Mr. Twit and Adjectives

A few weeks ago, we read a book called The Twits by Roald Dahl. We were quite intrigued about how wonderfully disgusting Mr. Twit was. During a lesson about adding descriptive words, adjectives, to our writing, we used Mr. Twit as our descriptive group writing piece. First, we discussed what an adjective was and brainstormed examples. I provided them with sentences starters such as "My teacher is ______" or "A pirate is __________." Then we shifted our focus to Mr. Twit.

As a class, we brainstormed adjectives that would describe Mr. Twit. In addition, they had to provide "proof" of the adjective. For example, if a student said that Mr. Twit was scary then they had to provide "proof" that he was scary.

Here is an example of the worksheet we used. If the word 'hairy' was given to describe Mr. Twit then the student or a helper provided proof such as: His face is covered with hair. My students had to provide support for their adjective choices. It isn't enough to say that something is awesome. HOW is it awesome? WHY is it awesome? We need more information and that makes our writing more interesting. When we finished with the worksheet, I read the adjectives and proofs. It made a great description of Mr. Twit. "Mr. Twit is dirty. He has food in his beard. Mr. Twit is also ugly. He has hair sticking out of his ear. He is scary. His teeth stick out and his eyes look mean." We will use this "adjectives and proof" strategy in our next descriptive writing piece. You will have to stay tuned and find out what we will be writing about.