Unit+8+Tuck+Everlasting

=Tuck Everlasting= by Natalie Babbitt https://blendedschools.blackboard.com/webapps/blackboard/content/listContent.jsp?course_id=_387591_1&content_id=_27948045_1

First things first: the narrator explains the setting. We're in the woods near Treegap, where there's an important spring, owned by the Foster family.
 * Summary**

Mae Tuck is getting ready to go meet her sons. But before she leaves, Mae and her husband Tuck have a conversation about wanting to change the things they can't. Sounds normal enough, right? Oh, but then the narrator hints that these two are immortal. Winnie Foster (of the Foster family—remember them?) is talking to a toad when a strange man in a yellow suit appears and asks her questions. Winnie's grandma joins them and they all hear some strange music. The next day, Winnie runs away, and she meets Jesse Tuck, who's drinking from a spring. Dude won't let her have any of the water, though. Soon enough, Jesse's mother and brother, Mae and Miles, appear. The three Tucks grab Winnie and start running—but not before Yellow Suit Guy can see them. When they finally get a moment to stop, the Tucks tell Winnie their story, and Winnie promises to keep her mouth shut about the whole thing.

Here's the story: Eighty-seven years ago, the Tucks came to Treegap and drank from this spring. Time went by, Miles started a family, and things started to get weird: the Tucks weren't aging and they couldn't die. Miles's family left him, and the Tucks had to move away. When they finally figured out that drinking from the spring was what did this to them, they turned to a life of secrecy.

After they finish their no-big-deal story, the family takes Winnie to meet their patriarch, Tuck. (Of course, none of them notices that Yellow Suit Guy totally overheard them. We have a feeling that won't end well.) During dinner, Winnie starts to freak out. That's when Tuck takes her out on the pond for a serious talk about life and death. But Miles quickly interrupts them because their horse has been stolen.

Meanwhile, Yellow Suit Guy, who stole the horse, is headed right back to the Fosters' house. Just like that, he makes the Fosters trade him their land for Winnie's safety. So back at the Tuck house, Yellow Suit Guy barges in and reveals his evil plan: he owns the spring now and he's going to sell the water. What's worse—he's going to //make// Winnie drink it. Mae's answer? She bashes his head in with a shotgun. Just then, the constable rolls up. He takes Mae to jail, and Winnie goes home, unable to explain to her family why she went with the Tucks. As it turns out, Yellow Suit Guy died, which means Mae is a murderer. Winnie and the Tucks are able to break Mae out of jail, but it means they have to say a very sad goodbye.

A few weeks later, Winnie makes the big decision //not// to drink the immortality water that Jesse had given her. Instead, she gives it to a little toad. She figures she can always return to the spring at another time—if she wants to. Flash forward to 1950. Mae and Tuck come into Treegap only to learn that the forest and spring are gone. When Tuck visits the local cemetery, he sees Winnie's grave. Looks like she passed up the immortality water forever, after all.

Vocabulary for the unit

=**Chapter Vocabulary**=
 * Prologue - Chapter 2 ||   || Chapters 7 - 8  ||   || Chapters 14 - 15 ||   || Chapters 20 - 21 ||
 * [|Chapters 3 - 4] ||  || Chapters 9 - 10 ||   || Chapters 16 - 17 ||   || Chapters 22 - 23 ||
 * Chapters 5 - 6 ||  || Chapters 11 - 13 ||   || Chapters 18 - 19 ||   || Chapters 24 - Epilogue ||

=**Lessons**= Unit Overview
 * Prologues - Chapter 2 Foreshadowing ||  || Chapters 7 - 8 Main Idea ||   || Chapters 14 - 15 Drawing Conclusions ||   || Chapters 20 - 21 Character Traits ||
 * Chapters 3 - 4 Figurative Language ||  || Chapters 9 - 10 Context Clues ||   || Chapters 16 - 17 Theme ||   || Chapters 22 - 23 Symbolism ||   ||
 * Chapters 5 - 6 Point of View ||  || Chapters 11 - 13 Author's Purpose ||   || Chapters 18 - 19 Propaganda ||   || Chapter 24 - Epilogue Plot ||

=**Setting**= The fictional town of Treegap, the wood, and the home of the Tucks in the year 1880 and, in the epilogue, in the year 1950. Treegap is based on Clinton, New York, where author Natalie Babbitt and her husband lived.

=**Themes**= Tuck Everlasting has several themes, or layers of meaning. (The theme of a literary work is its main idea and often is a general statement or opinion about life.) Natalie Babbitt uses metaphors and symbols to make the most important themes clear to the reader. A metaphor is a way of describing one thing by comparing it to something else.

Order versus disorder Throughout the book there is a constant mention of the order ofthings. This applies to the order of the Fosters’ world, particularly their house. But it also applies to the order of life. All things are born, live, and then die. The Tucks represent an interruption of this order—an eternal interruption of that order to be exact. Babbitt shows this disorder in a few ways. First, when Winnie arrives at their house, she is shocked at the state of disarray it is in: lots of dust and cobwebs, a mouse living in the table drawer, half-completed quilts. The house is a stark contrast to the one Winnie lives in. When she sees all of this, all she can think is:“Maybe it’s because they think they have forever to clean it up.” The author uses the disorder to show that Winnie is being exposed to a different way of living for the first time. She lets Winnie follow her thought a little further when Winnie thinks to herself, “Maybe they just don’t care!” In fact, later when there are no napkins for her to use to wipe her hands properly, Winnie realizes that in this house it is quite all right to lick the maple syrup off your fingers. “Winnie was never allowed to do such a thing at home, but she had always thought it would be the easiest way. And suddenly the meal seemed luxurious.” The author has accomplished two things. She has set up an orderly world versus a disorderly one, while praising the virtues and the shortcomings of both. In an orderly world, you have to clean up after yourself and keep everything in neat stacks, but the world goes on as it should—everyone living and dying and so on and so on. In the disorderly world, you can lick maple syrup off your hands and throw your clothes on the floor, but the people are stuck forever in one place in their lives. In a way, the disarray of the Tucks’ house represents the disarray the world would be in if the secret spring were revealed to the public. Ultimately, Winnie learns to incorporate some of the Tucks’ way of living into her own life, taking certain lessons from her time with them. She realizes that her mother and grandmother are more interesting when they are disheveled from the heat, when they are unable to control the way they are feeling. They are simply hot and they have to let go, “their hair unsettled and their knees loose. It was totally unlike them, this lapse from gentility, and it made them much more interesting.” And later, Winnie, too,becomes more interesting. At the beginning, the children in her town think of her merely as an extension of her tailored home. In the end, some of the townspeople find her an intriguing hero. She has come to life for them: “She was a figure of romance to them now, where before she had been too neat, too prissy; almost, somehow, too clean to be a real friend.” Natural life cycle Babbitt uses the image of a wheel in the prologue to point out how the first week of August seems to just hang there, “like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.” The wheel becomes a symbol for life and is used again and again throughout the story. When Winnie and Angus Tuck are in the boat on the pond, he explains to Winnie that his family has fallen off the wheel of life, and that they are in an unnatural state. Angus says: “It’s a wheel, Winnie. Everything’s a wheel, turning and turning, never stopping. The frogs is part of it, and the bugs, and the fish, and the wood thrush, too. And people. But never the same ones. Always coming in new, always growing and changing, and always moving on. That’s the way it is .” Winnie begins to comprehend this herself when she sees how the water moves out of the pond and into the ocean. She realizes that the pond water is like life and that while the water moves all around them, she and Angus are stuck in the rowboat. Tuck continues, “That’s what us Tucks are, Winnie. Stuck so’s we can’t move on. We ain’t part of the wheel no more. Dropped off, Winnie. Left behind. And everywhere around us, things is moving and growing and changing.” And when Winnie, whose mind was suddenly “drowned with understanding of what he was saying,” blurts out that she doesn’t want to die, Tuck reassures her. “Not now. Your time’s not now. But dying’s part of the wheel, right there next to being born.” Tuck uses the image of the wheel to make Winnie understand the importance of the cycle of life, just as Babbitt uses the imagery of the wheel again and again to show the reader how the wheel works, how it moves things along as they should be moved.

Independence Winnie’s independence is another important theme in the book. In fact, it is her search for independence that leads her to the wood and ultimately to the Tucks. Then, because of her experience with them and choices she makes, she carves out some independence for herself. At the start of the book Winnie is frustrated by her family because they watch and care for her so diligently. She wishes she had a sibling to take away some of the attention. She tells the toad that she wants to do something on her own that “would make some kind of difference.” She even thinks it would be nice to have a new name. When Winnie steps toward the wood, noting that she will make a final decision about whether or not to run away permanently once she gets there, she is actually taking her first steps toward independence. She gets braver and more independent with each step she takes. Although she has no choice in the matter when she is kidnapped by the Tucks, she goes with them somewhat willingly, trusting her own instincts about their goodness. There is a crucial moment, though, when it becomes apparent to the readers that Winnie has done some real growing up. When the constable charges the Tucks with kidnapping, Winnie defends them. She tells the constable that she ran away and that she has gone with them willingly. Although she knows this is a lie, she has made an independent decision about who she will defend. Later, when Winnie decides to help Mae escape, this sense of newfound independence sweeps over her as she sneaks out of the house at night, defying all of the rules that have been set for her. In fact, it is so easy that “she was struck by the realization that, if she chose, she could slip out night after night without their [her parents’] knowing.” Even as guilt comes over her, she reminds herself that she has to help Mae and the whole Tuck family. Independence comVocabulary es in the form of choices for Winnie. She chooses to walk through the gate and venture into the wood. She chooses to stay with the Tucks and get to know them. She chooses to defend Mae and eventually to help free her. And in the end, she chooses not to drink from the spring, but to live the waylife was meant to be lived, with death as part of the wheel. Greed An important theme in this book is greed. In Tuck Everlasting, The reader learns that the man in the yellow suit feels that money is the most important thing in the world. The reader also meets the Tuck family, who knows that there is one thing in the world that is much more important than any amount of money: protecting the secret of the magical spring. The man in the yellow suit is very greedy. He will do anything, including threatening to harm Winnie, to find the source of the Tucks’ immortality. He tells the Tucks he will sell the enchanted water “only to certain people, people who deserve it. And it will be very, very expensive.” The man in the yellow suit is determined to let the world know about the magical spring. He does not care about the difficulties people would experience if they lived forever. He only thinks about how much money he will make. In the end, it is the man’s greed for wealth that leads to his death. In contrast, Angus and Mae Tuck display a great deal of selflessness. While the man in the yellow suit is selfish and concerned only about increasing his wealth, the Tucks focus on the larger picture: ensuring that no one else suffers the curse of living forever. The Tucks give up a great deal in order to protect their secret. For instance, they don’t form relationships with other people so that no one will notice they do not get older. Mae describes how their old friends reacted to the Tucks’ staying the same age: “They come to pull back from us. There was talk of witchcraft. Black Magic. Well, you can’t hardly blame them, but finally we had to leave the farm.” Even though it means living a lonely, difficult life, the Tucks know that they must never reveal their secret.

Meeting of the Rails __Tuck Everlasting__ Prologue ||  || || The author introduces us to the idea of the road to Treegap. It had been trod out by cows who seemed to have a sixth sense about the wood. The creatures make their way and create their path by going around it, and so there is no path or road //through// the wood. As a result, we, the readers, are led to concentrate on the juxtaposition of the first house along the road, the road itself, and the wood. The wood and the house belong to the Fosters, but they never go there. Their daughter, Winnie, sometimes stands and looks at it, but she has never seen it.
 * April 9, 2013 ||  || Top Secret

The author tells us that it’s a good thing that the cows were responsible for the wood’s isolation, because if they had trodden a road through the woods, people would have come across the giant ash tree at its center. They would have seen the little spring that bubbles up among the tree’s roots in spite of the pebbles that have been piled up there to conceal it. That would have been a disaster that would have made the earth tremble on its axis like a beetle on a pin.

It is important to understand the concept of life as a wheel and its hub as a fixed point. The sun is the hub of the solar system and so the hub of life on earth. The year is like a Ferris wheel ever turning until it reaches the apex just before it turns to the down side of the wheel. This apex is August, a strange month that is a reminder of heat, stillness, and a propensity to make the wrong decisions. || Chapter Titles __Tuck Everlasting__ Ch 1-2 ||  ||  ||   ||
 * April 10, 2013 ||  || Last Will
 * April 11, 2013 ||  || With Pen in Hand

__Tuck Everlasting__ Ch 1-2

Chapter Titles ||  ||  || Chapter 2 introduces us to the Tucks. Mae, the wife and mother, rises early to take the horse and wagon and meet her boys who are coming home. Her husband, Angus, prefers to stay in bed where he was having a wonderful dream where the whole family was in heaven and had never heard of Treegap. Mae overrides her husband’s caution about going into Treegap by saying that she hasn’t been there for ten years and no one will recognize her. She decides to husband, asking if he’ll be alright, which prompts him to ask what in the world could possibly happen to him. She gets dressed and at the last minute tucks a music box into her pocket. It is the one pretty thing she owns, and she takes it with her everywhere. She adds a large straw bonnet at the last minute and puts it on while smoothing her hair at the same time. She doesn’t look at a mirror, because her reflection has ceased to interest her. For Mae Tuck, her husband, and her two sons have looked exactly the same for the last 87 years.

The author uses foreshadowing to gradually lead the reader to the most fantastic of ideas: the Tucks haven’t grown a day older than they were 87 years before. The foreshadowing includes a dream where they are all dead, the realization that Angus isn’t afraid of being harmed, and no desire to look in a mirror. All of these examples would only make sense if we knew that the Tuck family is immortal. ||
 * April 12, 2013 ||  || Counting on Characters

__Tuck Everlasting__ Ch 3-4 Notes ||  || || At the same time that Mae Tuck is rising and planning to meet her sons, Winnie Foster is sitting on the grass just inside the fence around her house talking to a Toad who sits across the road. She tells it while throwing stones near it but not at it, that she has had enough - she’s tired of being looked at all the time and bossed around by her parents and her grandmother. She knows that hover over her, because she is an only child, but she desperately wants something that’s all hers and a new name that’s not worn out from being called so much. She also tells the creature that she might decide to have him for a pet, but when he jumps a few more inches away from her, it occurs to her that it shouldn’t be cooped up any more than she wants to be. She decides she should run away.

Just at that moment, her mother calls for her, and Winnie obediently answers the call. The Toad begins to jump clumsily toward the wood, but Winnie calls after it that it should just wait until morning. It will see then that she is good at keeping her promise to run away.

This chapter is the second event that seems unrelated to Mae Tuck or the Man in the Yellow Suit. It introduces Winnie to the reader and presents her great desire to run away from the obedience, the rules, the calling out of her name, the hovering over her, and her lack of freedom. It also introduces the character of the Toad who just happens to be the only one Winnie can talk to. She has no friends and the adults in her life watch her constantly. The Toad, being a creature that begins as a tadpole and changes body and size, represents the coming change that Winnie will experience. The cycles of life keep moving on.


 * ​**In chapter 4, the third event takes place: the Man in the Yellow Suit strolls up the road and pauses at the Fosters’ gate. Winnie is in the yard catching fireflies when he bids her good evening. He is very tall and narrow with a thin beard and a black hat in his hand. He is very charming to talk to, and for a moment, it seems to Winnie as if he stands suspended in air. She frowns when he smiles so easily given that the funeral wreath for her grandfather still hung on the door. He has many personal questions for her, because he’s looking for someone - a family.

Her grandmother opens the door suspiciously when she sees the Man and is just about to pull Winnie back inside, when they hear a wisp of music float towards them over the air. Grandmother exclaims in surprise that it is the return of the elf music she had heard many years before. The Man in the Yellow Suit is immediately curious since it had been many years since she had heard it, but she excuses herself and Winnie to go inside, offering him no explanation. Winnie observes that it sounds like a music box. After they go inside, the Man in the Yellow Suit stands softly listening until the music box notes drift away. Then, he, too, moves on, softly whistling the little melody.

The Man in the Yellow Suit, in spite of his soft, comforting appearance, gives off a sinister air. He asks questions that are too personal and his smile seems just a little too nice. He is suspicious and the author puts the reader on alert with her description of him. It’s also very important to note that the music they hear is Mae Tuck’s music box. Its sounds were heard in a mysterious way by Winnie’s grandmother years before and it’s obvious that the Man in the Yellow Suit has some knowledge of the sounds. It gives the reader pause to worry that this man knows about Mae Tuck and her music box. || __Tuck Everlasting__ Ch 5 ||  ||
 * April 15, 2013 ||  || Open Book quiz Ch 1-4
 * April 15, 2013 ||  || Open Book quiz Ch 1-4

||  || Ch 5 ||   ||   || Winnie awakens the next morning with the realization that sometime during the night, she had made up her mind to run away. However, in another part of her head is her oldest fear: she is afraid to go away alone. It makes her worry that the Toad will be out by the fence and know her fear. He might call her a coward. So, she decides that at least she can slip out and go into the wood to see if she can discover what made the music the night before.
 * April 16, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

When Winnie goes into the wood, she is surprised that she has never come here before, because it is so nice. It is actually full of light, a light entirely different from the one she is used to. There are creatures everywhere as well, including the Toad. She tells it excitedly that she has kept her promise to be there first thing in the morning. It seems to nod and then vanishes into the underbrush. It makes her glad she has come. She wanders for a long time and then sees something move in a clearing. She is sure that it is the elves her grandmother had told her about. She begins to creep on all fours to a sheltering tree trunk and peers around it into the clearing. At the center of the clearing is an enormous tree with thick roots rumpling the ground ten feet in every direction. Sitting with his back against the trunk is a boy who seems so glorious that Winnie loses heart to him almost at once. She watches him carefully as he rubs his ear, yawns and stretches. Then, he moves a pile of pebbles by his side until beneath them is a low spurt of water from which he takes a drink. As he does, his eyes rise up and he spies Winnie.

The boy frowns and tells her to come out, while Winnie protests that she hadn’t meant to watch him, because she didn’t know anyone would be there. She tells him she’s there, because it’s her wood and that’s when the boy knows that she is a Foster. He introduces himself as Jesse Tuck and when Winnie asks how old he is, he tells her he is 104. Then, he amends his comment and says he’s seventeen. Eventually, the conversation turns to the water when Winnie declares she’s thirsty and wants to drink. The boy becomes instantly alarmed and tells her that it would be terrible for her if she drank any of it. Winnie is insistent that if it hadn’t hurt him, it won’t hurt her and that she’ll tell her father if he won’t allow her to drink. That idea alarms him even more and he mutters, with his foot firmly held on the pile of pebbles, that he knew this would happen sooner or later.

Fortunately for Jesse, just at that moment comes a crashing sound among the trees and a voice calling his name. It is his mother and Miles and as soon as Mae Tuck sees Winnie with her son, she announces, “The worst is happening at last.”

In this chapter are several symbols of life and its changes: first is the Toad who is there when Winnie takes her first steps into the wood. Its presence emphasizes the idea of Winnie’s metamorphoses as she steps beyond the safety she has always known in her own back yard. In addition, the enormous tree with the huge roots symbolizes how the years bring on changes now that it’s grown from a sapling to a huge tree in the clearing. This chapter also presents foreshadowing of some secret that the Tucks have been keeping, but always knew could be exposed sooner or later. The secret must have something to do with the water that Jesse is so adamant that Winnie not drink. || Ch 6 and 7 ||  ||  || The next few minutes become almost a blur to Winnie. She is seized, swung through the air, and forced to straddle the fat old horse while Miles and Jesse trot alongside it and Mae puffs on ahead, dragging the bridle. This is nothing like her fears of being kidnapped, because the kidnappers are just as alarmed as she is. The Tucks plead with her not to be afraid, that they would never harm her, and that they will explain everything as soon as they are far enough away. Winnie, surprisingly, is fiercely calm and thinks that for the first time, she is riding a horse and what would the Toad say if it could see her now.
 * April 17, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

Just as they come to the edge of the wood, who should appear but the Man in the Yellow Suit. Winnie thinks she can call to him for help, but instead she merely stares at him as Mae explains that they are “teaching their little girl how to ride.” Finally, they stop at a place where a shallow stream loops near some willows and sheltering scrub bushes. Mae decides they’ll catch their breath and try to set things straight before they go on. However, the explanation comes hard. Winnie comes to realize at the same time that she might never see her mother again and begins to cry. Mae is dismayed to see the little girl cry and insists they are not bad people and will take her home the next day. They chastise themselves that they never had a better plan than this and that they had plenty of time to create one. Mae is just shocked that what they knew would always happen comes about as the result of a child. Without thinking, she begins to wind the key to her music box in her pocket and when the melody begins to play, Winnie stops sobbing. She had heard the same music the night before. Mae allows her to hold it and wind it again and Winnie concludes that no one who owns something this pretty could be disagreeable. Jesse then tells her that they are her friends and that she has to help them. He has her sit down as he begins to tell her why.

Winnie’s change continues with the wild moments after she is “kidnapped.” She is strangely calm about the whole thing as if she knows intuitively that she is not in danger. She also, instinctively perhaps, doesn’t call out to the Man in the Yellow Suit for help. Maybe she subconsciously knows that he is worse than her “kidnappers” are. As for the Tucks, they give the reader many clues to the gravity of their secret. They run in a panic away from the spring under the pebbles, they take Winnie with them even though she doesn’t know them, they lie to the Man in the Yellow Suit, and they chastise themselves for never hatching a better plan for what would come sooner or later. Their story, as a result of all this foreshadowing, promises to be an intriguing one.

The Toad continues to be a symbol of metamorphosis, as he seems to be everywhere that change takes place such as Winnie discovering the mysterious spring. The music box is also a symbol. It represents how the simplest of things can make Mae happy. It is a memory that the Man in the Yellow Suit pursues greedily. And it is a calming influence on Winnie. It is also in some ways pure fantasy as its melody had been thought to from the elves according to Winnie’s grandmother.

Winnie is the Tucks’ first real audience and they gather around her like children at their mother’s knee, trying to claim her attention. It seems that 87 years before, the Tucks had come from a long way east looking for a place to settle. They came to the spot that was now the Fosters’ wood and turned from the trail to find a camping place. It was there that they happened on the spring. They stopped and everyone, except their cat took a drink, even the horse. The water tasted somewhat strange, but they camped there overnight anyway and the next morning, Angus Tuck, the father, carved a T on the trunk to mark where they had been. Then, they moved on. Many miles to the west, they found a thinly populate valley and started a farm. Then, they began to notice peculiar things: Jesse fell out of a tree right onto his head, but it didn’t hurt him a bit, someone shot the horse, mistaking him for a deer, but the bullet went right through and hardly left a mark, Pa was snake bitten, Jesse ate poison toadstools, and Ma cut herself severely. In all these instances, nothing hurt them. Finally, as more time passed, they saw they weren’t getting any older. Miles’ wife believed he’d sold his soul to the devil and left him along with their two children.

Their friends began to talk of witchcraft and they finally realized they had to leave the farm. Therefore, they began to wander like gypsies until they came back through the area where they had carved the T on the trunk of the tree. They saw that everything around this spot was still fresh and young, and they decided it had to be the water. To prove it, Angus picked up his gun and shot himself. The shot knocked him down when the bullet plowed through his heart. However, it scarcely even left a mark. That’s when they knew they were going to live forever. At first, they were exultant, but when they began to talk about it, they realized the danger if everyone knew about the spring. No one would die and that would be bad for the world as a whole. Angus believed that the spring was something left over from the original plan for the world, some plan that didn’t work out too well, a plan that caused everything to change. Jesse then tells Winnie that he wasn’t kidding when he said he was 104 years old. He really is, only he’ll look and be seventeen forever.

This is an eye-opening chapter in that it presents the story behind the Tucks’ strange behavior. It’s obvious they feel relieved to finally tell someone about the spring, but at the same time, they are concerned that no one else find out. This chapter also brings out religious elements with the ideas of the devil and witchcraft and the plan that Angus refers to. It is most assuredly a reference to the Garden of Eden and how Adam and Eve had lost their immortality. The spring is an element that has somehow been left behind from when the world was a perfect creation of God. || Chapters 6 and 7 ||  ||
 * April 18, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

|| The next few minutes become almost a blur to Winnie. She is seized, swung through the air, and forced to straddle the fat old horse while Miles and Jesse trot alongside it and Mae puffs on ahead, dragging the bridle. This is nothing like her fears of being kidnapped, because the kidnappers are just as alarmed as she is. The Tucks plead with her not to be afraid, that they would never harm her, and that they will explain everything as soon as they are far enough away. Winnie, surprisingly, is fiercely calm and thinks that for the first time, she is riding a horse and what would the Toad say if it could see her now.

Just as they come to the edge of the wood, who should appear but the Man in the Yellow Suit. Winnie thinks she can call to him for help, but instead she merely stares at him as Mae explains that they are “teaching their little girl how to ride.” Finally, they stop at a place where a shallow stream loops near some willows and sheltering scrub bushes. Mae decides they’ll catch their breath and try to set things straight before they go on. However, the explanation comes hard. Winnie comes to realize at the same time that she might never see her mother again and begins to cry. Mae is dismayed to see the little girl cry and insists they are not bad people and will take her home the next day. They chastise themselves that they never had a better plan than this and that they had plenty of time to create one. Mae is just shocked that what they knew would always happen comes about as the result of a child. Without thinking, she begins to wind the key to her music box in her pocket and when the melody begins to play, Winnie stops sobbing. She had heard the same music the night before. Mae allows her to hold it and wind it again and Winnie concludes that no one who owns something this pretty could be disagreeable. Jesse then tells her that they are her friends and that she has to help them. He has her sit down as he begins to tell her why. ||
 * April 19, 2013 ||  || Ch 6 and 7 questions

Figurative Language

Ch 8 and 9 Notes ||  ||  || Winnie is the Tucks’ first real audience and they gather around her like children at their mother’s knee, trying to claim her attention. It seems that 87 years before, the Tucks had come from a long way east looking for a place to settle. They came to the spot that was now the Fosters’ wood and turned from the trail to find a camping place. It was there that they happened on the spring. They stopped and everyone, except their cat took a drink, even the horse. The water tasted somewhat strange, but they camped there overnight anyway and the next morning, Angus Tuck, the father, carved a T on the trunk to mark where they had been. Then, they moved on. Many miles to the west, they found a thinly populate valley and started a farm. Then, they began to notice peculiar things: Jesse fell out of a tree right onto his head, but it didn’t hurt him a bit, someone shot the horse, mistaking him for a deer, but the bullet went right through and hardly left a mark, Pa was snake bitten, Jesse ate poison toadstools, and Ma cut herself severely. In all these instances, nothing hurt them. Finally, as more time passed, they saw they weren’t getting any older. Miles’ wife believed he’d sold his soul to the devil and left him along with their two children.

Their friends began to talk of witchcraft and they finally realized they had to leave the farm. Therefore, they began to wander like gypsies until they came back through the area where they had carved the T on the trunk of the tree. They saw that everything around this spot was still fresh and young, and they decided it had to be the water. To prove it, Angus picked up his gun and shot himself. The shot knocked him down when the bullet plowed through his heart. However, it scarcely even left a mark. That’s when they knew they were going to live forever. At first, they were exultant, but when they began to talk about it, they realized the danger if everyone knew about the spring. No one would die and that would be bad for the world as a whole. Angus believed that the spring was something left over from the original plan for the world, some plan that didn’t work out too well, a plan that caused everything to change. Jesse then tells Winnie that he wasn’t kidding when he said he was 104 years old. He really is, only he’ll look and be seventeen forever. ||
 * April 22 ||  || Comic Strip
 * April 22 ||  || Comic Strip

Chapters 8 and 9 Notes ||  ||  || Winnie is at first skeptical, because she has never been one to believe in fairy tales. And yet, something makes her believe in these people. Jesse is exultant still about the idea that he will live forever. He is amazed at all he has seen and all he will see, but Mae cautions him and Winnie that there’s more to it than good times. She pleads with Winnie to understand that this must be kept a secret, and that they must take her home with them for at least one night to answer all her questions. The way they look at and they way they speak to her makes Winnie feel very special. Miles takes her hand and tells her it will only be for a day or two and that it’s really fine to have her along. To Winnie, then, the Tucks become the friends she’s never had and in running away, she doesn’t have to go alone. They have helped her discover the wings she’d always wished she’d had.

So, like Jesse, she runs shouting down the road in happiness that the spring story might be true. Unfortunately, in her exultation and in their exuberance, she and the rest of the Tucks do not notice the Man in the Yellow Suit in the bushes where he has heard the whole story. Nor do they notice that he begins to follow them with a slight smile above his thin, gray beard. ||
 * April 23 ||  || Chapters 8 and 9 questions ||   || [[file:Chapters 8 and 9.docx]] || It is a long journey to the Tucks’ home, and Miles has to carry Winnie part of the way. Eventually, they arrive, and to Winnie, it seems as if they have slipped under a giant colander. The arms of pine trees stretch out protectively and it is blessedly cool and green. Down an embankment, Winnie sees a plain, homely little house, a barn, and a tiny lake. Out of the door comes Angus Tuck with the words, “The boys say you brung along a real honest-to-goodness natural child.” Winnie is very shy around him until he tilts his head to one side, his eyes go soft, and the gentlest smile in the world creases his cheeks. He is so happy to see her that he makes Winnie feel like an unexpected present wrapped in pretty blue paper and tied with ribbons. He tells her it’s the finest thing that’s happened to them in 87 years.

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 * April 24 ||  || Quiz chapters 1-8

Chapters 10 and 11 questions ||  ||  || Winnie is exposed to even more change in her life when she goes inside the Tuck cottage. In her home, her mother and grandmother were experts at order and cleanliness, but in the Tuck home, it is a homely little place with dust and cobwebs and even a mouse that lives in a table drawer. Everything is helter-skelter and everywhere there is evidence of their individual activities: Mae’s sewing and Angus’ wood carving. Mae explains that they make things to sell. However, there are also bowls of daisies everywhere and the clean, sweet smell of water. Winnie is amazed and yet she is comfortable. Mae talks to her about how the boys go away doing different things in different places. Miles is good at carpentry and blacksmithing while Jesse does what strikes him at the moment, like working in someone’s fields or in saloons. She explains that none of them can stay in one place for very long because of their secret. People will notice that they’re not growing older and begin to wonder if it’s witchcraft at work. They have been at this little house for twenty years, and Mae says it’s just about time to move on. She also explains how they always set up a family reunion every ten years at the spring so they can come home together. She wonders aloud why it happened to them, because they deserve neither special blessings nor curses. However, she is accepting of the idea that life brings what it will and there’s no use fussing about it. She ends her conversation with Winnie by telling her that Angus has a few ideas to express to her after dinner. ||
 * April 25 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

Finish questions Chapters 10 & 11

The Fountain of Youth ||  ||  || Dinner at the Tuck home is also very different to Winnie. They eat sitting in the parlor instead of around the table. There are no rules for dining like at her home and no one talks as long as there is food on the table. Winnie loses her elation and pleasure. The differences from her own home make her declare that she wants to go home. Mae calmly explains that they will take her home once they have explained why she must promise never to tell about the spring. That’s why they brought her there. Angus then says he will take Winnie for a boat ride in the old row boat before dark, because there’s a good deal to be said and he is afraid there’s not much time to say it. They talk about seeing the Man in the Yellow Suit and how Winnie says he knows her and will tell her father. That makes Tuck more sure than ever that they have to get her home as fast as they can. ||
 * April 26, 2013 ||  || Law Day Field Trip ||   ||   ||   ||
 * April 29, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__
 * April 29, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

Chapters 12 -14 Notes

Word Generation #20 ||  ||  || Winnie and Tuck go out on the pond in a small rowboat. It's a picturesque, beautiful time of day, and the sun is setting. Different types of wildlife surround them, and Tuck tells Winnie that they are seeing "Life" itself in all this nature and movement. Adding to the serious stuff, Tuck tells Winnie that life "a wheel" that continues to move around. At that point, their boat slides into a tree and stops moving. Tuck hits us up with a metaphor, telling Winnie that he and his family have become like the boat: they aren't going with the natural order of things. For the first time, Winnie realizes that she, too, has to die someday. A complex and difficult thing to consider—so she promptly rejects it.

Tuck makes her think about it, though. He says that it has to happen to everybody sometime, and it's wrong that it won't happen to his family. He'd like to go back to the way things were. He doesn't want to be immortal. Winnie is overcome by a bunch of different thoughts. Before she gets a chance to say anything, though, Miles calls out to them that the family's horse has been taken away.

Turns out that Yellow Suit Guy took the Tucks' horse. Yellow Suit Guy rides the horse back to the Fosters' house, where the Fosters are all really worried about Winnie. Winnie's grandma opens the door, and the man tells her that he knows where Winnie is. Back at the Tucks' house, no one is sure what to do. But since it's bedtime, they decide to hit the hay.Tuck is really suspicious about the whole situation, but Mae tells him to calm down. Winnie bunks on the sofa, only to find out she can't sleep. Weirdly, she misses the home she was so uncomfortable in just one day before. ||
 * April 30, 2013 ||  || Chapters 12-14 questions

Symbolism and Dialect ||  ||

|| She wonders about whether the Tucks are actually immortal or not (could it //really// be true?!), and then she thinks about Yellow Suit Guy. Eventually, Winnie starts to relax; she's getting used to being alone in the Tucks' living room and hearing all the small night animals make their sounds. Soon enough, she has a few visitors. First, Mae comes in to check on her; it's pretty clear that Mae's really fond of our leading lady. Next up, Tuck. He wants to reassure Winnie, but he doesn't seem to know quite what to say. Instead, he just gives her a kiss before leaving.At this point, Winnie's thoughts grow more and more complex. She can't figure out what's up with the Tucks. It's like an information overload.

One more visitor! Jesse comes in, and—are you ready for this?—he basically proposes to her. He asks her to think about waiting a few years, until she's seventeen, and then drinking from the magic spring. Then she and he could be together, and maybe get married. Winnie is so overwhelmed that she can't speak. Jesse asks her to consider it, and then he goes back to bed. And Winnie thought she couldn't sleep before. Now she has an even harder time falling asleep because she's so stunned by Jesse's comment. Eventually, though, she drifts off. ||
 * May 1, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

Chapter 15 & 16 Notes

theme ||  ||  || The stranger had the attention of Winnie's mother, father and grandmother. He told how he had followed her kidnappers to their home and portrayed them as illiterate and dangerous. Then he told them his plan. He offered to take the constable to find Winnie, in return for Mr. Foster signing the woods over to him. He emphasized his stance: no woods, no Winnie. He left the Fosters no choice in the matter.

The reader becomes aware that the stranger is the nemesis. However, he has not divulged everything. It is obvious there is a reason he wants the woods, but the reader has no way of knowing why at this time. ||
 * May 2, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__

Chapters 15 & 16 questions Irony Chapters 17 and 18 notes ||  ||

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 * May 3, 2013 ||  || Word Generation

Test chapters 9-16

Chapters 17 and 18 questions ||  ||  ||   ||
 * May 6, 2013 ||  || Chapters 17 and 18 questions
 * May 6, 2013 ||  || Chapters 17 and 18 questions

Chapters 19 and 20 Notes ||  ||

|| The man in the yellow suit tells the Tucks that his grandmother told him stories of a family she knew that never aged. Since hearing the story, the man has been fascinated by the search for eternal life. He tells Mae that in the wood the other day he heard the tune that his grandmother told him the ageless woman always played on a music box. He also followed the Tucks and heard the story they told Winnie. The man then comments that the Fosters gave him the woods in exchange for returning Winnie to them. He plans to sell the spring water and use the Tucks to advertise its eternal qualities. When the man grabs Winnie to leave, Mae cracks him over the head with a shotgun as the constable rounds the corner, witnessing the event. ||
 * May 7, 2013 ||  || Propaganda

Chapters 19 and 20 questions ||  || || Chapter Twenty Winnie tells the constable that she chose to go with the Tucks. Even though the Tucks did not kidnap Winnie, the constable must arrest Mae for injuring the man in the yellow suit. He warns Mae that if the man dies, she will be hanged from the gallows. The constable loads Mae and Winnie onto the horse to return Winnie to her family and to place Mae in jail. || Winnie arrives home and reiterates to her family that she chose to go with the Tucks. The constable tells Mr. Foster that the man in the yellow suit has died. Winnie realizes that Mae must not go to the gallows since she will not die and everyone would find out their secret.
 * May 8, 2013 ||  || Chapters 21 and 22 Notes ||   ||   || Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two When Winnie is outside she sees the toad from the other day. As she is sprinkling water on the toad, Jesse appears on the other side of the fence. He tells Winnie that the Tucks are going to break Mae out of jail that night, and they won’t be able to return to Treegap for a long time. He also gives Winnie a bottle of water from the spring for her to drink when she is seventeen. Winnie offers to take Mae’s place in jail to give the Tucks more time to leave town before Mae’s escape is discovered. Jesse agrees to meet Winnie at midnight. ||
 * May 9, 2013 ||  || Chapters 21 and 22 questions

chapters 23 and 24 notes and questions ||  ||   || Chapter Twenty-Three As Winnie lies in bed, a thunderstorm arises. She wakes up just before twelve when she is to meet Jesse.

Chapter Twenty-Four Winnie and Jesse go to the jail where Angus and Miles are prying the bars off Mae’s jail cell window. As thunder cracks, Miles releases the bars. Mae climbs out of the window, and Winnie takes her place in the jail cell. || __AR Test__ Project ||  ||   || Chapter Twenty-Five Winnie lies quietly on the cot until the constable discovers her the next morning. She is released into her parents’ custody and realizes that she has shamed her family. As she rests outside in her yard, Winnie sees the toad again. Winnie rescues it from a dog by pouring the bottle of water from the spring on the toad. Winnie tells herself that there is more water in the wood if she chooses to drink from it when she turns seventeen. Epilogue Many years later, Mae and Angus Tuck ride into Treegap on a horse and buggy. They notice the paved streets, cars, and new buildings in town. In a diner they inquire about the woods. The counterman tells them that three years ago lightning hit the tree, split it in half, and it caught fire. The tree was then completely bulldozed. Tuck asks about the spring in the woods, and the counterman doesn’t know anything about it. After leaving the diner, the Tucks find Winnie’s tombstone in a graveyard. Tuck is pleased with Winnie’s decision to forgo drinking from the spring, and Mae remarks that Jesse will be sad that she is gone. On the way out of Treegap, Angus comments about a toad in the road that acts like it will live forever. ||
 * May 10, 2013 ||  || Teacher Inservice Day - No School ||   ||   ||   ||
 * May 13, 2013 ||  || Finish __Tuck Everlasting__
 * May 13, 2013 ||  || Finish __Tuck Everlasting__
 * May 14, 2013 ||  || Notebook Test

Planner Check

Project ||  ||   ||   ||
 * May 15, 2013 ||  || __Tuck Everlasting__ Movie Comparison

Project ||  ||   ||   ||