George Washington Carver

Week 1: Early Life

Character Lexicon
    • orphaned: to be a child whose parents have died
    • eager: wanting to do or have something very much
    • passionate: showing or caused by intense feelings of love
    • enslaved: to lose one’s freedom of choice or action; to be made a slave
    • feeble: lacking in physical strength, especially as a result of age or illness
Comprehension Questions
      1. When George saw Mrs. Baynham’s roses he knew straight away that they needed to moved into the sun. (Pg 3)
      2. One night when George was an infant asleep in the cabin, the farm was attacked by bushwhackers and his mother and brother were stolen away. (Pg 8-10)
      3. When Jim and George were left without a father or mother, Moses and Susan determined to give the boys a family. (Pg 13)
      4. George was often excused from the heavy-duty work on the farm because he was often sick and not very strong. (Pg 18/19)
      5. Whem George wasn’t working or playing he enjoyed taking long walks in the fields and woods talking to the plants and flowers, and taking care of them. (Pg 22)
      6. When George was thirteen he left home because he wanted to go to the town of Neosho, which had a school for black children. (Pg 27)
      7. When George arrived in Neosho he noticed that the town was much larger than Diamond Grove and that about 1 in 8 people were black. (Pg 33/34)

Week 2: Life’s Work

Character Lexicon
      • resolute: admirably purposeful, determined, and unwavering
      • agreeable: enjoyable and pleasurable
      • generous: showing a readiness to give more of something, as money or time, than is strictly necessary or expected
      • thrifty: using money and other resources carefully and not wastefully
      • visionary: thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom
Comprehension Questions

-Question 1 – 4 are found in section 1 reading

        1. Mrs. Watkin’s changed George’s name to George Carve, because Carver George sounded like he was enslaved and slavery had ended ten years prior. (Pg 31)
        2. George said that the time spent in the one-roomed Lincoln school, “sharpened his appetite for more knowledge, more schooling.” (Pg 35)
        3. When George said, “Sunshine and shadow were profusely intermingled,” he is saying there are good and bad times and they mingle together. (Pg 39)
        4. When George started getting mail for another George Carver, he added a “W” to his name so that the postman could tell the two men apart. (Pg 42)
        5. Sod is made of pads of grass, with the roots still attached to the dirt. (Pg 47)
        6. Miss Budd was impressed with how much George knew about horticulture, the science of fruits, vegetables and flowering plants. (Pg 55)
        7. When considering taking the job offer at the Tuskegee Institute, George considered if this job would allow him to fulfill his goal of being of the greatest good, to the greatest number of his people. (Pg 64-65)

Week 3: Later Life and Legacy

Character Lexicon
        • resourceful: having the ability to find quick and clever ways to overcome difficulties
        • disciplined: showing a controlled form of behavior or way of working
        • mentor: an experience and trusted advisor
        • attentive: to pay close attention to something; attending to the comfort or wishes of others
        • inventor: a person who devises a particular process or device, or invents things as an occupation
Comprehension Questions
          1. When George’s students lacked laboratory tools he encouraged them to use what they found around them. They often went to junk yards! (Pg 66)
          2. George wrote booklets on how to grow tomatoes, raise hogs, preserve meat and how to improve the appearance of one’s land and home. (Pg 70)
          3. Before George began to study peanuts they were mostly used for animal food. (Pg 77)
          4. George suggested that farmers plant sweet potatoes because they were easy to grow, were easily stored, could be eaten many different ways and were good for the soil. (Pg 79/80)
          5. George’s most famous booklet is “How to Grow the Peanut, and 105 Ways Preparing It For Human Consumption.” (Pg 82)
          6. George became known as a “creative chemist,” because he remade a product for any different uses, the peanut. (Pg 90)
          7. George donated his life savings to start the George Washington Carver Foundation because he wanted others to continue his work at the Tuskegee Institute even after he was gone. (Pg 96)