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    The Hundred Dresses I

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    Vivash B
    Wanda Petronski is a Polish immigrant girl who attends school in America. She claims to have 100 dresses at home but her classmates make fun of her because she is always seen wearing the same faded blue dress. They find her name strange and different. Wanda sits alone in the dirty corner of the classroom. When the class has a drawing contest for dresses, Wanda submits 100 exquisite dress drawings, unveiling that her story of 100 dresses was true. She wins first prize, surprising her classmates who had mocked her.

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    The Hundred Dresses I

    Uploaded by

    Vivash B
    187 views24 pages
    Wanda Petronski is a Polish immigrant girl who attends school in America. She claims to have 100 dresses at home but her classmates make fun of her because she is always seen wearing the same faded blue dress. They find her name strange and different. Wanda sits alone in the dirty corner of the classroom. When the class has a drawing contest for dresses, Wanda submits 100 exquisite dress drawings, unveiling that her story of 100 dresses was true. She wins first prize, surprising her classmates who had mocked her.

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    Wanda Petronski is a Polish immigrant girl who attends school in America. She claims to have 100 dresses at home but her classmates make fun of her because she is always seen wearing the same faded blue dress. They find her name strange and different. Wanda sits alone in the dirty corner of the classroom. When the class has a drawing contest for dresses, Wanda submits 100 exquisite dress drawings, unveiling that her story of 100 dresses was true. She wins first prize, surprising her classmates who had mocked her.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
    187 views24 pages

    The Hundred Dresses I

    Uploaded by

    Vivash B
    Wanda Petronski is a Polish immigrant girl who attends school in America. She claims to have 100 dresses at home but her classmates make fun of her because she is always seen wearing the same faded blue dress. They find her name strange and different. Wanda sits alone in the dirty corner of the classroom. When the class has a drawing contest for dresses, Wanda submits 100 exquisite dress drawings, unveiling that her story of 100 dresses was true. She wins first prize, surprising her classmates who had mocked her.

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    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pptx, pdf, or txt
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    The story is about a Polish immigrant girl named Wanda Petronski who is bullied by her classmates for claiming to have 100 dresses when she only wears the same faded blue dress. She faces discrimination due to her background and economic status.

    Wanda is seen as different by the other girls because of her origin and dress. She always wears the same dress. Then her feet are usually caked with dry mud. They treat her badly. They make fun of her. They belittle her.

    Maddie stands by and does nothing because she doesn’t have the courage to speak to Peggy. She is different from Peggy as she doesn’t make fun of Wanda. She remains silent while Peggy makes fun of Wanda. Peggy’s friendship is important to her. It is because she is the best liked girl in the whole room. She hopes Peggy wouldn’t do anything wrong.

    The Hundred Dresses Part 1:

    The lesson ‘The Hundred Dresses I’ is about a girl named Wanda


    who claims to have one hundred dresses. Her classmates made fun
    of her because what she claims is in contradiction to the fact that
    she was always seen wearing the same dress. Her classmates found
    her name to be ‘funny’. It was because everyone had ‘easier’
    names than ‘Wanda Petronski’. Her name was different because
    she was a Polish immigrant who had come to an American town
    with her family. She was poor and did not have many friends.
    She was quiet and was always seen sitting
    in the corner of the classroom. The truth
    about the hundred dresses unveiled when
    she submitted her hundred drawings in a
    drawing contest. They were the same
    hundred dresses she used to talk about.
    All of them were immensely beautiful.
    This story revolves around a girl named Wanda
    Petronski and her classmates, Peggy and
    Madeline who made fun of her. The plot of the
    story opens up on Monday. Even Peggy and
    Madeline did not notice that Wanda was not
    present. These were the girls who began all the
    teasing.
    Wanda generally used to sit in the corner of the
    classroom where the not-so-academically
    brilliant and loud guys sat. It was that part of
    the classroom which was the dirtiest but
    Wanda was not like those boys. She was silent
    to the extent that nobody had ever seen her
    laugh.
    The fact that Wanda was not present on Tuesday
    as well, got unnoticed. But it was on Wednesday
    when Maddie and Peggy noticed her absence. It
    was also then when they waited before school to
    make fun of her but instead ended up getting
    late because she didn’t show up.
    Peggy was the most famous girl who wore good
    and tidy clothes. She sat with the toppers of the
    class. No one ever got curious about why Wanda
    was no longer coming to school. All they cared
    was, they couldn’t make fun of her.
    Wanda was a Pole who had immigrated to
    America. Her fellow classmates thought that
    ‘Wanda Petronski’ was a strange name
    because they had simpler and easier
    ‘American’ names except a guy named Willie
    Bounce which they thought sounded funny
    but still lesser than ‘Petronski’. They found
    her name to be long and unfamiliar. This
    shows that those children didn’t understand
    diversity and whatever they did was done out
    of thoughtlessness.
    Wanda was usually seen wearing a faded blue
    dress that did not fit her properly. Though clean,
    it used to look un-ironed. This shows that
    Wanda belonged to a poor family who could not
    afford too many dresses.
    Ironically, a lot of people talked to her but she
    didn’t have any friends because all of them
    talked to her in order to make fun of her. From
    her tale about a hundred dresses to her
    unfamiliar name, they found it all amusing.
    When she used to watch little girls play in the
    ground, it was at that time other students
    surrounded her to mock her.
    With no intentions of hurting her, Peggy used to ask the number of
    dresses Wanda has in a very polite and respectful tone. They made fun
    of her because they couldn’t understand why she made up that story
    about a hundred dresses. They did all this while being ignorant of the
    fact that it could hurt her. No one would believe her when she said she
    possessed a hundred dresses, all lined up in her closet.
    As the other girls screamed in
    astonishment, the little girls
    would stop playing in order
    to see what was going on.
    Wanda would affirm their
    queries that she had
    dresses made of velvet
    and silk too. Sadly, after
    she left, they all used to
    laugh at her.
    Maddie begins to wonder about the girl she
    and her friends used to constantly tease, and
    realizes that she knows very little about her.
    She begins to wonder why they started teasing

    her in the first place and


    is overcome with guilt
    for making fun of her
    simply because she is
    poor and has a funny
    name and is different
    from them
    It was hard to believe what Wanda said because
    the only dress she was seen wearing was the blue
    one that was faded. No one was sure as to why she
    lied. Although they were teasing her, they were
    never rude to her. Thus, in the same tone they
    continued asking her about the number of shoes
    she said she had to which, she replied ‘sixty’, each
    pair different.
    It was Peggy’s idea to embarrass her like that,
    though she was polite. Peggy and Maddie, the
    inseparable friends were the last ones to leave
    school while Wanda would go back all alone with
    her dull eyes and behaved in a strange way.
    Peggy was not the mean girl she had been portrayed as until
    now. She saved kids from whoever was hurting them and
    couldn’t stand animals getting badly treated. According to
    her, she was not being rude to Wanda. She thought it was
    very weird of Wanda to lie about the number of dresses she
    possessed and if anything was weirder, it was her name. No
    matter how much they teased Wanda, they never made her
    cry.
    Maddie did not like the idea of making fun of the number of
    clothes and accessories Wanda possessed not because she
    cared about her, but because she was poor herself. She wore
    clothes that were given to her by someone else but she was
    not as poor as Wanda, she did not live in Boggins Heights
    and did not even have a weird name.
    Maddie didn’t feel very comfortable teasing Wanda and when Peggy used to
    ask Wanda those questions, she would silently count the marbles in her hand
    pretending to play with them. If that dress game hadn’t been invented,
    Maddie would have never known about the very existence of Wanda. She felt
    uncomfortable not because she cared about Wanda but because she was
    worried she could be next. Although she was not senseless enough to say she
    had hundred dresses, she still wished that Peggy did not tease Wanda.

    Wanda didn’t come that day and after having waited for her so long, Maddie
    and Peggy got late for school. Maddie was secretly happy that they could not
    get a chance to make fun of Wanda. She was lost in her own thoughts and
    couldn’t study properly. All this time, she kept thinking about writing a note to
    Peggy telling her to stop making fun of Wanda which she did write, after
    finishing arithmetic. She wanted
    to write a note because she
    knew she did not have the guts
    to say it on her face.
    While writing the note to Peggy, Maddie shook at the
    imagination of her being a new target for Peggy and the
    girls. She was afraid that they would ask where she got
    that dress from, which was actually Peggy’s. Maddie’s
    mother got it transformed with new laces and ribbons
    so that none of her classmates could identify it.
    She wished Peggy stopped having fun with Wanda on
    her own. Suddenly she “ran her hand through her hair”
    as a gesture to drive away all those thoughts. She said
    to herself, Peggy is the most-liked girl in the room, her
    best friend and so, she couldn’t be wrong. Thus, she
    tore and threw that note away. She was also afraid of
    losing her friend Peggy.
    After Maddie had cleared her thoughts about confessing to
    Peggy, she started thinking about Wanda. She thought that
    Wanda was just another girl living in Boggins Heights who
    hardly spoke to anybody. She remembers when Wanda
    talked about her pale blue dress and jungle green dress
    paired with a red sash. The girls made fun of her by saying
    that she’d rather look like a Christmas tree in that dress.
    While thinking about Wanda, Maddie began thinking about
    the drawing contest in which the boys had to design
    motorboats and girls had to design dresses. Peggy was the
    obvious winner of that competition because she was the
    best artist in the room. She could copy exact pictures and
    recognizable portraits. She was sure that Peggy would win
    and results were to be announced the next day when
    everyone would know what’s what.
    The day when the results were to be
    announced, it was raining lightly and thus,
    the two best friends ran quickly to school
    without waiting for Wanda. Generally, they
    used to wait for her at the Oliver Street
    that led to Boggins Heights, the place
    where Wanda lived but they didn’t wait
    that day. Even if it wasn’t raining that day,
    they wouldn’t have waited for her because
    the day was crucial as the results were to
    be announced.
    When the best friends entered the
    classroom, Peggy asked Maddie if Miss
    Mason would announce the results or not,
    to which Maddie said ‘yes’. Maddie told
    her that she believed Peggy would win but
    to their utmost surprise, when they
    entered the class, there were drawings all
    over the room. Bright and brilliant, they
    left everyone in awe. These were the
    drawings for the contest.
    She continued and sadly mentioned that Wanda has
    not been coming since days, hoping she’d be there the
    next day. She instructed everyone to look at the
    flawless collection to which everyone applauded and
    whistled. Maddie and Peggy even saw the blue dress
    that Wanda had talked
    about, it was beautiful.
    Peggy sighed, “I thought
    I could draw” which
    means that the drawings
    left her in immense
    admiration.
    Miss Mason announced the winners after everyone
    had settled. Amongst the boys, Jack Beggles had
    won. He drew an outboard motor which was
    displayed in Room No. 12 along with drawings
    made by other boys.

    She then talked about girls’ submissions. She


    mentioned that there was one such girl who had
    submitted a hundred designs, each so beautiful
    that the judges felt that any out of them was
    worthy of the gold medal. Miss Mason very proudly
    announced Wanda as the winner of the
    competition.
    Q1. Where in the classroom does Wanda sit and why?
    Wanda used to sit in that corner of the classroom where the rough
    boys sat, the boys who got the lowest marks and had the loudest
    laughter. No one ever knew why she really sat there but there were
    guesses that it was because of the dirt her shoes carried from all the
    mud. 
    Q2. Where does Wanda live? What kind of a place do you think it is?
    Wanda lived in Boggins Heights. According to the description given in
    the chapter, it was that part of the city or town where poor people
    lived. The place was filled with mud which is where Wanda got the dirt
    on her shoes from. 
    Q3. When and why do Peggy and Maddie notice Wanda’s absence?
    On Wednesday, Peggy and Maddie noticed that Wanda was missing.
    They had been waiting for her outside school, before school began. As
    she did not come, they even got late for school. It was then that they
    realized her absence from school.
    Q4. What do you think “to have fun with her” means?
    “To have fun with her” means to tease her about the hundred dresses
    she claimed to have which is contradictory to the fact that she always
    wore the same faded blue dress.

    Q5. In what way was Wanda different from the other children?
    Wanda was a quiet and shy girl who had no friends. She had the
    weirdest name in her class which differentiated her from everyone
    else.
     
    Q6. Did Wanda have a hundred dresses? Why do you think she said
    she did?
    No, Wanda did not actually have a hundred dresses; she only had
    drawings of them. She was a poor girl who would have desired to
    have a closet full of hundred dresses, all lined up. That is why, she said
    that she did have them.
    Q7. Why is Maddie embarrassed by the questions Peggy asks Wanda? Is
    she also like Wanda, or is she different?
    Maddie is embarrassed by how Peggy deals with Wanda not because she
    cares about Wanda, but because she was poor herself and feared that one
    day, they would treat her the same way. Maddie is a poor girl but not as
    poor as Wanda and unlike Wanda, she had a lot of friends.
    Q8. Why didn’t Maddie ask Peggy to stop teasing Wanda? What was she
    afraid of?
    Maddie did not ask Peggy to stop teasing Wanda because as she too was
    poor, she feared that she could be the next target for the girls. As Maddie
    wore hands down clothes given by Peggy, she was afraid that if they did not
    tease Wanda, then probably, they would start teasing her.
    Q9. Who did Maddie think would win the drawing contest? Why?
     Maddie thought that her best friend Peggy would win the Drawing contest
    because she was the best artist in the room.
    Q10. Who won the drawing contest? What had the winner drawn?
    Wanda had won the drawing contest. She had flawlessly drawn a hundred
    different dresses.
    Q1. How is Wanda seen as different by the other girls? How do they treat her?
    Ans : Wanda is seen as different by the other girls because of her origin and dress.
    She always wears the same dress. Then her feet are usually caked with dry mud.
    They treat her badly. They make fun of her. They belittle her.

    Q2. How does Wanda feel about the dresses game? Why does she say that she has a
    hundred dresses.
    Ans : Wanda feels about the dresses game. She says that she has a hundred dresses.
    It is to counter the fun other girls make of her. She felt insulted.
    Q3. Why does Maddie stand by and not do anything? How is she different from
    Peggy?
    Ans : Maddie stands by and does nothing because she doesn’t have the courage to
    speak to Peggy. She is different from Peggy as she doesn’t make fun of Wanda. She
    remains silent while Peggy makes fun of Wanda. Peggy’s friendship is important to
    her. It is because she is the best liked girl in the whole room. She hopes Peggy
    wouldn’t do anything wrong.

    Q4. What does Miss Mason think of Wanda’s drawing? What do the children think of
    them? How do you know?
    Ans : Miss Mason thinks of Wanda’s drawing as “exquisite” “all different and all
    beautiful. The children think of them as amazing” . They stop short and gasped when
    they look at their beauty and brilliance. I know this from their reaction. They are
    taken in surprisingly by their dazzling colours and lavish design.

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