Washington Irving’s short story “Rip Van Winkle” was published in 1819 and it has become an intrinsic part of the United States’ literary tradition. Hapless colonial-farmer Rip Van Winkle takes to the woods of the Catskill mountains to avoid his haranguing wife, and is ensorceled by mysterious forces. After a 20-year sleep, he returns to his village and finds it changed by the events of the American Revolution. However, he is able to find his place within this new order due to the timelessness of human nature. While Rip and his fellow villagers are mostly archetypical in nature, their environs are richly described with vivid imagery, lending both realism and a touch of mystery to the surroundings.

Skills: analysis, drawing inferences from text, close reading, identifying the relationship between words

About This Document

The Owl Eyes Imagery activity gives students an opportunity to practice identifying and analyzing imagery. Imagery within a text creates a sensory experience that can connect readers to a text’s setting, atmosphere, or overall aesthetic. Studying imagery will help students understand how narrators or principal characters feel. The main components of this worksheet include the following:

• A brief introduction to the text
• A handout on types of imagery with examples from classic texts
• A step-by-step guide to activity procedure
• Selected examples of imagery from the text

In completing this worksheet, students will learn to identify and analyze different kinds of imagery in order to develop close reading skills and identify the effect imagery has on their reading experience.