Flipped · Garden Heights

Part 6

for Flipped · Part 6 · Chapters 11–12

8 Parts40 min

What Happens in Part 6

In Chapter 11, the Bakers come to dinner at the Loskis’. Juli will not look at Bryce or answer him, because she overheard the remark about her uncle in the library, and Bryce keeps wishing he had told Garrett off at the time — one sentence would have cleared him. He tries to get her alone to explain and gets nowhere. Rick Loski questions Matt and Mike about college, expecting to find them adrift; they mean to record music first, but the grades and the acceptances are already there. Lynetta puts their recording on at full volume. Chapter 12 gives the same evening to Juli. She almost stays home, remembering the tree, the eggs and the library, and comes only so Trina Baker is not disappointed. Then she watches Lynetta defend the brothers’ music, her mother proud of that noise, and Robert Baker proud of his children — and decides she owes Bryce an apology of her own.

What We Will Learn

Section	What you will practice
Vocabulary	Words for a difficult evening: awkward, interrogate, hospitality, gracious, resentment…
Literary Elements	The ensemble dinner scene, dramatic irony, and character revealed through dialogue
Cross-Curricular	Shared meals — what hospitality builds between families, and what hosting quietly costs

Chapter Summary

Ch.	What happens
11	The Serious Willies — Bryce narrates the dinner. The Bakers arrive, and Juli will not look at him or answer him; she overheard the remark about her uncle in the library, and Bryce keeps wishing he had told Garrett off instead of laughing along, because that one sentence would have cleared him. He tries to get her alone long enough to explain and gets nowhere. Meanwhile his father questions Matt and Mike about college, plainly expecting to find them directionless; the brothers intend to record music first, but they have the grades and the acceptances already. Lynetta puts their recording on at full volume, the evening tips into noise, and Bryce is left with a feeling he cannot name and does not want — the serious willies.
12	The Dinner — Juli narrates the same evening. She almost does not go: she remembers the sycamore, the eggs in the trash, and the library, and she does not believe Bryce is sincere. She goes because refusing would disappoint her mother, who has been looking forward to it. At the table she watches things she did not expect — Lynetta taking her brothers’ side about their music, her own mother proud of that loud rock rather than embarrassed by it, her father openly proud of his children. By the end of the night Juli decides that she owes Bryce an apology of her own, for the rudeness and for cutting off his attempt to speak to her.

Ch.

What happens

11

The Serious Willies — Bryce narrates the dinner. The Bakers arrive, and Juli will not look at him or answer him; she overheard the remark about her uncle in the library, and Bryce keeps wishing he had told Garrett off instead of laughing along, because that one sentence would have cleared him. He tries to get her alone long enough to explain and gets nowhere. Meanwhile his father questions Matt and Mike about college, plainly expecting to find them directionless; the brothers intend to record music first, but they have the grades and the acceptances already. Lynetta puts their recording on at full volume, the evening tips into noise, and Bryce is left with a feeling he cannot name and does not want — the serious willies.

12

The Dinner — Juli narrates the same evening. She almost does not go: she remembers the sycamore, the eggs in the trash, and the library, and she does not believe Bryce is sincere. She goes because refusing would disappoint her mother, who has been looking forward to it. At the table she watches things she did not expect — Lynetta taking her brothers’ side about their music, her own mother proud of that loud rock rather than embarrassed by it, her father openly proud of his children. By the end of the night Juli decides that she owes Bryce an apology of her own, for the rudeness and for cutting off his attempt to speak to her.

Part 1

Vocabulary

Study 10 key words from Chapters 11–12, then answer each question.

📚Knowledge Bank · The Vocabulary of the Invitation

Language & Culture · Words for HospitalityPart 6 turns on one meal, so it is worth having exact words for what a meal does. Hospitality is the welcome a host extends to a guest, and the word is older than any of the manners attached to it; in many cultures it carried duties strong enough to protect a traveling stranger overnight. A host supplies the room and the food; a guest supplies attention and, eventually, a return invitation. That return is reciprocity, the quiet expectation that hospitality travels both directions over time, and it is the reason a first dinner between two families carries more weight than its menu. The rules governing the evening — when to arrive, when to leave, whether to bring something — are etiquette, learned at home long before anyone can name them. Being warm inside those rules is being gracious. Ignoring a guest inside them is something the rules cannot quite reach, which is why Chapter 11 is so uncomfortable.

awkwardadj.Ch.11

Uncomfortable and difficult to handle

“There is no awkward quite like a dinner nobody wanted to attend.”

interrogatev.Ch.11

To question someone closely and persistently

“A father can interrogate two guests while calling it polite conversation.”

tensionn.Ch.11

A strained feeling between people

“The tension arrived with the guests and stayed through dessert.”

bluntadj.Ch.11

Saying things plainly, without softening them

“His questions were blunt enough to stop the table twice.”

unbearableadj.Ch.11

Too painful or uncomfortable to put up with

“Silence across a dinner table can be unbearable at that volume.”

hospitalityn.Ch.12

The friendly welcome a host gives to guests

“Real hospitality is measured after the guests have gone home.”

graciousadj.Ch.12

Kind and polite in a warm, generous way

“A gracious host makes the invitation easy to accept.”

reconsiderv.Ch.12

To think about something again and possibly change your mind

“One evening was enough to make her reconsider a whole family.”

resentmentn.Ch.12

Bitter feeling about being treated unfairly

“She carried her resentment to the table and did not eat much of it.”

sincereadj.Ch.12

Honest and truly meaning what you say

“The hard part was deciding whether the apology was sincere.”

ⓘ The vocabulary words in this list are selected to help you understand and complete this workbook. Some may not appear verbatim in the original novel.

1To question someone closely and persistently is to ___.Ch.11

2The friendly welcome a host gives to guests is ___.Ch.12

3Someone who is ‘gracious’ is kind and polite in a warm, generous way.Ch.12

4A bitter feeling about being treated unfairly is ___.Ch.12

5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.11–12

Word choices:awkwardsincereblunttension- some words will not be used

The arrived with the guests and stayed through dessert.

The hard part was deciding whether the apology was .

6To ‘reconsider’ something means to refuse to think about it again.Ch.12

7Saying things plainly, without softening them, is being ___.Ch.11

8Something ‘unbearable’ is too uncomfortable to put up with.Ch.11

9Fill in the blanks with the correct words.Ch.11–12

Word choices:hospitalityinterrogategraciousreconsider- some words will not be used

Real is measured after the guests have gone home.

One evening was enough to make her a whole family.

10An ‘awkward’ situation is one that is ___.Ch.11

Part 2

Comprehension

Show you understood what happens in Chapters 11–12.

📋Knowledge Bank · What Eating Together Actually Does

Anthropology · Shared MealsAnthropologists have a term for eating together: commensality, from the Latin for sharing a table. They treat it as one of the strongest social tools people have. Sharing food requires trust, since a host controls what a guest eats, and it requires time, since a meal cannot be hurried the way a conversation can. Studies of negotiators, juries, and work teams report the same effect from different angles: groups that eat together reach agreement more readily and describe one another more generously afterward. Part of the reason is simple proximity, because a table seats people at a distance that makes ignoring each other awkward. Part of it is ritual — passing dishes, waiting for everyone, thanking the cook — small acts of cooperation performed before anyone discusses anything difficult. This is why the dinner in Part 6 matters so much more than its food, and why an evening that goes badly can still change what two families believe.

1Why will Juli not speak to Bryce at the dinner?Ch.11

2What does Bryce wish he had done instead?Ch.11

3What does Rick Loski question Matt and Mike about?Ch.11

4What is true about Matt and Mike’s situation?Ch.11

5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events in Chapters 11–12. Number 1 = what happens first.Ch.11–12

Rick questions Matt and Mike about college and finds them better prepared than expected.
She goes anyway rather than disappoint her mother, and the Bakers arrive.
Lynetta plays their recording at full volume, and Juli decides she owes Bryce an apology.
Juli almost stays home, remembering the tree, the eggs and the library remark.
Juli refuses to answer Bryce, and his attempt to explain gets nowhere.

6Juli goes to the dinner because she has forgiven Bryce.Ch.12

7What surprises Juli about Lynetta during the evening?Ch.12

8What does Juli notice about her own parents at the dinner?Ch.12

9By the end of Chapter 12, Juli decides she owes Bryce an apology.Ch.12

10Chapters 11 and 12 describe two different evenings at two different houses.Ch.11–12

Part 3

Literary Elements

Understanding HOW and WHY Wendelin Van Draanen tells the story across Chapters 11–12.

🧠Knowledge Bank · One Room, the Whole Cast

Literary Craft · The Dinner SceneNovelists reach for the dinner party when they need every tension in one place at one time. An ensemble scene forces characters who have been avoiding each other into a room with assigned chairs and a start time, and the ordinary courtesy of the table keeps them there long past the point where anybody would otherwise walk out. Van Draanen adds a second trap by giving the evening two chapters, one from each side, so the reader sees what each narrator was privately doing while the dishes went around. Neither of the two chapters could carry the evening on its own. Watch how little physical action there is: the work is done by dialogue, including a father’s questions, two brothers’ answers, and a sister taking the wrong side of her own table. Watch also the irony, since we know why Juli will not answer Bryce and the adults do not. The pressure in the room never comes from an argument.

Ensemble scene

One room, the whole cast. The dinner puts both families in a single space so that every tension the novel has been building has to sit down at the same table.

Dramatic irony

The reader knows exactly why Juli will not answer Bryce. The adults passing dishes around them do not, and that gap is what makes the evening so uncomfortable to read.

Characterization through dialogue

Almost nothing happens physically. People are revealed by what they ask and how they answer — Rick’s questions, the brothers’ replies, Lynetta’s defense.

1Putting both families at one table for a whole chapter creates ___.Ch.11–12

2Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.11–12

Word choices:ironydialoguemeteralliteration- some words will not be used

Readers knowing what characters do not is dramatic .

Characters revealed by what they say to each other is .

3Giving the same dinner two chapters allows the reader to ___.Ch.11–12

4In these chapters the reader knows more about the silence than the adults do.Ch.11–12

5Most of what we learn about the characters here comes from action rather than talk.Ch.11–12

6The title ‘The Serious Willies’ mainly names ___.Ch.11

7Fill in the blank with the correct literary term.Ch.11–12

Word choices:ensemblesonnetrefrainepilogue- some words will not be used

A scene that gathers the whole cast in one place is an scene.

8Rick Loski’s questions to Matt and Mike reveal more about his assumptions than about the brothers.Ch.11

9Why is it effective that Juli’s chapter follows Bryce’s rather than the reverse?Ch.11–12

10Chapters 11 and 12 mainly work together to ___.Ch.11–12

Part 4

Think Deeper

Four deeper challenges — no single-word recall. Read, weigh the evidence, and reason it out.

💡Knowledge Bank · Who Can Afford to Be a Host

Sociology · Class at the TableHospitality looks like pure generosity, and it is never only that. Hosting takes a room large enough, chairs that match, spare money for food, and an evening nobody has to spend at a second job. Sociologists studying how families entertain find that households with less of all three often decline invitations rather than explain why, so an evening meant to close a distance can quietly widen it. The effect gets worse when a table is arranged to be admired, because a guest reads the display as a standard and starts counting what a return invitation would cost. Watch for that in Part 6: two families with very different budgets, one dining room, and a host family that has been discussing the guests’ yard for years. The most generous hosts work in the other direction, making an evening cheap to repay and easy to accept. That is the difference between performing a welcome and offering one.

Think back over these two chapters. Two families sit down together for the first time, in a dining room where one of them has been discussing the other’s yard for years. A boy spends the whole meal trying to explain a sentence he never said and never stopped. A girl spends it deciding whether anything she is watching is sincere. A father asks two guests about college in a tone that expects to be disappointed and is not. Somebody puts a record on far too loud, a sister takes the guests’ side, and two parents are proud of their sons in front of everyone. Nothing is resolved by argument. One person goes home having quietly changed her mind.

Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.

1Claim: “Chapter 12 changes Juli’s mind about the Loskis without anyone apologizing to her.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence

2Bryce’s evening, or Juli’s evening? Tap each detail to send it left or right.Sort into two

◄ Bryce’s eveningJuli’s evening ►

3Match each cause to its result. For each cause, pick its result.Cause & Effect

A remark in the library goes unchallenged→

Rick questions Matt and Mike about college→

Lynetta puts the brothers’ recording on loud→

Juli watches both families be proud of their children→

4Fill both blanks to complete the reasoning.Build the Argument

The Loskis’ dinner turns uncomfortable mainly because , which shows that .

Part 5

Standardized Test

Reading passage · Sharing a Table · Words in Context & Central Ideas · SAT & TOEFL-style practice

🎯 What this section practices

You already have these skills from the sections above — here they appear in the exact question types the SAT and TOEFL use. Read the passage (the highlighted words are tested below), then answer. Tap an answer to select it, then tap it again to confirm — you can change your choice until you confirm.

SATCentral Ideas — the main point of the passage as a whole
TOEFLFactual Information — a fact stated directly in the passage
SATWords in Context — what a word means the way this passage uses it
TOEFLVocabulary — the meaning of a tested word as this passage uses it
SATInference — a conclusion the passage supports without ever stating it outright
TOEFLProse Summary — choosing the three sentences that capture the main ideas

The Rules Behind Sharing a Meal

Nearly every human society marks friendship by feeding people. Archaeologists find cooking hearths ringed with seating long before they find writing, and researchers who study meals argue that eating together does something conversation alone cannot. Sharing food asks for trust, because a host decides what a guest is handed, and it asks for time, because a meal cannot be hurried the way a chat can. Accepting one creates reciprocity, the quiet expectation that the invitation will someday travel back.

Every table also runs on rules. Which fork, whether guests serve themselves, whether talking during the meal is polite, how long a visitor is expected to stay — all of that is etiquette, and it differs by region, religion, and household. Almost none of it is taught deliberately; most is absorbed at home before a child could name a single rule. That is what makes table manners such a revealing signal, since they announce where a person was raised without anybody having to say so.

Hosting, meanwhile, is not equally easy for everyone. It takes a room large enough, chairs that match, spare money for food, and an evening nobody has to spend working a second job. Sociologists note that a family unable to invite anyone back may simply decline invitations rather than explain, so hospitality can widen the very distance it was meant to close. A conspicuous table — one arranged to be admired — makes this worse, because guests read the display as a standard to match. The most generous hosts work the other way, making the evening cheap to repay.

Original passage written for Garden Heights — not a quotation from the novel.

1What is the main idea of the passage?SAT · Central Ideas

2According to the passage, sharing food asks for trust because ___.TOEFL · Factual Information

3In the passage, reciprocity most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context

4In the passage, etiquette refers to ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary

5In the passage, a conspicuous table is one that is ___.SAT · Words in Context

6The passage says most table manners are ___.TOEFL · Factual Information

7The passage suggests that a family unable to host in return may ___.SAT · Inference

8Prose Summary (TOEFL). An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Introductory sentence: Sharing a meal is a powerful social act, but offering one is not equally easy for every family. This TOEFL task lists six sentences; choose the THREE that best capture the passage’s main ideas. The other three do not belong — they state minor details or ideas the passage does not present.TOEFL · Prose Summary

9According to the passage, the most generous hosts ___.TOEFL · Factual Information

10What can be inferred about a guest at a very showy table?SAT · Inference

Part 6 · Optional

Creative Writing

A bonus challenge to practice your English. Take your time and have fun with it.

About This Section

This writing task is optional and is not part of your auto-graded score. The feedback below checks only the basics — length, spelling, and grammar — not whether your ideas are right or wrong. It is meant for classroom discussion and creative practice, so feel free to use your imagination!

Writing Task — Part 6 “An Evening at Somebody Else’s Table”

Chapters 11 and 12 give the same dinner two seats. Write about a meal you ate at somebody else’s house — a friend’s, a relative’s, a neighbor’s. What was done differently there, and what did you notice about the family that you would never have learned anywhere else? 6–10 sentences. End by naming one thing you changed your mind about that evening.

You can start with: “I had eaten a hundred dinners at home before I ate one at their table…”

0 / 40 words minimum

🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)

No right or wrong — close the screen and tell someone nearby what happened in this part. Can’t find anyone? Tell yourself out loud. The moment you teach it, you truly understand it.

Part 6 Complete!

You finished Chapters 11–12 of Flipped.

Here are your auto-graded results:

-

points out of 100

🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)

Teach it to someone

The best last step is to teach it. In your own words, explain what happened — retell a favorite scene, teach a character’s big choice, or sum up the main idea for a parent, friend, or classmate. When you can teach it clearly, you truly own it.

Move on to Part 7 →

Independent study guide by Garden Heights. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Wendelin Van Draanen. Contains original analysis only; no text from the novel is reproduced. Reference text: This workbook follows Wendelin Van Draanen’s classic text (the standard Puffin edition sold worldwide). Revised 2023 UK editions change some wording and may not match the vocabulary studied here.