Crabbe

Reading Check and Short Answer Questions on key plot points are designed for guided reading assignments, in-class review, formative assessment, quizzes, and more.

Prologue-Journal 1

Reading Check

1. What is Crabbe’s first name?

2. What is Crabbe’s psychiatrist’s name?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. In the prologue, where is Crabbe, and why is he there?

2. What criticism does Crabbe make about the way his psychiatrist perceives teenagers?

3. Why does Crabbe decide to keep a journal and share it with the reader?

Journal 2-Digression

Reading Check

1. In Journal 2, what does Crabbe say is the only independent action he ever took?

2. What does Crabbe’s gym teacher accuse him of when the man catches Crabbe skipping his class?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. What does Crabbe admire about the protagonist of the short story “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner”?

2. How did Crabbe choose the place he would run away to?

3. What positive qualities does Crabbe see in his English teacher?

Paired Resource

“What Students Are Saying About How to Improve American Education”

• This New York Times article summarizes several teenagers’ views on what is wrong with American schools.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Value(s) of Education.
• What are the findings in this article? Do you agree with the teenagers who offered ideas for this article? What would you add? How would Crabbe react to this article? What evidence in the text supports your answer?

“Why Latin Should Still Be Taught in High School”

• In this poem, the speaker’s attention while sitting in class goes not to Latin, but to another student—because of how boring they find the class content.
• This resource relates to the theme of The Value(s) of Education.
• Is this poem’s title serious or sarcastic? What evidence in the poem tells you this? What is this poem saying about the value of traditional school subjects? What does the speaker think is important? Would Crabbe agree or disagree with the speaker? What evidence in the text supports your answer?

Journal 5-Journal 9

Reading Check

1. In Journal 6, what important piece of safety equipment does Crabbe realize he has forgotten to bring with him?

2. What animal does Crabbe encounter in the middle of the night in Journal 8?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Why does Crabbe end up hiding under his own car in Journal 5?

2. What does Crabbe’s experience in Journal 7 make him realize about his background?

3. How does Crabbe end up falling out of his canoe in Journal 9?

Journal 10-Journal 14

Reading Check

1. When Crabbe has a dream about a giant bird descending on him, what does he realize he is really seeing?

2. When Crabbe spends the night alone in Journal 12, who does he decide is to blame for his loneliness in Toronto?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. When Crabbe finally tells Mary about himself, what problem is he finally able to admit to?

2. What does Mary give Crabbe as a substitute for drinking, and what is her reasoning?

3. What changes in himself does Crabbe notice in Journal 14?

Paired Resource

“Athena: Greek Goddess of Wisdom and War”

• This article explains the attributes of Pallas Athena, to whom Mary Pallas’s name alludes.
• What are the similarities between Mary Pallas and the goddess Athena? How does her rescue and guidance of Crabbe seem like a kind of “divine” intervention in his story? What does this allusion to a Greek goddess suggest about Crabbe and the kind of experience he is having in the wilderness?

Journal 15-Journal 17

Reading Check

1. What weather event prompts Mary to tell Crabbe it is time for him to return to civilization?

2. What does Crabbe take from the kitchen to use to distract the dogs?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. Where do Mary and Crabbe go on their last trek together?

2. How do the men at the compound end up realizing Mary is there?

3. Why does Crabbe burn Mary’s body?

Crabbe’s Journal: 18-19

Reading Check

1. What was Mary’s job before she came to live in the wilderness?

2. What happens that causes Crabbe to finally leave camp and start for home?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. After he returns to camp, what realization does Crabbe come to that finally makes him cry with grief over Mary’s death?

2. What is Crabbe’s theory about why Mary ended her husband’s life?

3. What did Mary believe a good teacher would eventually do?

Paired Resource

“To Build a Fire”

• A classic short story by Jack London and example of literary Naturalism, in which the protagonist refuses to heed the advice of those more experienced than himself and strikes out alone into the Yukon
• This resource relates to themes of The Quest for Identity and Autonomy and The Relationship Between Humanity and Nature
• “To Build a Fire” on SuperSummary
• In what ways is Crabbe like this man at the beginning of the novel, and in what ways is Crabbe different by the time he is struggling with the cold himself? What does Crabbe come to understand about autonomy and nature that the protagonist of “To Build a Fire” does not understand?

“It’s Only Wrong When YOU Do It! The Psychology of Hypocrisy”

• This informative article from The Guardian by Dean Burnett explores various aspects of hypocrisy—its context, our judgments about it, and some of its motivations.
• This resource relates to the theme of Actions Versus Words.
• What key points does this article make about hypocrisy? How would Crabbe respond to this article? Why does Crabbe admire Mary’s ability to follow through on her words? Do you think everyone has to match their words to their actions at all times in order to be a good person? How do you think the author of this article would answer this question?

Crabbe’s Journal: 20-21

Reading Check

1. Where does Crabbe eventually find shelter in Journal 20?

2. What question does Crabbe refuse to answer for the doctor at the Huntington clinic?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. How is Crabbe finally rescued?

2. When Crabbe wakes up in the hospital, why do his lungs hurt?

3. What does the hospital administrator threaten to do when Crabbe will not explain why he was out in the wilderness?

Digression-Journal End

Reading Check

1. To what animals does Crabbe compare students in their tendency to enforce conformity?

2. To what natural phenomenon does Nurse Owens compare the process of defining one’s identity?

Short Answer

Answer each question in at least 1 complete sentence. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.

1. When Crabbe’s parents come to see him in the hospital, what does he suddenly realize about them?

2. What does Crabbe tell his parents has made it harder for him to achieve autonomy?

3. At the end of the book, where does Crabbe take a job, and what does he hope to accomplish there?

Recommended Next Reads 

Be Not Far From Me by Mindy McGinnis

• When she angrily storms off alone into the Smoky Mountains, Ashley Hawkins quickly finds out that even her excellent wilderness skills cannot completely protect her from the consequences of her impulsive decision—or from having to face her painful past.
• Shared themes include The Quest for Identity and Autonomy, The Relationship Between Humanity and Nature, and Actions Versus Words.
• Shared topics include accepting the consequences of decisions and coming to terms with the past.

Bad Call by Stephen Wallenfels

• Tennis teammates Colin, Ceo, and Grahame are joined on their long-planned camping trip to Yosemite by Ellie, a girl two of the boys have never even heard of; things go from bad to worse as a series of bad decisions results in disaster.
• Shared themes include The Relationship Between Humanity and Nature and Actions Versus Words.
• Shared topics include accepting the consequences of decisions and coming to terms with the past.

Hatchet by Gary Paulsen

• After his plane goes down in the Canadian wilderness, 13-year-old Brian Robeson struggles to survive; in the process he develops a more mature perspective on both himself and others.
• Shared themes include The Quest for Identity and Autonomy and The Relationship Between Humanity and Nature.
• Shared topics include coming of age and coping with parental imperfections.
• Hatchet on SuperSummary