Another great 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.
Using an excerpt from A Tale of Two Cities, students can depict, explain, and discuss important quotes from the text, and analyze the author’s use of style and word choice to enhance meaning.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.
| T | TONE |
reflecting, wise, wistful, dark |
|---|---|---|
| W | WORD CHOICE |
was, best, worst, foolishness, wisdom, epoch, season, spring, winter, Light, Dark, hope, despair everything, nothing |
| I | IMAGERY |
It was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair. |
| S | STYLE |
The passage is a run-on which is filled with contradictions. The winding length of the quote indicates a story and time from the past, and the contradictions exist at the same time, making the period in question paradoxical in nature. |
| T | THEME |
The narrator is reflecting on a time that is tumultuous and full of tension because the aristocracy and the commoners are at odds with one another, much like the contradictions Dickens highlights in these opening lines. |
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Perform a TWIST analysis of the opening paragraph from A Tale of Two Cities. Remember that TWIST stands for Tone, Word Choice, Imagery, Style, Theme.