An effective way to engage your students is through the creation of storyboards that examine Tone, Word Choice, Imagery, Style, and Theme. This activity is referred to with the acronym “TWIST”. In a TWIST, students focus on a particular paragraph or a few pages, to look deeper at the author’s meaning. For this activity, students will create a 5 cell storyboard, illustrating each letter of TWIST for Maya Angelou's poem "Caged Bird".
| T | TONE |
The tone of this poem is sad and serious, yet the caged bird perseveres. One example of this is, “his wings are clipped and his feet are tied, so he opens his throat to sing.” |
|---|---|---|
| W | WORD CHOICE |
When describing the free bird, Angelou uses uplifting and bright words, and when describing the caged bird, she uses dark and sad words. |
| I | IMAGERY |
“And dips his wing in the orange sun rays, and dares to claim the sky”. This illustrates the free bird flying freely in the beautiful morning sky. |
| S | STYLE |
This poem is unstructured. Sometimes it rhymes, the number of syllables is not consistent, and there is some repetition. This is a free verse poem. |
| T | THEME |
The themes of this poem are freedom and captivity. The free bird represents white people, and the caged bird represents the oppressed African American people. |
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Due Date:
Objective: Create a TWIST analysis of "Caged Bird".
Student instructions: