Jabberwocky Aloud (Speaking/ Reading)

Many of my University students are not able to tell a noun from a verb, or a preposition from an adjective. However, teaching this is not hard, even to very young school children.

In this exercise, we will use the Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Caroll to practice the Speaking and Reading ability of your child. Along the way, your child will also learn to piece together the meanings of unknown words using context clues, thus practicing yet another important language skill.


Objective(s) of activity:
The main objective of this activity is to practice speaking and reading by focusing on a humorous poem. Children will also learn how to piece together the meaning of some of the unusual words in the poem using context clues.
 

Targeted age group:
This activity is for older children, ideally from 9 to 12 years old. Younger children should focus on the speaking aspect of this task.
 

Number of participants:
Any number of children can take part as long as you are able to control them and prevent shouting of responses over each other.
 

Directions:
You can easily find the Jabberwocky poem online through a simple Google search.

I have copied the first stanza of the poem below with certain key words highlighted.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
 
1) The first step is to ask your child to read the stanza. They should find the bolded words strange.

2) The second part of the task is to replace the bolded words with any other English word that they think can fit in the same place. The following is an example of what they might come up with.

‘Twas bright, and the slippery snakes
Did jump and dive in the water:
All afraid were the animals,
And the evil witches chanted.
 
You should help your child in the beginning. 

3) The important part of the activity now is to ask your child for why they decided to substitute certain words in each position. For example, why did they choose ‘bright’ as the first word? Could it have been ‘dark’ instead? How about ‘cold’?

At this point, you can tell your child about these three types of labels which they should be familiar with from school.
Adjective = quality
Verb = action
Noun = object

We can now see that the first bolded position is one into which adjectives (quality) can go. However, nouns (objects) and verbs (actions) do not really fit here. Thus, the following examples sound really bad.

Eg. ‘Twas horse, and the…
       ‘Twas kick, and the …
 
4) You can now carry on with the rest of the stanza asking your child whether a quality, object or an action goes in place of each bolded word.
 
Cheat Sheet: The following shows the word class for selected words in the whole poem.
 
Twas brillig (Adj), and the slithy (Adj) toves (N)
Did gyre (V) and gimble (V) in the wabe (N):
All mimsy (Adj) were the borogoves (N),
And the mome (Adj) raths (N) outgrabe (V).

"Beware the Jabberwock (N), my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious (Adj) Bandersnatch (N)!"

He took his vorpal (Adj) sword in hand:
Long time the manxome (Adj) foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish (Adj) thought he stood,
The Jabberwock (N), with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling (V) through the tulgey (Adj) wood,
And burbled (V) as it came

One, two! One, two! And through and through 
The vorpal (Adj) blade went snicker-snack! 
He left it dead, and with its head       
He went galumphing (V) back. 

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock (N)?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy! 
O frabjous (Adj) day! Callooh! Callay!” 
He chortled in his joy. 

​Twas brillig (Adj), and the slithy (Adj) toves (N)
Did gyre (V) and gimble (V) in the wabe (N):
All mimsy (Adj) were the borogoves (N),
And the mome (Adj) raths (N) outgrabe (V).
 
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Notes for scaling up difficulty:
There are other ways to determine what the word class/ meaning-type of a word is.

You can tell the word class of a word by seeing what other meanings they can combine with. 
 
Adjectives can be modified by adding the comparatives ‘more’/ ‘most’/ ‘-er’
Eg.
tall, taller
beautiful, more/ most beautiful
Nouns and verbs cannot be modified in this way. Thus, the following are very strange.
Ball, more ball.
Kick, more kick
 
For nouns, you can make them plural.
Eg.
Boy, boys
Desk, desks
Verbs and adjectives cannot be pluralized.
Say, says (does not mean more than one ‘say’)
Tall, talls
 
Verbs can be made into past tense.
Eg.
Walk, walked
Kick, kicked
Nouns and adjectives cannot have past tense
Tall, talled
Ball, balled
 
You can also ask your child to come up with other examples for nouns, verbs and adjectives that show these properties to emphasize this point.

If the poem is too long, you can also choose to carry out this activity over two (or more) sessions, focusing on a smaller part of the poem at a time.

Let me know how your child liked this activity in the comments!
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