McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson V · Part 2: The good reader and the gentle hand
11. A Boy on a Farm, by C. D. Warner
Goal: Your child enjoys the humor of Warner's piece, retells the boy's many chores, and notices how exaggeration makes writing funny.
You'll need
- The book, open to this lesson
- A notebook and pencil
What's in the book
A humorous essay from "Being a Boy" about how much work falls to a farm boy, who is called idle all the same. A note about Charles Dudley Warner opens it; definitions follow.
The lesson, step by step
Words and meanings
Read some of the definitions:
Factotum, a person employed to do all kinds of work.
Indispensable, absolutely necessary.
Perpetually, continually.
Chore, the light work of the household either within or without doors.
SayIs anyone in our house a factotum?
About the author
The book says Charles Dudley Warner was born at Plainfield, Massachusetts, graduated from Hamilton College in 1851, and became a lawyer before turning to newspapers at Hartford, Connecticut, and to literature. "My Summer in a Garden" and "Backlog Studies" are among his best known works. This piece is from "Being a Boy."
Read aloud
Take turns by paragraph. Let the funny lines land:
boys, it is my impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief.
He practices standing on his head, in order to accustom himself to any position.
Talk about it
SayList as many of the boy's jobs as you can remember.
SayWhy does the writer call him "an idle boy" at the end? Does he mean it?
Say"He has a natural genius for combining pleasure with business." What does the boy do that shows this?
SayFind a sentence that exaggerates to be funny.
Tell it back
Your child tells you what a day in the life of this farm boy would be like, using details from the essay.
Copywork
Copy:
His work is like a woman's, — perpetually waiting on others.
Write (optional)
Write a short, funny paragraph listing your own chores, in the style of Warner.