Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - A response journal


Created for TeachersFirst by Brenda Walton, Ed.D.


Chapter 8 - Intricacy

On page 134 Dillard writes:

"I have often noticed that these things, which obsess me, neither bother nor impress other people even slightly. I am horribly apt to approach some innocent at a gathering and, like the ancient mariner, fix him with a wild, glitt'ring eye and say, "Do you know that in the head of the caterpillar of the ordinary goat moth there are two hundred twenty-eight separate muscles?" The poor wretch flees. I am not making chatter; I mean to change his life. I seem to possess an organ that others lack, a sort of trivia machine."

Dillard wryly notes her penchant for details, information, facts, ideas-- "trivia" perhaps. She loves strange and bizarre facts-- all a part of the intricacy which is the subject of this chapter.


Written response # 11 Internet research

On page 138 Dillard mentions three strange creatures-"-hagfish, platypuses, lizard like pangolins." Use the Internet to research a "strange creature" either real or imaginary. What's its place in nature? Write a page or so reaction to your findings. Attach the Internet info to your work and be ready to share.