- They boys get upset because carrying the water bucket was always their job. They could get out of class and look like they were the stronger more dominant people in the class. When the girls threatened to take that away, the boys were very upset
2. The boys use the strategy of not letting the girls do anything with them like not letting them play softball, a game the girls have always played. At first the girls are very upset by this but then an older girl comes along and explains that it’s really not that big of a deal because the boys will want the girls back in no time.
3. There isn’t a known character to be telling the story so the narrator is telling the story. They tell everything that is happening in the story except they don’t have access to any of the characters emotions. The narrator made it seem like such a big deal the fact that the girls didn’t get to carry the water bucket so it made us as readers think that as well.
4. The setting is on a school ground / in a one room school house most likely in Toronto because they make a reference to it in the book. The conflict is group (girls) vs. group (boys) but technically person vs. person. The girls went against the boys because Alma believed everyone should get the chance to carry the water bucket and the boys thought against her.
5. The protagonist is Alma (and the other girls). She is the main character, she brought up the problem, she worked with the girls to make the storyline and she succeeded in solving the problem.
6. Everything had changed that Friday was not just because of one thing that one person did, it was everything that went on. Ms. Ralston hitting the ball made the boys realise that the girls are just as strong or brave as them, and that’s the main message of the poem.
Vocab
Galvanized : a coat of iron or steel
Remotest : unlikely to occur
Intoxicated : lose control of their faculties or behavior
Ominous : gives the impression that something bad will happen
Supplementary : completing or enhancing something
Forlornly : hopeless
Earnestly : looking guilty
Gloating : talks about their own success
Transfixed : frozen with wonder, horror or astonishment
Pirouettings : the act of doing a spin or twirl.
