"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" was first published in the early 1800s in The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent., so many of the words may be unfamiliar to students. Often, new words pertaining to an unfamiliar context need to be mastered before a student can understand nuances in the story. Allow students to display mastery of new words by creating a visual vocabulary board.

Here are a few vocabulary words commonly taught with the story, and an example of a visual vocabulary board.

"The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" Vocabulary

• coquette
• tethered
• querulous
• gambols
• reverie
• sojourned
• pedagogue
• cudgelled
• psalmody
• perambulations
• waggery
• boorish
• lamentations
• roystering
• niggardly

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.

( TWIST Lesson Plan • Buy Poster • Buy PDF )

Using an excerpt from the story, students can depict, explain, and discuss the initial description of the setting of Sleepy Hollow.

TWIST Example for "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of SLEEPY HOLLOW, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions: stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.