This lesson will focus on the vocabulary choices which express attitudes about Mr Twit’s appearance and behaviours and the intensity or strength of these attitudes. Students will return to the description of Mr Twit to respond to the questions ‘What kind of person is Mr Twit? What are his qualities?’
Learning intention
We will read Roald Dahl’s description of Mr Twit with a focus on evaluative language which contributes to building a picture of Mr Twit to help us understand what kind of character he is.
Success criteria
I can identify, describe and explain the ways in which the author uses evaluative language to build understanding of a character.
Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English
Speaking and Listening, Language: Language for interaction
Level 3:
Examine how evaluative language can be varied to be more or less forceful (
VCELA272)
Writing, Language: Expressing and developing ideas
Level 6:
Investigate how vocabulary choices, including evaluative language can express shades of meaning, feeling and opinion (
VCELA352)
Links to the Victorian Curriculum – English as an Additional Language (EAL)
Pathway B
Reading
Level BL:
- Make simple predictions or inferences about a text, with support
(VCEALC189)
- Give a personal response to a text
(VCEALC188)
Level B1:
Level B2:
- Make and substantiate inferences and predictions when reading or listening to a text read aloud
(VCEALC350)
- Express a personal response to an imaginative text or elements of the text
(VCEALC349)
Level B3:
- Discuss texts with some understanding of meaning beyond the literal level, moving towards the inferential level
(VCEALC429)
- Express a personal response to a small range of imaginative texts
(VCEALC428)
Writing
Level BL:
- Use topic-specific vocabulary encountered in classroom activities
(VCEALL235)
Level B1:
Level B2:
- Select some descriptive vocabulary appropriate to context
(VCEALL396)
Level B3:
- Create mood and feeling through the selection of appropriate vocabulary and idiom
(VCEALL475)
For the teacher
Expressing attitudes
A major language resource for narrative is engaging the reader through expressing emotion, evaluation of qualities and the judgement of human behaviours (Derewianka & Jones, 2016). The choices can be positive or negative and can be ‘turned up’ or ‘turned down’.
In this description of Mr Twit, Roald Dahl uses overt evaluative choices to invite the reader to form an opinion of Mr Twit. For example, in the noun group ‘one of these very hairy-faced men’, ‘hairy-faced’ carries a negative appreciation of Mr Twit’s appearance, while the adverb ‘very’ increases the intensity. (Read more about expressing attitudes)
Lesson sequence
Provide students with a copy of the description of Mr Twit. Using a proforma like the one below, ask students to work in pairs or small groups to find ‘evidence’ in the extract about:
- Mr Twit’s appearance
- Mr Twit’s actions/ behaviour
- Mr Twit’s opinion of himself
- The narrator’s opinion of Mr Twit.
Students can write or cut up the description and paste under the heading they think the parts best fit (using whole sentences, or words or groups of words):
| Mr Twit's appearance |
How does this make you feel about Mr Twit? |
Mr Twit's actions/behaviour |
How does this make you feel about Mr Twit? |
| e.g. The hair on Mr Twit’s face didn’t grow smooth and matted as it does on most hairy-faced men. It grew in spikes that stuck out straight like the bristles of a nailbrush. | | e.g. And how often did Mr Twit wash this bristly nailbrushy face of his? The answer is never, not even on Sundays. He hadn’t washed it for years. | |
|
Mr Twit's opinion of himself |
How does this make you feel about Mr Twit? |
The narrator's opinion of Mr Twit |
How does this make you feel about Mr Twit? |
| e.g. Mr Twit felt that this hairiness made him look terrifically wise and grand. | | e.g. Mr Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And now at the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever. | |
2. When students have finished, model how they can highlight words, groups of words or sentences which express positive or negative appreciation of Mr Twit’s appearance or judgements about his behaviour or character by adding a +ve or –ve sign near each, using different colours. For example:
‘He hadn’t washed it for years’ –ve judgement
‘Mr Twit was a twit’ –ve judgement
‘It grew in spikes that stuck out straight like the bristles of a nailbrush’ –ve, appreciation.
3. Share responses, inviting students to explain why their selections, drawing out explicit discussion of noun groups, prepositional phrases and evaluative adjectives as appropriate.
4. Ask the students to highlight examples of these attitudes which are ‘amplified’ or ‘turned down’, using arrows to show the ‘force’ ↑ or ↓. For example:
‘He hadn’t washed it for years’ –ve judgement ↑.
‘he was a bigger twit than ever’ –ve judgement ↑.
5. Return to the questions: ‘What kind of person is Mr Twit? What are his qualities?’
6. Ask students to respond to the questions, this time providing the ‘evidence’ from the text. Students should be supported to use the metalanguage which they are familiar with in their responses.
Differentiation
Students needing support can be provided with a carefully chosen set of choices to focus on to highlight.
Going further
Continuing with the teaching and learning cycle: connections between reading and writing. Having examined the extract in some detail, guided practice (or joint construction) and independent construction could focus on:
- writing descriptions of their own character in a narrative
- innovating on the description of Mr Twit to create a more likeable character
- supporting students to write a text response – this would involve exploration of how text responses might be written.