(This article first appeared in The Homeschool Journey, December 2003)

I’d like to share a poem with you. I’d like you to read aloud the following poem (which many of you will probably know) and just relax into the words. For those of you whose first language is not English, don’t worry. It doesn’t matter a bit because the poem does not ‘make sense’ in English either.

Go on – read it out loud!

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

“And, hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

The Jabberwock, Lewis Carroll

So, what was it like to read it aloud? Did you feel silly? Was it fun? Did your five year-old run in demanding to know what you were doing? Good! Now read it to him! Play with the words. Draw them out. Exaggerate them. Fill them with meaning.

Now – explain to me why your (hypothetical) five year-old knows exactly what this poem is about. (And, for goodness sakes, don’t spoil it by asking her what she thinks it might mean) How does she know what it’s about?

Stop Making Sense

With this wonderfully whimsical, outrageous, funny and preposterous poem, we adults can get a tiny little glimpse into the way children grow to understand language. The Jabberwock does not ‘make sense’ to us: but to a young child it makes as much sense as any well-written musical, poetical, image-laden piece of writing. Often with great writing, the ‘sense of it’ lies not only in its literal meaning but in its rhythms and ‘sense-sounds’ which create images in our minds.

Read that poem out again. Print it out and have a great time with it. Shout it, whisper it, dance it. Your baby will love it! Act it out. Encourage your child to draw a picture – or two or three – illustrating it. Just don’t ever, ever analyze it. Let it live, don’t put it on the dissection table!

Posted on June 17, 2006 in Christopherus Curriculum