Jabberwocky TPCASTT
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TPCASTT Poetry Analysis
Lesson Plans by Rebecca Ray
Teaching students to look at a poem with an order of operation in mind gives them a framework to start their analysis. TPCASTT stands for title, paraphrase, connotation, attitude/tone, shift, title, theme. This method is great to start students reading and inferring with little assistance from the instructor. Use some or all of the activities in this teaching guide to get your students excited about poetry!
Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
Lesson Plans by Kristy Littlehale
“Jabberwocky” is one of the most famous poems in the English language, but not because of its content; instead, its nonsensical words and rhyme and rhythm make it a unique work of art that stands out in the minds of readers. Lewis Carroll originally included the poem in Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There, the sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
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![Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll - Literary Elements in "The Jabberwocky"](http://cdn.storyboardthat.com/storyboard-cells/2375996/cell-col-0-row-0-w400.png "Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll - Literary Elements in "The Jabberwocky"")
Storyboard Description
TPCASTT Analysis for Jabberwocky Poem
Storyboard Text
- T - TITLE
- Haveyouheardaboutthenewmalltheyrepu ttinginoverinthenextownIca ntwaittoseewhatstoresthey regoingtoaddhaveyoutalke dtoyourdadaboutextending curfewforyounextweekbecauseIdo ntknowifmymomwillletme...
- P - PARAPHRASE
- C - CONNOTATION
- A - ATTITUDE / TONE
- S - SHIFT
- T - TITLE
- T - THEME
-
- The title sounds weird. Jabber? It might mean to talk really fast, like “jabbering.” Maybe it’s a fast-sounding language?
- The poem begins in the woods at night. The father warns his son of a monster with sharp teeth and claws called the Jabberwock; he also warns him of the Jubjub bird and the Bandersnatch. The son takes up his sword and seeks out the monsters. He rests by the Tumtum tree when suddenly the Jabberwock appears. The son cuts down the Jabberwock and takes his head back to his father, where his father receives himwith joy at the boy’s triumph.
- The narrator uses nonsense words and real words, and sometimes a combination of the two. All create a sense of anticipation, fear, and adventure. Some of the more prominent words and phrases include “beware”, “jaws”, “claws”, “frumious”, “vorpal sword”, “eyes of flame”, “burbled”, “snicker-snack”, “left it dead”, and “chortled.”
- The narrator’s tone is suspenseful, elevated in style, and playful.
- There are a few shifts. The first happens between the 2nd and 3rd stanzas, where the father warns his son of the creatures in the woods, but then the son takes up his sword and strikes out after them anyways. The next shift occurs when the son returns home and his father is relieved and ecstatic. The last stanza repeats the first, but this time, it’s not a sense of foreboding; instead, it seems to show that everything returns to normal.
- The title is about a monster called the Jabberwock, which the son sets out to with his sword to kill.
- The theme of the poem is the classic battle of good versus evil, and also the boy’s desire to make his father proud. His father’s sheer joy at his son’s success further confounds this theme.
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