The City of Ember · Garden Heights

Part 7

for The City of Ember · Part 7 · Chapters 16–17

8 Parts40 min

What Happens in Part 7

Arrested and escaping through a blackout, Lina rejoins Doon and Poppy to start down the hidden way out.

Arrest and defianceChapter 16 catches Lina at the worst moment: city guards seize her and march her to the Gathering Hall, where Mayor Cole tells her that asking questions about the storerooms is dangerous and disloyal, and that she is going to the Prison Room. She does not apologize.

Rooftop SingingBefore the guards can move, Ember's lamps fail — and in the confusion Lina escapes not through the door the guards are watching but upward, onto the roof, where she hears the city below begin the Singing: the songs of the city, of the river, and of the darkness.

Down toward the wayChapter 17 crosses to Doon, waiting alone at the Pipeworks with a candle, sick with not knowing. His note to his father says only that the way out is found, lies below the city, and will be known tomorrow. Then Lina appears out of the dark with Poppy in her arms — Doon too relieved to mention the extra weight — and with the reconstructed instructions, the three start down toward the hidden way beyond Ember.

What We Will Learn

Section	What you will practice
Vocabulary	Code and departure words: decipher, fragment, reconstruct, defiance, provisions…
Literary Elements	Alternating chapters, the Singing as ironic counterpoint, and a blackout that both traps and frees
Cross-Curricular	Codes and ciphers — rebuilding a message from fragments

Chapter Summary

Ch.	What happens
16	The Singing — guards seize Lina and march her to the Gathering Hall, where Mayor Cole calls her questions dangerous and disloyal and threatens the Prison Room; the city’s lights fail, she slips away upward to the roof, and from there hears Ember sing its old songs about the city, the river, and the dark.
17	Away — Doon waits alone at the Pipeworks with a candle, leaves a note telling his father the way out lies below the city, and is too relieved to argue when Lina appears carrying Poppy; following the reconstructed instructions step by step, the three go down toward the hidden way beyond Ember.

Part 1

Vocabulary

Study 10 key words from Chapters 16–17, then answer each question.

📚Knowledge Bank · Words for Broken Messages

Linguistics · The Vocabulary of CodesEvery field that studies damaged writing has built a precise vocabulary, and those words name real steps in the work. A fragment is what survives when a document is torn, burned, or chewed: letters without the sentence that once held them. Scholars call a missing stretch of text a lacuna, from the Latin word for a gap or pool, and they print brackets around it so that no later reader mistakes a guess for evidence. To decipher is to convert a message written in a system you do not yet understand into one you do, while to translate is to carry meaning between two languages already known; the two tasks are constantly confused. A proposed reading of a ruined passage is a conjecture, and keeping it in a footnote rather than in the main line of text protects the record. When independent evidence later supports that reading, editors say it has been confirmed. These terms teach the lesson Lina and Doon learn over a chewed page: naming exactly what you do not know is the first real act of recovery.

A color photograph from 1985 of the Rosetta Stone lying tilted on a display cradle in the British Museum, its dark surface covered in bands of close-cut inscription, with visitors and two schoolboys standing around the railing — Photograph from 1985 of visitors beside the Rosetta Stone in the British Museum — one decree carved three times, in hieroglyphs, in Egyptian cursive, and in Greek. Because scholars could already read the Greek, they could work upward into the unknown scripts: that is deciphering, not translating, exactly the distinction the *Knowledge Bank* draws. The broken edges are real lacunae — whole opening lines are gone, and nobody restores them without brackets. The stone has since been re-mounted upright behind glass; the photograph shows the display of 1985, and an Egyptian puzzle, not the gapped page in the novel.
Visitors viewing the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum, July 1985; photograph by Rick Dikeman. Source: Wikimedia Commons, File:Rosetta-stone-display-in-1985.jpg, CC0.

decipherv.Ch.17

To work out the meaning of coded or damaged writing

“It took two children weeks to decipher one short page.”

fragmentn.Ch.17

A small broken piece of a larger whole

“The instructions survived only as a chewed fragment.”

reconstructv.Ch.17

To build something back from the parts that remain

“They had to reconstruct the words a rodent had eaten.”

disloyaladj.Ch.16

Failing to support the group or leader one belongs to

“The mayor called every honest question disloyal.”

accusationn.Ch.16

A statement that someone has done something wrong

“The accusation came before anyone examined the evidence.”

defiancen.Ch.16

Open refusal to obey someone in power

“Lina answered the mayor with quiet defiance.”

provisionsn.Ch.17

Supplies of food and other necessities for a journey

“They gathered provisions in a hurry and told no one.”

slingn.Ch.17

A loop of cloth used to carry something against the body

“A sweater knotted into a sling held Poppy safely.”

descendv.Ch.17

To move down to a lower place

“They would descend farther than any worker was allowed.”

currentn.Ch.17

The steady flow of water in one direction

“The current pulled steadily somewhere out of sight.”

ⓘ 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.

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1According to the Knowledge Bank, how is deciphering different from translating?Ch.17

2‘Disloyal’ means faithful and obedient to a leader.Ch.16

3A small broken piece of a larger whole is a ___.Ch.17

4A statement that someone has done something wrong is an ___.Ch.16

5Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.16–17

Word choices:defianceprovisionscurrentsling- some words will not be used

Lina answered the mayor with quiet .

They gathered in a hurry and told no one.

6To move down to a lower place is to ___.Ch.17

7To ‘reconstruct’ a document is to build its missing parts back from clues.Ch.17

8The steady flow of water in one direction is a ___.Ch.17

9A ‘sling’ is a heavy metal tool used for cutting pipe.Ch.17

10Fill in each blank with the correct word.Ch.17

Word choices:reconstructfragmentdescendaccusation- some words will not be used

Doon and Lina had to the words a rodent had eaten.

The instructions survived only as a chewed .

Part 2

Comprehension

Show you understood what happens in Chapters 16–17.

📋Knowledge Bank · How a Cipher Is Broken

Cryptography · Frequency and PatternBreaking a code rarely begins with inspiration; it begins with counting. In English the letter e appears far more often than any other, and short words such as the and of repeat in almost every line, so an analyst tallies each symbol in a message and builds a frequency table. The most common symbol becomes the first candidate for e, and the lengths and spacing of words suggest where the small common words must sit. Codebreakers also hunt for a crib, a phrase they can reasonably expect the message to contain, such as a routine weather report or a formal greeting; analysts at Bletchley Park worked against German machine ciphers exactly this way. Every guess then faces one test. A reading is kept only if it makes the rest of the text behave sensibly, because a wrong assignment produces nonsense a few words later. That test is the discipline of the entire method, and the cycle of guessing, checking, and revising is called iteration.

Visual AidCount first: the letter e gives itself away

Measure diagram of the counting the Knowledge Bank puts before all inspiration: in large samples of ordinary English, e outruns every rival, t and a follow, and z barely appears at all. The bars share one scale, so their lengths compare directly; the figures are rounded, and any single page drifts from them — which is why analysts count big samples, not sentences. This is the whole reason a codebreaker’s first move is a tally: the commonest symbol in a secret text is the first candidate for e.

English letter frequencies as tabulated in standard cryptography references, rounded; the pattern goes back to nineteenth-century counting studies. Drawn for Garden Heights Academy.

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1The Knowledge Bank explains that breaking a code usually begins with ___.Ch.16

2What does Mayor Cole call Lina’s behavior?Ch.16

3The mayor threatens to shut Lina in the Prison Room.Ch.16

4What lets Lina get away from the Gathering Hall?Ch.16

5Write the numbers 1–5 in the boxes to show the correct order of events in Chapters 16–17. Number 1 = what happens first.Ch.16–17

Lina reaches Doon at the Pipeworks with Poppy.
Mayor Cole threatens her with the Prison Room.
A blackout drops the hall into darkness.
From the roof she hears the city begin the Singing.
Guards seize Lina and march her to the Gathering Hall.

6Which direction does Lina take to escape the guards?Ch.16

7The Singing is an event in which the whole city sings together.Ch.16

8Why does Doon leave a note for his father in Chapter 17?Ch.17

9Doon sends Lina back home because she has brought Poppy along.Ch.17

10How do the three of them make their way through the dark Pipeworks?Ch.17

Part 3

Literary Elements

Understanding HOW and WHY Jeanne DuPrau (author) tells the story across Chapters 16–17.

🧠Knowledge Bank · Songs Against the Dark

Literary Craft · Irony and Alternating ChaptersDuPrau builds these two chapters out of two structural choices. The first is alternation: Chapter 16 stays inside the Gathering Hall with Lina while Chapter 17 waits at the Pipeworks with Doon, so a reader holds two dangers at once and knows more than either child does. Holding information a character lacks is dramatic irony, and here it turns Doon’s lonely waiting into suspense rather than delay. The second choice is counterpoint, the setting of one line of meaning against another. Ember sings its oldest songs about the city and the river on the very night two children prepare to abandon both, so the words mean something to us that the singers cannot hear. Notice too that light works here as structure and not decoration: a single failure of the lamps traps a whole city and frees one prisoner in the same instant. Two settings, one rising line of pressure, and a quiet departure made to feel like danger.

Alternating chapters

Chapter 16 stays with Lina, Chapter 17 with Doon — two dangers running at the same hour.

Ironic counterpoint

Ember sings about its city and its river on the night two children leave both behind.

Turning point

The plan to announce becomes a plan to go: investigation ends and departure begins.

🧠Knowledge Bank question

1According to the Knowledge Bank, dramatic irony happens when ___.Ch.16–17

2Fill in each blank with the correct literary term.Ch.16–17

Word choices:counterpointturningrhymesequel- some words will not be used

The Singing works as ironic to the escape.

Chapter 17 is the novel’s point.

3The city’s song about the river matters most because ___.Ch.16–17

4The blackout in Chapter 16 works as both plot device and symbol.Ch.16

5Placing the mayor’s threat just before the Singing lets DuPrau contrast ___.Ch.16

6Doon’s note to his father chiefly works to ___.Ch.17

7Chapter 17 ends the novel’s investigation and begins its journey.Ch.17

8Fill in the blank with the correct literary term.Ch.16–17

Word choices:viewpointsettingrhymeallusion- some words will not be used

DuPrau alternates between Lina and Doon.

9The chapter title ‘Away’ is chosen only to describe the weather.Ch.17

10Together, Chapters 16–17 mainly work to ___.Ch.16–17

Part 4

Think Deeper

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

💡Knowledge Bank · Acting Before You Are Certain

Ethics · Decisions Under UncertaintyLina and Doon leave Ember on the strength of a page with holes in it. That situation is ordinary outside novels: doctors, engineers, and rescue teams routinely decide with partial information, and treating delay as safety is often an illusion, since waiting has costs of its own. Careful thinkers therefore separate two questions when facing uncertainty. First, how strong is the evidence for this reading? Second, what happens if the reading turns out to be wrong? A guess that can be tested cheaply and undone deserves less caution than one that cannot, and weighing that second question is called assessing the stakes. Because the children carry Poppy, who can neither climb nor give consent, part of the risk falls on someone who did not choose it, and the ethics grow harder there. Fair judgment also compares their choice with the alternative in front of them: a city whose lamps fail more often and whose officials punish questions. Weigh what a person knew at the time, not what the ending reveals—a discipline called avoiding hindsight.

Think back over these chapters. A girl is held by the arms in the Gathering Hall while a large, calm man explains that her questions are a danger to the city and that a locked room is waiting for her. Then every lamp in Ember dies at once, and in the noise and shuffling she goes up instead of out, up a stairway to a roof, where the lights come back and the whole city below her begins to sing the songs it sings every year. Somewhere across the dark, a boy sits alone by a tunnel entrance with a candle and a repaired page, writing a note to his father because he cannot say goodbye out loud. He does not know whether she is free. When she comes, she is carrying her sister.

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

1Claim: “Chapters 16–17 argue that Ember’s rulers punish questions instead of answering them.” — choose the two details that best prove it.Claim & Evidence

2What the instructions supplied, or What the children had to supply? Tap each detail to sort it — tap again to switch sides. You can keep tapping to change your answer.Sort into two

◄ What the instructions suppliedWhat the children had to supply ►

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

City guards catch Lina in the street→

The lamps of Ember fail in the middle of a threat→

Doon waits alone at the entrance to the Pipeworks→

Lina arrives with Poppy in her arms→

🧠Knowledge Bank question

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

The Knowledge Bank argues that a guess deserves less caution when , which shows that careful risk-takers .

Part 5

Standardized Test

Reading passage · Reading What Is Left of a Message · Words in Context & Central Ideas · SAT & TOEFL-style practice

Cracking the Code of Linear B

Messages do not always arrive whole. Anyone who studies the past spends much of their life reading fragmentary evidence, with gaps exactly where the important words should be. Scholars can often reconstruct such texts, building the lost words back from clues — and not by inspiration. The method rests on a plain truth about language: writing repeats itself, so certain letters appear far more often than others and place names sit in predictable positions. A gap is never quite empty, because the surviving text around it limits what could ever have stood inside it.

The clearest example is Linear B, a script from Crete unread for half a century. In the early 1950s the architect Michael Ventris set out to decipher it: he counted symbols, sorted them by position, and noticed that certain words shifted their endings in regular ways. He also had a crib — a guess he could reasonably expect to be true. Several long words appeared only on tablets from one site each, so they were probably place names like Knossos. Feeding those guesses into his grid produced sound values, and the sound values produced a startling hypothesis: the language was an early form of Greek.

A hypothesis, however, is not yet an answer. Ventris tested his readings on tablets he had never used to build them, and ordinary words came out sensibly in Greek. When a newly excavated tablet listing three-legged vessels matched his sound values, scholars agreed that fresh material had begun to corroborate the guess, supporting it from a direction he had not chosen. That last step separates a solution from a story: check a guess against everything you did not use to make it, and keep the reading only while it works.

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, why is a gap in a text never quite empty?TOEFL · Factual Information

3What did Ventris notice about certain words on the tablets?TOEFL · Factual Information

4In the passage, reconstruct most nearly means ___.SAT · Words in Context

5In the passage, decipher most nearly means ___.TOEFL · Vocabulary

6What served as Ventris’s crib?TOEFL · Factual Information

7In the passage, corroborate means ___.SAT · Words in Context

8Why did the newly excavated tablet matter so much?TOEFL · Factual Information

9The passage suggests that a reading should be abandoned when ___.SAT · Inference

10Which Part 7 situation does this passage BEST explain?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 7 “Half a Map”

Lina and Doon act on a page with words missing. Write about a time you had to decide or act with incomplete information — unfinished instructions, half a story, advice that stopped short. What did you actually know, what did you guess, and how did you check the guess? 6–10 sentences. End with what you would want to know before deciding that way again.

You can start with: “I did not have the whole picture, but waiting was not free either...”

0 / 40 words minimum

🗣 Teach It · Just for Fun (optional)

No right or wrong — 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 7 Complete!

You finished Chapters 16–17 of The City of Ember.

Here are your auto-graded results:

-

points out of 100

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 8 →

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