Life’s Twist And Turns

Worksheet Description

This cryptogram worksheet is designed to engage students with a decoding challenge that features an insightful quotation from Bill Watterson, the celebrated comic strip artist known for “Calvin and Hobbes.” The worksheet provides a snippet from Watterson’s commencement speech at Kenyon College in 1990, sparking curiosity and setting the context for the exercise.

It begins with a fragment of Watterson’s wisdom on life’s unpredictability and self-realization. Following this introduction, students are tasked with decrypting the rest of the message. Each letter in the statement has been replaced with a number, and the students must use the alphabet key displayed at the top of the worksheet to decode the message.

The cryptogram itself is laid out in lines of numbers below the quoted text. To assist them, an alphabet key assigns a number to each letter, A through Z. At the bottom, an image of a person lounging under a tree with a book evokes a sense of relaxation and contemplation, tying in with Watterson’s theme of life’s journey and discoveries. The combination of cryptic challenge and philosophical reflection makes this worksheet not just an educational tool for deciphering codes, but also a prompt for deeper thinking about life.