess drops to a maybe. It isn't thrown out.
- The detail that pushes back. It's the narrator talking, not Bilbo.
- Both guesses get tested as the book goes on.
Use it right away
“A quiet life is best.” Why doesn't it fit yet?
Another reader says the book's message is: “Adventures are for other folks, never for a Baggins.” Hold that up against one line from today's reading. Does it stand, or drop to a maybe? Write a better guess to test later.
Your turn, no help
Back to Bilbo's front door for these. Keep each answer short.
One of these comes from earlier lessons, mixed in. For each one, decide which idea it needs before you answer.
- After Bilbo goes inside, Gandalf “scratched a queer sign” on the door with the spike of his staff. In this book, what does queer mean?
- The book only says “Off Palm Key he got itt.” Jim adds: “A knife in his back as like as not.” Fact, or Jim's guess?
You answered both of these in the practice above. They look alike. For each one, write what you did first, and the word or sign in the question that told you to do that.
Back to your first answer
Back to your buddy who says he hates camping but watches survival shows half the night. Someone in the group says, “He's just scared of bears.” Can that read be defended from what you know? Then write where you lean now on him coming, and what's still open.
In three lines
- Defensible: the book's words back it. Lean, why, what's open.
- Not only: more is coming. The meaning: fits every reason.
- Guess a theme. Test it against a detail. Doesn't fit? Maybe, plus a better guess.
Test yourself
Answer in your head first, then tap the card.
More than meets the eye
“Man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). His neighbours see a respectable Baggins. God sees the whole person, even what's still waiting to come out.
What today showed
- Your work
- Complete the lesson to see your record here.
- Standards
- RL.8.1: Cite the textual evidence that most strongly supports an analysis of what the text says explicitly as well as inferences drawn from the text
- RL.8.2: Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text
- RL.8.10: By the end of the year, read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, at the high end of grades 6–8 text complexity band independently and proficiently
- L.8.4: Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words or phrases based on grade 8 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies