45 pages • 1 hour read
Mark SalzmanA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 22 begins with further changes to Mark's class, both negative and positive. The first key event at Central Juvenile Hall is a high school graduation, in which many of his students participate. The graduation is both a joyous and somber event; while students of Mark's are usually happy and proud, the students' impeding legal jeopardy puts a cloud over the celebrations. The threat of imminent incarceration weighs on the inmates and their work. However, Mark is more able to channel their energy into their writing: with the help of Ms. Brigade, they begin writing on more abstract topics. In these, new student Dale Jones stands out; he writes about a roommate of his who is bound for the country jail: "As we talked every day, all day, we found we WERE each other. He was me and I was him, but I couldn't understand it […] but little did we know we knew each other, and it took seventeen years to find each other" (256). At the end of the chapter, Ms. Brigade reads a poem of her own, whose lines resonate with the boys’ own loneliness and pain: "When I look back at you/I see my little brother" (259).