Internet+Tool

 e will use this tool to share our thoughts about the text. Primarily, this page is for our 7th grade language arts class but you are welcome to invite your friends and family to join in the discussion. This group discussion will help us reach a deeper understanding of the following excerpts and the text they come from!!

What do the following excerpts from Katherine Patterson's "The Great Gilly Hopkins", make you think or feel about the idea being expressed, the character involved, or the story in general? (Please post your responses below each excerpt and include your name or alias, and the time and date of your post.)

"She smiled all across her face at Gilly, like the ‘After’ in a magazine diet ad —a ‘Before’ body with an ‘After’ smile" (Patterson p5). example: I think this quote touches the essence of happiness--being happy with yourself as you are. Gilly does not have this feeling or even understand it, so she criticizes it. Kristy 2:31 p.m. 4/15/9

example response to post: Maybe but I think this excerpt describes why she doesnt like Trotter. Gilly tries to "improve" herself but Trotter is complacent with the way she is already. Charley 2:40 p.m. 4/15/9

"Nobody wants to tangle with the great Galadriel Hopkins. I am too clever and too hard to manage..Gilly noted with no little satisfaction that her hair was a wreck…That—that—of, the devil—Trotter wouldn’t even let a drop fall from her precious William Ernest baby’s nose, but she would let Gilly go to school..looking like a scarecrow" (Patterson, p. 3-19).

‘You may find this hard to believe, Gilly, but you and I are very much alike. I don’t mean in intelligence, although that is true, too. Both of us are smart, and we know it. But the thing that brings us closer than intelligence is anger. You and I are two of the angriest people I know. We do things differently with our anger, of course. I was always taught to deny mine, which I did and still do. And that makes me envy you. Your anger is still up here on the where you can look it in the face, make friends with it if you want to. I took it [a card from Gilly]to the teacher’s room at noon and cursed creatively for twenty minutes. I haven’t felt so good in years’ (Patterson p. 58-59).

"All at once, leaving Thompson Park became urgent. Gilly knew in the marrow of her bones that if she stayed much longer, this place would mess her up. Between the craziness in the brown house and the craziness at school, she would become like W.E., soft and no good, and if there was anything her short life had taught her, it was that a person must be tough. Otherwise you were had" (Patterson, p. 60).

"But I can’t stay. I might go soft and stupid, too. Like I did at Dixon’s. I let her fool me with all that rocking and love talk. I called her Mama and crawled up on her lap when I had to cry. My god! She said I was her own little baby, but when they moved to Florida, I was put out like the rest of the trash they left behind. I cant go soft---not as long as Im nobody’s real kid—not while Im just something to play musical chairs with…" (Patterson, p.70-71).

"‘She really doesn’t seem to want to go with you, Mrs. Trotter. Now, I don’t know…’ William Ernest streaked across the room and began to beat his fists on her knees. ‘Come home, Gilly. Please come home! Please, please!’ The ice in her frozen brain rumbled and cracked. She stood up and took his hand" (Patterson, p92).

“Nothing turned out the way it’s supposed to. How you mean supposed to? Life aint supposed to be nothing, ‘cept maybe tough. I reckon I thought you had that all figured out. That all that stuff about happy endings is lies. The only ending in this world is death. Now that might or might not be happy, but either way, you aint ready to die, are you?" (Patterson, p.147).

Response Hand Out Literary Rubric