In this lesson, you will examine the central idea of Chapter 2 in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In this chapter, Tom uses ingenuity and his knowledge of human nature to convince others to do his assigned chore of painting the fence. Once you have read the chapter, write a journal entry discussing Tom’s theory about work versus play. How does he convince Jim and the other boys to do his work for him? How does his technique with Jim differ from that of the other boys? Why do you think this is? Think about your first impressions of Tom from Chapter 1. Has your opinion of him changed based on the events in this chapter? Your response should be about 150 words in length, and use details from the text to support your ideas.

Tom convinces the other boys to do his work by making painting the fence with white wash seem priceless, fun, enjoyable, and something that they would want to "pay" him to do. He uses reverse psychology to make the job seem this way. He pretends to enjoy white washing to fence so much that he wants people to pay him in gifts to do his job for him. Its a major win for Tom, since he doesn't have to do any of the work, the job gets done really good (3 coats of white wash), and he gets many gifts. (Six firecracker, a kitten with one eye, a brass door knob, ect...) The way that Tom's technique differs for Jim is that he ingores Jim at the start to make Jim think that he enjoys white washing the fence. This makes Jim want to white wash the fence. Tom plays hard to get waiting for Jim to bribe him to do his work. He backs his act up by saying that he doesn't see it as work, but as play, then he continues to say,"All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer." this makes Jim really enticed to do the work because Tom wouldn't say that boring, lenghty work suits him. He would say that fun work suits him in Jim's mind so Jim wants to try the work.

For the last question you can use your own opinion.

Explanation:

230 words