Rutherford County Schools – Individual Learning Modules

Grade Course
High School English III
Unit Focus
Mark Twin uses the setting of the lonely mining town to make his characters come to life. The town is “decaying” so
the reader gets the sense there isn’t much to do other than talk and tell stories. The text provides an interesting
insight into the idea of “place” because it focuses mostly on an unremarkable event that forms the basis for a tall tale
told by a local resident. Wheeler’s speech and cadence reflect the boredom of location, and the story’s dry, ironic
quality is what makes it humorous.
Week of 5/4 – 5/8
Standard(s)
RL.6 - Analyze how point of view and/or author purpose RL.4 - Determine the meaning of words and phrases as
requires distinguishing what is directly stated in texts and they are used in a text, including figurative and
what is implied. connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific
word choices on meaning and tone, including words with
multiple meanings and language that is stylistically
poignant and engaging.
Resource(s)
CommonLit Activity
Paired Text Options - CommonLit ACT Academy
Task(s)

Monday: Read the short story and make a list of the words in the text that have figurative or connotative meanings.
Define what the words mean in the text in your own words.

Tuesday: ACT Tuesday! Write 5 ACT Style questions and answers that focus on the purpose of the text, the purpose of
small paragraphs, and vocabulary in context! Make sure to include a bait and switch answer and a sounds-right-but-
not-mentioned answer.

Wednesday:
Answer the following questions:
Text-Dependent Questions Directions:
For the following questions, choose the best answer or respond in complete sentences.
1. PART A: Which of the following best describes a theme of the story?
A. Great storytelling is an essential component of American culture.
B. Observing deception can be amusing, but being deceived is not.
C. Being too competitive can have a harmful effect on an individual and the people around them.
D. If people are not careful, tricksters and hustlers will take advantage of them.

2. How does paragraph 1 contribute to the development of the story’s theme?

3. Which of the following best describes how the author’s use of multiple narrators within the text develops the
meaning of the story?
A. It adds to the complexity of an otherwise rather simple plot.
B. It builds intrigue by keeping the reader wondering about who is speaking.
C. It makes the conversation seem authentic by letting both men speak.
D. It allows the reader to witness multiple characters' views on deception.

4. How does the contrasting diction of Simon Wheeler and the narrator contribute to the development of the story?
5. PART A: What does the term “cavorting” most likely mean as used in paragraph 5?
A. trembling out of fear
B. becoming very angry
C. making lots of noise
D. leaping and jumping
6. PART B: Which phrase from the paragraph best supports the answer to Part A?
A. “she’d get excited and desperate-like”
B. “scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the air, and sometimes out to one side”
C. “raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing and blowing her nose”
D. “just about a neck ahead, as near as you could cipher it down”

7. Which of the following best describes the character of Jim Smiley, as described by Simon Wheeler?
A. He is a gambling man who is willing to bet on nearly anything.
B. He is an easily excitable man who is over-competitive.
C. He is a strange man who fails to care for his animals.
D. He is a foolish man who cannot make much money.

Thursday:
Directions: Brainstorm your answers to the following questions. Then write a small paragraph (3-4 sentences) for each
answer. sorry
1. This short story brought Mark Twain national fame. Why do you think it was so popular with the American people?
2. How are different American regions and cultures depicted in the story? Consider the language of the narrator (from
the east) vs. that of Wheeler (from the Midwest).
3. What can we learn from comedy? Cite evidence from this text, your own experience, and other literature, art, or
history in your answer.

Friday: Fun Friday!

Fun Friday!
Choose ONE of the options below:

1. Make a T-chart outlining the comedic/figurative parts of the story across from the literal
meanings/representations
2. Search on Youtube "Competitive Frog Jumping is Alive and Well" and watch the ESPN video about
frog jumping still happening in modern times! Write your reaction to this video in the form of a
tweet.

Enrichment Activity: Take a note from Twain’s book! Write a short story/tall tale using slang from modern times or
from other eras that you research!

Expected Outcomes
Monday:
Nag: a horse that isn’t in good health
Yarn: a long rambling story
Quail Shot: gun powder
Tuesday:
Use the ACT guides we have given you throughout the year.

Wednesday:
1. B
2. Answers will vary; students should explain that in the first paragraph the narrator mentions that
he believes he has been the victim of deception: “I have a lurking suspicion that Leonidas W.
Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage.” He believes that his friend
essentially played a prank on him, and told him to ask an elderly man, Simon Wheeler, about a
man named Leonidas Smiley. His friend predicted that by asking Wheeler about Smiley, Wheeler
would tell a long-winded story about a completely different person which was “some infernal
reminiscence of him as long and tedious as it should be useless to me.” For a short story with a
theme regarding the amusement of observing someone being deceived, the first paragraph sets
the stage for the deception which the narrator will describe in the rest of the story. By giving the
reader the information ahead of time that the narrator is tricked, it adds an element of dramatic
irony to the story because the reader knows that the narrator is being tricked before the narrator
realizes it in his retelling of the story. The difference in points of view between the reader and the
narrator of the story within a story add to the humor of the overall story.
3. D
4. Answers will vary; students should compare the narrator’s voice and that of Simon Wheeler.
Students should note the obvious contrast of high and low diction between them and the style of
speaking. The narrator’s word choice seems more similar to written text, while Wheeler’s words
read as spoken language. For example, Wheeler begins his story “Thish-yer Smiley had a mare”
(Paragraph 5). Students may also note, however, that in terms of storytelling, Wheeler’s may be
considered the more compelling voice of the two, despite his less-than “proper” English. Overall,
the contrast in the diction reveals that the two men are very different, and that the narrator would
not enjoy listening to Wheeler’s long story. This develops the theme of deception and humor that
is central to the story.
5. D
6. B
7. A

Thursday:
Questions could be answered using these sentence starters if you get stuck!

1. Readers might be attracted to Twains use of..

           This story appeals to the American people by..

      2. The characteristics of the East are depicted by the language of the narrator..
           The reader gets a sense of the region though...

      3. Comedy can..
           Authors use comedy to..
           I've seen comedy (example from your life)... 

Friday:

1. Student will have a two-column chart in which the comedic story elements are listed on the left,
and their literal implication are on the right.
    For example: "he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico" |  This comedic hyperbole is
supposed to show what the character is like

       2. Student will watch the youtube video and create a tweet with their reaction to the
present-day jumping frogs!

“The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County” – Mark Twain

[1] 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 nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long and
tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient 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 named 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 me 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 tuned the 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. To me,
the spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As
I said before, I asked him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as follows. I let him go on
in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of Jim Smiley, in the winter of ‘49 or maybe it was the spring of ‘50 I don’t
recollect exactly, somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I remember the big
flume wasn’t finished when he first came 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 solittry 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 cat-fight, 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 seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get
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 would 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’s going to save her; but one morning he come in,
and Smiley asked how she was, and he said she was considerable better thank the Lord for his inftnit mercy and coming
on so smart that, with the blessing of Providence, she’d get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says, “Well, I’ll risk
two- and-a-half that she don’t, any way.”

[5] 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 amongst 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 wan’s 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
underjaw’d begin to stick out like the fo’castle of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage 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 that other dog jest by the j’int of his hind leg and freeze on
it not chew, you understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they thronged 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 by 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 bolt, he saw in a minute how he’d been imposed on, and how the other dog had him in the
door, so to speak, and he ‘peered sur-prised, 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 bolt 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 had 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 tom-cats, and all of 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’klated to edercate 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 catching flies, and kept
him in practice so constant, that he’d nail a fly every time as far as he could see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was
education, and he could do most any thing 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 could wink, he’d spring
straight up, and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on the floor again 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 might do. You never see a frog so modest and straightforward 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 traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any frog that ever they see.

Well, Smiley kept 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 across him with his box, and says:

“What might it be that you’ve got in the box?”

[10] And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, “It might be a parrot, or it might be a canary, may be, but it an’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 outjump 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, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

“May be you don’t,” Smiley says. “May be you understand frogs, and may be you don’t understand ‘em; may be you’ve
had experience, and may be you an’t only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got my opinion, and I’ll risk forty dollars
that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”

[15] And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, “Well, I’m only a stranger here, and I an’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 tea-spoon 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’l, with his fore-paws just even with Dan’l, and I’ll give the word.” Then he
says, “One two three jump!” and him and the feller touched up the frogs from behind, and the new frog hopped off, but
Dan’l give a heave, and hysted up his shoulders so like a Frenchman, but it wan’s no use he couldn’t budge; he was
planted as solid as an anvil, 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 at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his
shoulders this way at Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, “Well, I don’t see no p’ints about that frog that’s any
better’n any other frog.”

[20 ]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 an’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 lifted him up 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 ketchd 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 an’t going to be gone a second.”

But, by your 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 recommenced:

“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yeller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and
—”

[25] “Oh! hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!” I muttered, good-naturedly, and bidding the old gentleman good-day, I
departed.