STUDYING CHARACTER: THE TWITS LEARNING ... - Roald Dahl

<strong>STUDYING</strong> <strong>CHARACTER</strong>: <strong>THE</strong> <strong>TWITS</strong><br />

<strong>LEARNING</strong> OBJECTIVE<br />

To identify and discuss descriptions of characters.<br />

Identify and use a variety of adjectives and use the term antonym.<br />

INTRODUCTION<br />

Read aloud to the class the first four chapters of The Twits. Ask the class for their response to<br />

the characters. For example you could ask them to tell each other or the whole class what they<br />

felt about Mr and Mrs Twit. Questions could be:<br />

Was there a particular description that sticks in your mind?<br />

Would you like to meet these characters? Why?

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FOCUS<br />

All read about Mr Twit (Chapter Two entitled Mr Tw i t ) :<br />

"Mr Twit was one of these very hairy-faced men. The whole of his face except for his<br />

f o rehead, his eyes and his nose, was covered with thick hair. The stuff even sprouted<br />

in revolting tufts out of his nostrils and ear- h o l e s .<br />

Mr Twit felt that his hairiness made him look terrifically wise and grand. But in truth<br />

he was neither of these things. Mr Twit was a twit. He was born a twit. And now at<br />

the age of sixty, he was a bigger twit than ever.<br />

The hair on Mr Tw i t ’s face didn’t grow smooth and matted as it does on most hairy - f a c e d<br />

men. It grew in spikes that stuck out straight like the bristles of a nailbrush.<br />

And how often did Mr Twit wash this bristly nailbrushy face of his?<br />

The answer is NEVER, not even on Sundays.<br />

He hadn’t washed it for years."

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Get the children to work in pairs to underline the words and phrases that tell us about what Mr<br />

Twit looks like. Discuss the childre n ’s choices of words, particularly identifying and listing the<br />

adjectives.<br />

Now read about Mrs Twit (Chapter Four entitled Mrs Twit) and do the same activity. This will<br />

e n s u re that all children are familiar with the extracts before starting their own tasks, which can<br />

be done in pairs or gro u p s .<br />

"Mrs Twit was no better than her husband.<br />

She did not, of course, have a hairy face. It was a pity she didn’t because that at any<br />

rate would have hidden some of her fearful ugliness.<br />

Take a look at her.<br />

Have you ever seen a woman with an uglier face than that? I doubt it.<br />

But the funny thing is that Mrs Twit wasn’t born ugly. She’d had quite a nice face when<br />

she was young. The ugliness had grown upon her year by year as she got older.

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Why would that happen? I’ll tell you why.<br />

If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that person<br />

has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier and uglier<br />

until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.<br />

A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and<br />

a crooked mouth and a double-chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts<br />

they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely."

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1.Find words in the passage about Mr Twit to write in the labels. Can you find something to<br />

copy about his ‘nostrils and ear-holes’, his hair and his beard?

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2. Words with opposite meanings are called antonyms. Look at this list of antonyms.<br />

nasty/nice<br />

friendly/unfriendly<br />

kind/unkind<br />

mean/generous<br />

ugly/beautiful<br />

clean/messy<br />

Chose one antonym from each pair to complete six sentences:<br />

The Twits are people.<br />

The Twits are people.<br />

The Twits are people.<br />

The Twits are people.<br />

The Twits are people.<br />

The Twits are people.

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3. In The Twits <strong>Roald</strong> <strong>Dahl</strong> tells us that a person who has good thoughts can never be ugly.<br />

Choose the words to fill in the spaces:<br />

good ugly double stick-out<br />

mouth sunbeams lovely wonky<br />

A person who has goods thoughts can never be . You can have a<br />

nose and a crooked and a chin<br />

and teeth, but if you have ____ thoughts they will shine out of<br />

your face like and you will always look .<br />

5. Imagine that Mr and Mrs Twit have a dog that is as horrible as they are.<br />

What would it look like? Look back to the descriptions of Mr and Mrs Twit to help with ideas.<br />

Write a short description of the dog.

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Ask children to feed back on their tasks. Ask appropriate children to point out any words that<br />

are adjectives. Enjoy the full unpleasantness of the shared pages by reading them aloud,<br />

again inviting all the children to join in with exaggerated expression.