Hatchet by Gary Paulsen Chapter Eleven Summary Chapter List: ● Ch 1 – 3 A 13-year-old boy, Brian Robeson, is stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness. Brian, the only
passenger in a small Cessna 406, survives. (The plane crashed after the pilot died.) ● Ch 4 – Insect Attack – Brian crawls up on the lakeshore. Swarms of mosquitoes come at dawn. ●
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Ch 5 – Hunger & Thirst – Brian feels despair (a feeling of hopelessness) but works hard to calm himself
down. He realizes he will need to figure out what to eat and find a safe place to sleep. Ch 6 – Food & Shelter – Brian finds sour berries by following some birds. After eating he has enough
energy to drag branches to the hollowed-out ridge and build a good shelter. Things are looking up! Ch. 7 – Sickness & Bear Sighting – Brian becomes violently ill from eating too many “gut cherries”.
After he recovers, he looks for different food. He finds raspberries, AND a bear! Brian is terrified,
but the bear does not hurt him. Ch. 8 – Porcupine Attack & Dreams of Fire – Just when Brian is feeling optimistic again because he has
some sweet raspberries and he has learned how to be a more thoughtful observer, another crisis! The
porcupine that wanders into Brian’s shelter puts eight quills deep in his leg. Ch. 9 - Fire at Last! – Brian is able to make fire with sparks from his hatchet, carefully shaved birch
bark threads, and gentle blowing on the sparks. Ch. 10 – Fire & Food, Confidence & Contentment Chapter 11 continues with Brian’s plans for survival. It tells his thoughts about himself.
He thought about how he was changing. Brian kept from despair by keeping himself busy.
He cleaned his shelter each day. He carried wood so that he always had enough to
keep the fire going. He prepared a “signal fire bed” on top of his shelter so that he could
light it quickly if a search plane appeared. Then Brian began making plans to catch fish!
Chapter One’s summary described how author Gary Paulsen plans his sentences to
emphasize the mood of the story. He plans sentence structure very carefully in this
chapter.
Notice that Chapter Eleven begins and ends with the same, one-sentence paragraph:
“There were these things to do”.
In Ch. 11, the author repeats this sentence often. Sometimes he uses the words a
little differently. It is always a single-sentence paragraph, like the chorus of a song
between the verses.
On page 104**, we read, “So there were things to do”. On page 106, we read, “There
were these things to do”. Later on page 106 (again), we read “Things to do”. Obviously,
Gary Paulsen wanted the readers to FEEL how important to focus on ACTION. Brian was
completely alone in a dangerous survival situation! Brian did not give up because he kept
busy. “There were things to do!”
Mr. Paulsen uses sentence structure to help readers focus on plot and theme. Be sure
to notice and think about the sentence structure, because your comprehension will be
stronger!
**(page numbers might be different in different versions of the book)