Cleo M. Coppa
My unit is intended for seventh and eighth grade drama students. This unit will be taught over a 6-8 week period. One of the major objectives of my unit is to expose my students to how the classic film
The Wizard of Oz
was created. In order to accomplish this objective, I will review with my students the process in which L. (Lyman) Frank Baum’s novel
The Wizard of Oz
was adapted into the 1939 screenplay written by Noel Langley, Florence Ryerson, and Edgar Allan Woolf.
The first focus of my unit will be L. Frank Baum, the author of
The Wizard of Oz
. I intend to provide some background information on this author as well as discuss his motivation/inspiration for creating his novel. The reason I wish to begin my unit with biographical information about L. Frank Baum is to give my students an idea of how Baum was able to be creative without the common worries that plague most people. Baum was one of several children. He was born on May 15, 1856 in Chiftenago, New York. Shortly after his birth his family moved to the outskirts of Syracuse. Baum’s parents were wealthy. Baum’s mother named their estate Rose Lawn. His father made his fortune in the Pennsylvania’s oil fields.
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According to David L. Greene and Dick Martin in their book,
The Oz Scrapbook
, Baum went to the Peekskill Military Academy in 1868 and remained there for two years. Greene and Martin assert that Baum’s father shared the view with other wealthy fathers of the time that their sons should attend military school. In
The Annotated Wizard of Oz
, the author Michael Patrick Hearn states that Baum’s mother wanted her son to go to military school with the hope that this type of school would cure his daydreaming. Regardless of Baum’s parents’ reasons, both parents felt that a military academy was where their son should go at this point in his life. Because he had lived in luxury, Baum was unable to deal with austere military life. Frank Baum withdrew from the military academy after suffering a seizure, a condition that was described as a heart attack. Thus, it was decided that he was too weak to attend military school. Baum’s military school experience would have an influence on the creation of his classic
The Wizard of Oz
.
During Baum’s 20s, he was an actor, a playwright and managed several theaters owned by his father. Baum’s wealthy family helped him indulge in his many career pursuits after leaving military school. Baum first became involved in a publication venture with his younger brother. They produced a journal known as the
Rose Lawn Journal
. Afterwards, Baum, along with a friend, Thomas G. Alford, created a publication known as
The Empire
, which was a monthly amateur newspapers However, at this time in Baum’s life drama and acting were his main interests. Baum used two stage names: Lewis F. Baum and George Brooks. Baum was hired by Shakespearean troupe because his father provided the costumes.
In 1882, Baum wrote his first play, a melodrama entitled
The Maid of Arran
, based on William Blacks’ novel,
A Princess of Thule
. Baum wrote the music, the lyrics, and played the lead in his play. Members of Baum’s family, including aunts and uncles, had roles in his production, which was also financed by his father. The play received great reviews, but failed financially. Since Baum had the good fortune to be born into a supportive, wealthy family willing to finance his indecisiveness in career pursuits, he was constantly changing his pursuits whenever he encountered difficulty or failure.
Stability finally entered Baum’s life with his marriage in 1882 to the suffragette Maude Gage. Gage was the daughter of Matilda Joslyn Gage, an acquaintance of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cudy Stanton. In my opinion, these women had an influence on Baum and Maude: two of their children’s middle names were Joslyn and Stanton. Baum went to work for the family’s oil business in Pennsylvania from 1882 until the death of his father in 1887. Baum continued to write during this period does state that the Aunt Jane’s Nieces series was almost as popular and sold almost as well as the Oz series.
After Baum wrote his first two childrens’ books, he teamed up with an old acquaintance named William Wallace Denslow who was a newspaper cartoonist and poster designer. Together they created a book called Father Goose. By 1901, 60,000 copies of this book had been sold.
The next joint venture of Baum and Denslow would be
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
. Many of Baum’s ideas for Oz came from stories he told his sons or things that happened during his or his children’s childhood. For example, the Scarecrow character originated in a recurring nightmare from Baum’s own childhood in which he was being chased by a scarecrow. Other ideas came from Baum’s experiences at Rose Lawn and while he was at Peekskill Military Academy. In the
Oz Scrapbook
, the authors David L. Greene and Dick Martin assert that Rose Lawn is mentioned by name in Baum’s 1901 fantasy
Dot and Tot of Merryland
and, more important, they assert that the Emerald City may owe some of its opulence to the Baum estate of Rose Lawn.
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The soldier with green whiskers of the army of Oogaboo of the Tik- Tok Man of Oz may be seen as Baum . . . s reflections of his early experiences at military academy.
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The ideas behind the creation of Oz were not limited to these sources, for the name Oz is believed to have come from a filing cabinet labeled O-Z. Students should be aware of other titles that Baum’s classic book was known by before it was published in 1900 as
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
(in time, this Baum book would be referred to simply as
The Wizard of Oz
.). They were as follows:
The City of Oz, The Great City of the Great Oz., The Emerald City, From Kansas to Fairyland, The Fairyland of Oz., The Land of Oz
. In my opinion, the variety of names that Baum’s book was known by reflects the indecisiveness that was a characteristic of L. Frank Baum’s life as stated earlier in the unit.
After reviewing with my students some of the key points in L. Frank Baum’s life, I intend to have my class review Baum’s unabridged version of
The Wizard of Oz
. I do not intend to have each student read the entire book. I will assign each student to read one chapter in Baum’s book, which I will furnish to them. It will be each student’s responsibility to provide a brief oral synopsis of their assigned chapter. To insure that my students cover the key aspects in their chapter, I will provide them with a set of questions that they must address in their oral synopsis. There are twenty-four chapters in Baum’s unabridged version. The chapters, questions, and answers are as follows:
Chapter 1—
The Cyclone
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1. Who did Dorothy live with? (Her aunt and uncle.)
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2. What were their names? (Aunt Em/Uncle Henry.)
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3. Where did Dorothy live? (Kansas.)
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4. What was the name of her dog? (Toto.)
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5. What is a cyclone? (A terrific disturbance of the atmosphere in which a storm of winds whirls about in a long funnel shape cloud.)
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6. What was the main thing that happened in this chapter? (A cyclone hit Aunt Em’s and Uncle Henry’s farm.)
Chapter 2—
The Council with Munchkins
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1. Where did Dorothy’s house land? (In the Land of the Munchkins.)
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2. Who did Dorothy first meet? (Three men and a woman.)
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3. Who was the woman? (The Witch of the North.)
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4. Who was killed when Dorothy’s house landed? (The wicked Witch of the East.)
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5. What happened to her body? (Her body disappeared, leaving only her silver shoes.)
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6. What are the names of the people who popped out after the witch was killed? (The Munchkins.)
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7. What did the Witch of the North give Dorothy? (The Wicked Witch of the East’s silver shoes.)
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8. Where was Dorothy told to go to get back to Kansas? (The City of Emeralds.)
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9. Who was she told to see? (The Great Wizard of Oz.)
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10. What road did Dorothy have to follow? (The Yellow Brick Road.)
Chapter 3—
How Dorothy Saved the Scarecrow
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1. Who was Bog? (A rich Munchkin Dorothy ate supper with on the first night of her journey.)
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2. Who did Dorothy meet in the cornfield the next day? (The Scarecrow.)
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3. How did Dorothy help the Scarecrow? (She helped him down off the stakes.)
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4. Why does the Scarecrow go to Oz with Dorothy? (To obtain a brain.)
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5. What is the one thing that the Scarecrow is afraid of? (A lighted match.)
Chapter 4—
The Road Through the Forest
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1. What was the road like through the forest? (Rough and bumpy.)
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2. What does the Scarecrow reveal to Dorothy while they walk through the forest? (How the farmer put the Scarecrow together.)
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3. Once the farmer put the Scarecrow in the field, did it keep the crows away? (At first yes, but later the crows got wise that the Scarecrow was just made of straw and began to eat the corn.)
Chapter 5—
The Rescue of the Tin WoodMan
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1. What did Dorothy and the Scarecrow go looking for in the morning? (Water.)
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2. Who did Dorothy and the Scarecrow find near the spring? (The Tin Woodman.)
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3. What was the Tin Woodman’s problem? (He was rusted.)
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4. What did the Tin Woodman want Oz to do for him? (Give him a heart.)
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5. How and why did the Woodman become the Tin Woodman? (The Woodman wanted to marry a Munchkin maiden. The maiden lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry. The old woman went to the Wicked Witch of the East to ask for help. The witch put a hex on the Woodman’s ax causing it to cut off different parts of his body. Each time a body part was cut off, a tinsmith replaced it, until eventually the Woodman’s entire body was tin.)
Chapter 6—
The Cowardly Lion
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1. Who did Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Woodman meet next while traveling down the Yellow Brick Road? (The Cowardly Lion.)
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2. What did Dorothy do to the Cowardly Lion? (She hit him on the nose to prevent him from biting Toto.)
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3. What was the Lion’s problem? (He was a coward.)
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4. What did the Lion want most of all? (Courage.)
Chapter 7—
The Journey to the Great Oz
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1. As Dorothy and the others continued on their journey, what did they encounter? (A very large ditch with jagged rocks at the bottom.)
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2. How did they cross the ditch? (One at a time they got on the Lion . . . s back and the Lion jumped over the ditch.)
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3. What are Kalidahs? (They are monstrous beasts with bodies like bears and heads like tigers.)
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4. How did they cross the next obstacle(a much larger ditch) in the road? (The Tin Woodman cut down a tree which served as a bridge.)
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5. How did they get away from Kalidahs when they attacked? (The Tin Woodman chopped one end of the tree bridge causing the Kalidahs to fall and die in the deep ditch.)
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6. What was the final obstacle Dorothy and her friends encounter in the forest? (A river.)
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7. How were they going to cross the river? (Build a raft.)
Chapter 8—
The Deadly Poppy Field
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1. As they crossed the river what happened to the Scarecrow? (He got stuck in the mud in the middle of the river on a pole as the raft drifted downstream out of control.)
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2. What happened to Dorothy, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion? (The Lion jumped in the river, the Tin Woodman grabbed the Lion’s tail, the Lion pulled the raft to the other side of the river.)
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3. How did the Scarecrow get rescued? (Dorothy convinced a large stork to fly to the middle of the river and get the Scarecrow.) 4. What happened to this group after the Scarecrow was rescued? (they ran into a huge poppy field which made Dorothy go to sleep.) 5. How did Dorothy get out of the poppy field? ( the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow carried her out.) 6. What happened to the Lion? (He fell asleep a short distance from the end of the poppy field; they left the Lion because he was too heavy to carry.)
Chapter 9—
The Queen of the Field Mice
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1. How was the Queen of the field mice saved from the wildcat? (The Tin Woodman chopped the wildcat’s head off.)
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2. How did the Queen of the field mice repay the Tin Woodman? (By agreeing to help save the Lion form the poppy field.)
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3. Briefly explain how the Queen and her field mice subjects helped save the Lion. (The Tin Woodman made a wooden truck, then the Queen and her subjects helped load the Lion on the truck, then with the help of the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, the Queen and her field mice subjects pulled the Lion from the poppy field.)
Chapter 10—The Guardian of the Gate
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1. After the Lion was removed from the poppy field and had awakened what was the color of all of the houses they saw? (Green.)
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2. With whom did Dorothy and the others spend the night? (They spent the night in a good sized house with a woman, two children, and a man.)
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3. What did the man say
The Wizard of Oz
looked like? (The Wizard takes on any form he wishes).
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4. What did the Guardian of the Gate look like? (A little man the size of a Munchkin who was green from head to toe).
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5. What did the Guardian have Dorothy and the others wear? (Green spectacles which he locked on their heads.)
Chapter 11—The Wonderful Emerald City of Oz
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1. What was the color of everything and everyone in the Emerald City? (Green.)
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2. Where did
The Wizard of Oz
live in the Emerald City? (The Palace of Oz.)
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3. How many people were allowed to see
The Wizard of Oz
out Dorothy’s group? (One per day.)
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4. In what room did each visitor meet Oz? (The Throne Room.)
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5. How did Dorothy get the mark on her forehead? (The mark was where the good Witch of the North kissed her.)
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6. What did
The Wizard of Oz
ask Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion to do in exchange for his help? (Kill the wicked Witch of the West.)
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7. What did
The Wizard of Oz
look like when he met Dorothy, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion? (the Wizard took on several different forms, to Dorothy he had an enormous head with no body, to the Scarecrow he took on the form of a lovely lady, to the Tin Woodman he had the face of rhinoceros with five eyes, five arms, and five legs, and to he appeared as a ball of fire.)
Chapter 12—
The Search for the Wicked Witch
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1. Where did the Guardian of the Gate tell Dorothy and the others to find the wicked Witch of the West? (in the country of the Winkies.)
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2. How many eyes did the Wicked Witch of the West have? (One.)
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3. What did the witch do when she spotted Dorothy? (She sent a pack of wolves to kill her.)
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4. What happened? (The Tin Woodman cut the heads off the forty wolves.)
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5. What did the witch do after the wolves failed in the mission? (She sent a flock of wild crows to peck their eyes out.)
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6. What happened these crows? (The Scarecrow twisted the necks off the forty crows.)
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7. What did the witch do next? What happened? (She sent a swarm of bees to sting them to death; they covered Dorothy, Toto, and the Lion with the straw from the Scarecrow, when the bees tried to sting the Tin Woodman their stingers broke off and they died.)
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8. What happened next? (The witch sent her slaves known as Winkies to kill them, but they were scared by the roar of the Lion.)
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9. Then what did the witch do? (She used the Golden Cap to summon the Winged Monkeys; she ordered the monkeys to destroy everyone but the Lion.)
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10. What did the Winged Monkeys do? (The monkeys picked up the Tin Woodman and dropped him over some sharp rocks which badly damaged him. The monkeys pulled all the straw the Scarecrow and put his clothes onto the branches of a tall tree. They picked up the Lion and returned him to the witch’s palace. The monkeys refused to harm Dorothy because she had the mark on her forehead left from where the Good Witch had kissed her.)
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11. What did the wicked Witch do to Dorothy and the Lion? (The witch made Dorothy do many harsh chores and she tried to starve the Lion for refusing to obey her.)
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12. What was the wicked Witch’s plan to get Dorothy’s silver shoes? (the Witch placed a bar of iron that was invisible to the human eye in the middle of the kitchen floor so that Dorothy would trip and fall with the hope that her silver shoes would come off.)
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13. Did the wicked Witch’s plan work completely? (No, Dorothy only lost one shoe.)
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14. What happened next? (Dorothy became very angry and demanded the Witch return the other silver shoe. The Witch’s refusal made Dorothy so angry that she threw a bucket water on the Witch, at which point the wicked Witch melted and died.)
Chapter 13—
The Rescue
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1. Who helped Dorothy and theLion resue the Tin Woodman? (The Winkies brought the Tin Woodman back to the wicked Witch’s castle and their tinsmith fixed him.)
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2. How was the Scarecrow rescued? (The Tin Woodsman chopped down the tree that held the Scarecrow’s clothes with fresh straw, making the Scarecrow like new.)
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3. When Dorothy went to the witch’s cupboard to get food for their journey back to the Emerald city, what did she take besides food? (The Golden Cap.)
Chapter 14—
The Winged Monkeys
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1. How did Dorothy learn the secret of the Golden Cap? ( The Queen of the Mice told her that the cap could be use to summon the Winged Monkeys.)
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2. Why did Dorothy and the others need the help of the Winged Monkeys? (The Emerald City was a great distance from where they were at the time.)
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3. Why did the Winged Monkeys have to obey the holder the Golden Cap? (Because the grandfather of the King of the Winged Monkeys had ordered his subjects to drop Quelala, the groom-to-be of a powerful princess of the North named Gaylette into a river as a joke. Gayelette did not find this and became very angry. She agreed to spare the lives of the Winged Monkeys if they agreed to grant three wishes to whomever held the Golden Cap. The first person to hold the cap was Quelala.)
Chapter 15—
The Discovery of Oz the Terrible
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1. What made
The Wizard of Oz
finally agree to see Dorothy and her friends? (The Scarecrow threatened to call the Winged Monkeys and have them force the Wizard to see them.)
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2. Who was
The Wizard of Oz
? (He was a ventriloquist from Omaha.)
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3. How did the Wizard create the different forms that Dorothy and her friends saw when they first met the Wizard? (The forms were all illusions created using costumes and paper and talent as a ventriloquist.) 4. How did the Wizard get to the Emerald City? (The Wizard became a balloonist for a circus after he became tired of being a ventriloquist. One day, when he went up the ropes got twisted and he floated high above the clouds and landed in a green and beautiful country. The people thought he was a great Wizard and were afraid of him and were willing to do anything he said. So he had them build a palace and he named the city the Emerald City.)
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5. Why was everything green in the Emerald City? (The Wizard made everyone wear green glasses so they would believe that the city was an Emerald City.)
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6. What did Dorothy and her friends call the Wizard after this meeting? (The Great and Terrible Humbug.)
Chapter 16—
The Magic Art of the Great Humbug
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1. How did the Wizard give the Scarecrow brains? (He removed his head and stuffed it with bran, pins, and needles and told the Scarecrow that he had bran new brains. This satisfied the Scarecrow.)
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2. How did the Wizard give the Woodman a heart? (The Wizard opened the Woodman’s chest and placed a pretty heart made of silk stuffed with sawdust there.)
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3. How did the Wizard give the Lion courage? (He made the Lion drink a green solution which he told the Lion would give him courage.)
Chapter 17—
How the Balloon was Launched
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1. How did the Wizard plan on getting Dorothy back to Kansas? (By making a balloon of silk and using hot air.)
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2. Why did the Wizard decide to leave Oz and go back to Kansas with Dorothy? (He was tired of being a humbug. Also, he was afraid of how the people of the Emerald City would react if they knew the truth.)
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3. Who did the Wizard tell the people of the Emerald City would rule them in his absence? (The Scarecrow.)
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4. What happened on the day the balloon was set to take off? (Just when the balloon was to take off Dorothy could not find Toto. When Dorothy went to get Toto (who started to chase a cat), the ropes on the balloon broke and the Wizard left without her.)
Chapter 18—
Away to the South
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1. Who did Dorothy and her friends call on to help Dorothy get back to Kansas? (The Winged Monkeys.)
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2. Were they able to help Dorothy? (No, the Winged Monkeys were not allowed to leave this country.)
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3. What did the soldier with the green whiskers suggest? (He suggested that Dorothy go to Glenda, the Witch of the South, whose palace was located on the edge of the desert.)
Chapter 19—
Attacked by the Fighting Trees
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1. What happened to Dorothy and her friends as they traveled through the forest to see Glenda? (They were attacked by the trees.)
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2. How did they get away from their attackers? (After the Tin Woodman axed one tree, the others allowed them to pass.)
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3. What did this group encounter when they reached the end of the forest? (A huge wall of white china.) 4. How did they overcome this obstacle? (The Woodman made a ladder.)
Chapter 20—
The Dainty China Country
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1. What was on the other side of the china wall? (A stretch of country with a smooth floor, shining and white, and small houses made of china painted in bright colors. The people were small too!)
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2. Whom did Dorothy and her friends frighten? What happened? (A cow. The cow broke her leg off when she kicked the milkmaid, the cow also nicked the milkmaid’s knee.)
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3. What did the Lion break when he was jumping over the wall as they were leaving the dainty china country? (The church.)
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4. What did Dorothy want to bring back to Kansas from this country? (A china princess.)
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5. Why didn’t she take this person? (Because once the china princess left this country she would stiffen and lose her ability to talk.)
Chapter 21—
The Lion Becomes the King of Beasts
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1 . How did the Lion become the King of Beasts in the forest? (By killing the monster of the forest.)
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2. What did this monster look like? (The monster looked like a great spider with a body as big as an elephant and legs as long as tree trunks. This monster had eight legs.)
Chapter 22—
The Country of the Quadlings
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1. What was stopping Dorothy and the others from crossing the steep hill and reaching the country of the Quadlings? (The Hammerheads.)
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2. How did they get past these creatures? (The Winged Monkeys.)
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3. What did the Quadlings look like? (They were short and fat and looked chubby and good natured.)
Chapter 23—
The Good Witch Grants Dorothy’s Wish
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1. What did Glenda ask from Dorothy in exchange for her telling Dorothy how to get back to Kansas? (The Golden Cap.)
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2. What was going to happen to the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion when Dorothy returned to Kansas? (The Scarecrow would return to rule the Emerald City; the Tin Woodman would return and rule the Winkies; the Lion would return and be the King of Beasts in the grand old forest.)
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3. What did Glenda use her three wishes with the Golden Cap for (To return the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Lion to their respective kingdoms.)
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4. How did Dorothy get back to Kansas? (By clicking the heels of her silver shoes three times.)
Chapter 24—
Home Again
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1. Who did Dorothy see when she first returned to Kansas? (Aunt Em.)
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**Because Chapter 24 is very short, I intend to have the student assigned to this chapter to take half of the question of the Chapter 12 question list.
