Matilda

Use this activity to engage all types of learners, while requiring that they refer to and incorporate details from the text over the course of the activity.

“Finding Miss Honey”

In this activity, students will compare Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull, reflect upon figures in their own lives who display traits that Miss Honey demonstrates, and determine the qualities in a role model that they want to emulate.

To Matilda, Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull are precise opposites: Miss Honey is caring, inviting, and kind, while Miss Trunchbull is mean, cruel, intimidating, and aggressive. By the end of the novel, Miss Honey not only emerges as a wonderful role model figure for Matilda, but she also becomes as close to a true family as Matilda has ever experienced.

What makes a good role model? First, compare and contrast Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull using a T-chart. Then, free write about the role models in your own life.

• Compare and Contrast. Using a t-chart, compare and contrast Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull in at least 5-6 categories such as physical characteristics, personalities/values, and actions taken throughout the book.
• Who Are Your Role Models? Looking over your t-charts, think about the role models in your own life. Which qualities are most important to you? Do you have someone part of your own biological or “chosen” family who embodies your most prized qualities?
• Write! Finally, write a 2-page essay on your own Miss Honey: Who is a role model in your own life? Be sure to relate them to Miss Honey and Miss Trunchbull. How are they similar and how are they different?

As a class, discuss your t-charts and find points of similarity. What are the general qualities that a good role model should display? Confer on 7-8 qualities and list these in your notes.

Teaching Suggestion: To begin the activity, it may be helpful for students to reflect on roles in society that benefit others (nurse, teacher, firefighter, scientist, etc.): Which of these are good role models? What qualities do they exemplify? For the t-chart portion of the assignment, you may want to read Smekens Education Solutions’s “Adjust a T-Chart to Fit Various Text Structures.” As an enhancement to the assignment, you could also ask students to draw their role models (and possibly anti-role models), perhaps in the style of Quentin Blake.

Use these essay questions as writing and critical thinking exercises for all levels of writers, and to build their literary analysis skills by requiring textual references throughout the essay.

Differentiation Suggestion: For English learners or struggling writers, strategies that work well include graphic organizers, sentence frames or starters, group work, or oral responses.

Scaffolded Essay Questions

Student Prompt: Write a short (1-3 paragraph) response using one of the bulleted outlines below. Cite details from the text over the course of your response that serve as examples and support.

1. Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood treat Matilda and her brother, Michael, very differently.

• What traits of Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood’s prompt them to be cruel to Matilda? (topic sentence)
• Using these questions as guides, explain at least 3 situations in the story that help to support your topic sentence: Why do Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood seem to like Michael better? How do Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood disregard Matilda? What basic parental duties do they ignore with Matilda?
• In your conclusion, decide whether Matilda has enough reason to Find a New Family; explain your reasoning.

2. Matilda’s practical jokes are a source of trouble for her parents.  

• Are Matilda’s actions fitting, considering her parents’ behavior? (topic sentence)
• Identify and explain examples from the story that justify your answer. How do Matilda’s parents mistreat her, and what does she do in response? Using evidence from the text to support your topic sentence, analyze whether Matilda’s reactions are appropriate responses.
• In your conclusion, explain how Matilda’s pranks are her own unique way of Pushing Back Against Evil.

3. Matilda’s treatment by her parents and Miss Trunchbull cause her to feel strong emotions.

• Why does Matilda’s anger change over the course of the book? (topic sentence)
• Explain how Matilda behaves when angry at the start of the book; contrast this with how Matilda behaves at the end of the book. What does this difference signal about Matilda’s character?
• In your conclusion, connect Matilda’s emotions after playing the ghost prank to one of the themes of the novel.

Full Essay Assignments

Student Prompt: Write a structured and well-developed essay. Include a thesis statement, at least three main points supported by text details, and a conclusion.

1. Matilda’s classmates—Lavender, Hortensia, and Bruce—affect Matilda in important ways. How might the story be different if those friends were not there? When the students join together, how do they become foils for Miss Trunchbull? In a 3-paragraph essay, write about the effect Matilda’s friends have on her. Explain how the actions of the friends help to develop the theme Pushing Back Against Evil.

2. Matilda’s incredible intellectual abilities are central to the story, but what about her emotions? Are they also extraordinary and advanced, or are they more like a regular young person’s? In a 3-paragraph essay, identify and discuss several moments in the book when Matilda’s emotions guide her in making a decision, and explain what these decisions show about her emotional maturity.

3. Many young people might believe adults’ criticisms if they were treated as poorly as Matilda was by her parents. In the novel, Matilda’s self-esteem seems unaffected by her parents’ mistreatment. In a 3-paragraph essay, explore likely reasons why Dahl crafted the character this way. In your essay, describe how Matilda’s self-esteem, while extraordinary, might be a point of connection for readers.

Multiple Choice and Long Answer Questions create ideal opportunities for whole-text review, exams, or summative assessments.

Multiple Choice

1. Which of the following relationships is not connected to the theme of Finding a New Family?

A) Miss Honey’s relationship with Matilda

B) Miss Honey’s relationship with Miss Trunchbull

C) Matilda’s relationship with her classmate, Lavender

D) Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood’s relationship with each other

2. Which character’s personality most resembles Miss Honey’s?

A) Hortensia

B) Mrs. Wormwood

C) Mrs. Phelps

D) Bruce Bogtrotter

3. Which plot point best exemplifies the book’s theme of Pushing Back Against Evil?

A) Matilda’s little pranks against her parents

B) Miss Honey giving her salary to her aunt

C) Mr. Wormwood teaching Michael about used car sales

D) Mrs. Wormwood disparaging Miss Honey’s career choice

4. What does Miss Honey’s cottage represent to her, though it lacks running water and furniture?

A) Freedom

B) Magic

C) Loneliness

D) Friendship

5. What is Matilda’s main critique of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as she tells Miss Honey?

A) She hates witches.

B) She thinks it uses too many adjectives.

C) She believes it is too long.

D) She feels it lacks humor.

6. Which idea represents a shared characteristic between Miss Honey and Matilda?

A) They both have troubled relationships with their aunt.

B) They both have esteem for knowledge, books, and learning.

C) They both have telekinetic abilities.

D) They both experienced a death in their family at a very young age.

7. Which literary device is Dahl utilizing in naming Crunchem Hall Primary School and “The Chokey”?

A) Foreshadowing

B) Irony

C) Allusion

D) Wordplay

8. What idea is symbolized by The Red House?

A) Wealth

B) Communism

C) Family stability

D) Power

9. In Chapter 10, to what do Hortensia and Matilda compare their dramatized fight against Miss Trunchbull?

A) A chess game

B) A military war

C) A knight fighting a dragon

D) A sword fight between fencers

10. Matilda has an important realization in Chapter 11: “Never do anything by halves if you want to get away with it.” What does this realization inspire her to do?

A) Double-down on getting revenge against her parents

B) Fight back against Miss Trunchbull with equally intimidating actions

C) Attack Michael even harder to win her parents’ love and affection

D) Rally the school to support Miss Honey, to make her principal of the school

11. Which set of adjectives best describes Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood?

A) Unusual and elegant

B) Rude and impoverished

C) Dismissive and self-important

D) Casual and irresponsible

12. What is the correct order of events?

A) Miss Honey meets with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood about Matilda; Matilda uses her telekinesis to pretend to be the ghost of Magnus; Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat a whole chocolate cake by Miss Trunchbull.

B) Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat a whole chocolate cake by Miss Trunchbull; Miss Honey meets with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood about Matilda; Matilda uses her telekinesis to pretend to be the ghost of Magnus.

C) Miss Honey meets with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood about Matilda; Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat a whole chocolate cake by Miss Trunchbull; Matilda uses her telekinesis to pretend to be the ghost of Magnus.

D) Matilda uses her telekinesis to pretend to be the ghost of Magnus; Bruce Bogtrotter is forced to eat a whole chocolate cake by Miss Trunchbull; Miss Honey meets with Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood about Matilda.

13. Matilda has an unusual question about teachers. What does she ask herself?

A) How do teachers decide they want to become teachers?

B) What are teachers’ lives like outside of school?

C) Who do teachers look up to?

D) What do teachers talk about on their lunch break?

14. When the Wormwoods send Matilda off to live with Miss Honey, what word best describes the tone of their goodbye?

A) Frantic

B) Angry

C) Regretful

D) Indifferent

15. Which of the following statements best summarizes the book’s core message regarding Finding a New Family?

A) When you are a reader in a family of TV watchers, it is time to find a new family.

B) Your friends will never quite understand you like your biological family.

C) Home is where the heart is; and the heart can be found wherever your true family lives.

D) Family may not be related to you by blood; family genuinely supports and cares for you.

Long Answer

Compose a response of 2-3 sentences, incorporating text details to support your response.

1. In Chapter 7, Mrs. Wormwood compares herself with Miss Honey, saying, “You chose books and I chose looks.” What does this statement say about Mrs. Wormwood’s character, and her own personal values?

2. When Matilda first visits Miss Honey’s cottage in Chapter 16, Matilda notices that it is located deep in the countryside. How does being surrounded by nature make Matilda feel, and why is this significant?