McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader, Revised Edition · Lesson VI · Part 2: Lessons I-XII: Storms, dawns and old tales

12. House-Cleaning (Francis Hopkinson)

Goal: Your student recognizes satire and humor and reads a comic essay with the right tone.

⏱ About 40 minutes · 7 steps

Open it at the Internet Archive ↗

You'll need

  • The book, or the scan beside this guide
  • A notebook and pen
  • A dictionary

What's in the book

Hopkinson's humorous letter on the yearly spring cleaning (his "Essay on Whitewashing"), seen through the eyes of a suffering husband, with notes and a teaching note.

The lesson, step by step

  1. Words and meanings

    Read the book's notes on Lear and on Goshen (the part of Egypt spared from the plague of flies). The teaching note asks students to find words that sound old-fashioned and words that show changes in household customs, such as testers, joint stools, wainscots and house-raising. Look these up together.

  2. About the author

    The book says Francis Hopkinson (1737-1791) was born in Philadelphia, represented New Jersey in the Congress of 1776 and signed the Declaration of Independence. He wrote witty pieces and serious ones, and his "Essay on Whitewashing" was once thought to be by Benjamin Franklin.

  3. Read it aloud

    Read together:

    The attentive husband may judge, by certain prognostics, when the storm is at hand.

    A husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage.

    Your student reads the rest with a straight face. Satire is funnier when it sounds serious.

  4. Talk about it

    SayWhat are the "prognostics" that warn the husband the cleaning is coming?

    SayWhat does he do to protect himself and his papers?

    SayWhy does the writer describe house-cleaning in the words of war and storms? What is the effect?

    SayThe book says the letter was written about a hundred years before. Which customs in it have changed?

  5. Tell it back

    Your student tells, in order and in their own words, what happens to the husband during the cleaning.

  6. Copywork and memory

    Copy:

    A husband, however beloved, becomes a perfect nuisance during this season of female rage.

  7. Write (optional)

    Write a short, mock-serious account of some household event (moving day, a holiday dinner) in the same style.

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