Assignment 4
Apply skills and strategies presented in this lesson to develop a plan for teaching from “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” (reading level 7.4 and interest level 9-12). Your plan must involve a minimum of 4 reading comprehension strategies. Available at
http://readmeastoryink.com/stories/the_celebrated_jumping_frog_of_calaveras_county
Links to an external site.
and copied into Canvas.
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THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG OF
CALAVERAS COUNTY
By Mark Twain
In the Public Domain
In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the
East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired
after my friend’s friend, Leonidas W. Smiley, as requested to do, and I hereunto
append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W. Smiley is a myth;
that my friend never knew such a personage; and that he only conjectured that
if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would remind him of his infamous Jim
Smiley, and he would go to work and bore me to death with some exasperating
reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that
was the design, it succeeded.
I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar room stove of the
dilapidated tavern in the decayed mining camp of Angel’s, and I noticed that he
was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning gentleness and
simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up, and gave me good-day.
I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make some inquiries
about a cherished companion of his boyhood Leonidas W. Smiley — Rev.
Leonidas W. Smiley, a young minister of the Gospel, who he had heard was at
one time a resident of Angel’s Camp. I added that if Mr. Wheeler could tell me
anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, I would feel under many
obligations to him.
Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his
chair, and then sat down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which
follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he never changed
his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he turned his initial sentence, he
never betrayed the slightest suspicion of enthusiasm; but all through the
interminable narrative there ran a vein of impressive earnestness and sincerity,
which showed me plainly that, ·so far from his imagining that there was
anything ridiculous or funny about his story, he regarded it as a really important
matter, and admired its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in finesse. I let
him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once.
‘Rev. Leonidas W. H’m, Reverend Le — well, there was a feller here once by
the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ’49 — or may be it was the spring of
’50 — I don’t recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was
Downloaded from Readmeastoryink.com
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one or the other is because I remember the big flume warn’t finished when he
first come to the camp; but any way, he was the curiosest man about always
betting on anything that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet
on the other side; and if he couldn’t he’d change sides. Any way that suited the
other man would suit him — any way just so’s he got a bet, he was satisfied. But
still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come out winner. He was
always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn’t be no solit’ry thing
mentioned but that feller’d offer to bet on it, and take any side you please, as I
was just telling you. If there was a horse-race, you’d find him flush or you’d
find him busted at the end of it; if there was a dog-fight, he’d bet on it; if there
was a catfight, he’d bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he’d bet on it; why if
there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would fly
first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg’lar to bet on Parson
Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about here, and so he was too,
and a good man. If he even see a straddle-bug start to go anywhere, he would
bet you how long it would take him to get to — to wherever he was going to,
and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what
he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road.
Lots of the boys here has seen that Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it
never made no difference to him — he’d bet on any thing — the dangdest feller.
Parson Walker’s wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if
they warn’t going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley up and
asked him how she was, and he said she was considable better — thank the
Lord for his inf’nite mercy — and coming on so smart that with the blessing of
Prov’dence she’d get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, ‘Well, I’ll
resk two-and-a-half she don’t anyway.’
Thish-yer Smiley had a mare — the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,
but that was only in fun, you know, because of course she was faster than that
— and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so slow and always
had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption, or something of that
kind. They used to give her two or three hundred yards start, and then pass her
under way; but always at the fag end of the race she’d get excited and desperate
like, and come cavorting and straddling up, and scattering her legs around
limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side among the fences,
and kicking up m-o-r-e dust and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and
sneezing and blowing her nose — and always fetch up at the stand just about a
neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.
And he had a little small bull-pup, that to look at him you’d think he warn’t
worth a cent but to set around and look ornery and lay for a chance to steal
something. But as soon as money was up on him he was a different dog; his
under-jaw’d begin to stick out like the fo’castle of a steamboat, and his teeth
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would uncover and shine like the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him and
bully-rag him, and bite him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three
times, and Andrew Jackson — which was the name of the pup — Andrew
Jackson would never let on but what he was satisfied, and hadn’t expected
nothing else — and the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all
the time, till the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab the
other dog jest by the j’int of his hind leg and freeze to it — not chaw, you
understand, but only just grip and hang on till they throwed up the sponge, if it
was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till he harnessed a dog
once that didn’t have no hind legs, because they’d been sawed off in a circular
saw, and when the thing had gone along far enough, and the money was all up,
and he come to make a snatch for his pet holt, he see in a minute how he’d
been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the door, so to speak, and
he ’peared surprised, and then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn’t try
no more to win the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a
look, as much as to say his heart was broke, and it was his fault for putting up a
dog that hadn’t no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main
dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and died.
It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made a name for
hisself if he’d lived, for the stuff was in him and he had genius — I know it,
because he hadn’t no opportunities to speak of, and it don’t stand to reason
that a dog could make such a fight as he could under them circumstances if he
hadn’t no talent. It always makes me feel sorry when I think of that last fight of
his’n, and the way it turned out.
Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tomcats and
all them kind of things, till you couldn’t rest, and you couldn’t fetch nothing for
him to bet on but he’d match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him
home, and said he cal’lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for
three months but set in his back yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet
you he did learn him, too. He’d give him a little punch behind, and the next
minute you’d see that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut — see him turn
one summerset, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and come down flat-
footed and all right, like a cat. He got him up so in the matter of ketching flies,
and kep’ him in practice so constant, that he’d nail a fly every time as fur as he
could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do
‘most anything — and I believe him. Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster
down here on this floor — Dan’l. Webster was the name of the frog — and
sing out, ‘Flies, Dan’l, flies!’ and quicker’n you can wink he’d spring straight up
and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on the floor ag’in as
solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side of his head with his hind
foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t no idea he’d been doin’ any more’n any frog
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might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightfor’ard as he was, for all
he was so gifted. And when it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level,
he could get over more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you
ever see. Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and
when it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a
red. Smiley was monstrous proud of his frog, and well he might be, for fellers
that had travelled and been everywheres all said he laid over any frog that ever
they see.
Well, Smiley kep’ the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch him
down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller — a stranger in the
camp, he was — come acrost him with his box, and says:
‘What might it be that you’ve got in the box?’
And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, ‘It might be a parrot, or it might be a
canary, maybe, but it ain’t — it’s only just a frog.’
And the feller took it, and looked at it careful, and turned it round this way
and that, and says, ‘H’m — so ‘tis. Well, what’s he good for?’
‘Well,’ Smiley says, easy and careless, ‘he’s good enough for one thing, I
should judge — he can out jump any frog in Calaveras county.’
The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look, and
give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t see no
p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.’
‘Maybe you don’t,’ Smiley says. ‘Maybe you understand frogs and maybe you
don’t understand ’em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you ain’t only
a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll resk forty dollars
that he can out jump any frog in Calaveras county.’
And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, ‘Well, I’m
only a stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog; but if I had a frog, I’d bet you.’
And then Smiley says, ‘That’s all right — that’s all right — if you’ll hold my
box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.’ And so the feller took the box, and
put up his forty dollars along with Smiley’s and set down to wait.
So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself, and then he got
the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled him full
of quail shot — filled him pretty near up to his chin — and set him on the
floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud for a long
time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and give him to this
feller, and says:
‘Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’I, with his forepaws just
even with Dan’l’s, and I’ll give the word.’ Then he says, ‘One — two — three
— git!’ and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new
frog hopped off lively, but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders —
so — like a Frenchman, but it warn’t no use — he couldn’t budge: he was
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planted as solid as a church, and he couldn’t no more stir than if he was
anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was disgusted too, but
he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.
The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out the
door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulder — so — at Dan’l, and says
again, very deliberate, ‘Well,’ he says, ‘I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s
any better’n any other frog.’
Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long time,
and at last he says, ‘I do wonder what in the nation that frog throw’d off for —
I wonder if there ain’t something the matter with him — he ’pears to look
mighty baggy, somehow.’ And he ketched Dan’l by the nap of the neck, and
hefted him, and says, ‘Why blame my cats if he don’t weigh five pound!’ and
turned him upside down and he belched out a double handful of shot. And
then he see how it was, and he was the maddest man — he set the frog down
and took out after that feller, but he never ketched him. And—’
[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got up
to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said: ‘Just
set where you are, stranger, and rest easy — I ain’t going to be gone a second.’
But, by you’re leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of the
enterprising vagabond Jim Smiley would be likely to afford me much
information concerning the Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and so I started away.
At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he button-holed
me and re-commenced: .
‘Well, thish-yer Smiler had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail,
only just a short stump like a bannanner, and —’
However, lacking both time and inclination, I did not wait to hear about the
afflicted cow, but took my leave.
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Unit 4 Writing Assignment
Reading Strategy 1: Inferential Comprehension (Inferring, Predicting, and Questioning throughout the text)
“Inferential comprehension allows the reader to apply personal background knowledge and understanding in order to comprehend the text. The reader draws connections between events in the text, and the reader draws conclusions based on inferences and connections that are not explicitly stated in the text” (Wilkins, 2021).
The students will look at the title of the text and make predictions about what they think the text is going to be about. The teacher will ask the following questions to students: 1. Have you ever seen a frog in person? 2. Did you see the frog jump? 3. What do you think Calaveras County is? 4. How do you know this?
These questions will leave students guessing about what the story will be about. It also allows students to become more interested in what they are about to read now that they have experienced some dealings with a frog. While reading the text, the teacher will stop every other paragraph and ask questions about the text. For every answer, the students must use evidence from the text to support their answer.
Reading Strategy 2: Monitoring for vocabulary recognition
While reading, the teacher will occasionally stop to pull out vocabulary words. The students will use clues from the text to determine what the word means. This will give students a better understanding of the text. Students will use a vocabulary organizer to write down the unknown words, tell where the word is found in the text, and write down the meaning that they come up with. The students will tell why they came up with that meaning for the vocabulary word. Use evidence from the text to help.
Reading Strategy 3: Summarizing the text.
Give students a graphic organizer on summarizing text. While reading, the students will fill in the main characters of the text. Next students will tell what each character did in the text. Then the character will find the problem that the character had and tell how the problem was resolved if it was solved. Next the student will take the information from the graphic organizer to summarize the text. The summary should include what the story was about along with the important points. All elements of a story should be used in the summary. This strategy allows the teacher and the student to see if they comprehend the text. Summarizing helps students to put important details that they have read together to show that they process what they read.
Reading Strategy 4: Close Reading
“Close reading is the detailed study and analysis of a reading passage” (Wilkins, 2021). The teacher will have students to highlight specific characteristics in the text. For example, highlight characteristics of the text that help you develop a theme in yellow. Highlight the traits of the characters in blue. Do any of your highlights overlap. They will overlap and this allows the students to see that each part of the text relates in some way. After close reading, students will come up with the theme of the passage.
References
Mississippi Department of Education (2016).
Mississippi college and career readiness for mathematics scaffolding document seventh grade. Retrieved from
mdek12default.org/sites/default/files/Offices/Secondary%20Ed/ELA/ccr/Math/07.Grade-7-Math-Scaffolding-Doc-pdf
Wilkins, C. (2021).
Teaching reading and math power point lectures. Retrieved from
https://belhaven.instructure.com/courses/33159/pages/unit-4-ppt-lectures-
2?module_item_id=2054543
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