Spongebob Squarepants helps teach middle schoolers about personification! After discussing the human characteristics demonstrated by the cartoon character, scholars identify the personification in poems by Emily Dickinson and Langston...

A shirt can't really swallow you—right? Readers find examples of symbolism and personification in S.E. Hinton's The Outsiders with two straightforward lessons.

Explore poetry, personification, and multiple languages with a poetry reading and writing lesson. After the teacher reads the poem to the class, a discussion about personification follows. The class then writes a collaborative poem...

High schoolers examine the historical and cultural context in Sandburg's poem. The poetic devices of personification and apostrophe are utilized in the poem and identified by Students.

The second lesson of a pair about Paul Laurence Dunbar, this plan focuses in particular on his poem, "We Wear the Masks." After a short historical introduction, class members conduct a series or readings, marking up the text and...

Students analyze the use of personification in classical Greek art and the Neoclassical period. For this Neoclassical art lesson, students discuss the cultural values reflected in classical and Neoclassical....

Students are able to define given literary terms, such as metaphor, simile, imagery, personification, symbolism, etc. They are able to identify the use of literary elements in a given text. Students are able to interpret weather...

Use folk tales as inspiration for learning about and using personification in creative writing. Learners brainstorm together in order to practice personification before writing their own poems or paragraphs about a household object.

"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi," from The Jungle Book, offers young readers a chance to examine how Rudyard Kipling uses setting and personification to bring to life the brave mongoose who battles cobras to protect his family. Class members...

My love is like an anaconda. Huh? Scholars investigate similes, metaphors, hyperbole, and personification used by writers to express feelings. They examine lyrics from songs and lines from Romeo and Juliet and consider how the use of...

Introduce middle schoolers to poetic devices with a lesson that asks them to find examples of alliteration, anaphora, onomatopoeia, metaphors, similes, and personification in various poems. Young scholars craft examples of these poetic...

The fourth standard for reading literature in the Common Core calls for young readers to be able to determine the figurative and connotative meanings of words and phrases. Use this resource, a continuation of a series of Common Core...

Carl Sandburg composed poetry that conveyed a time and place in American Literature and history. Learners identify the literary techniques he uses to describe the historical and cultural context of living in Chicago. They define the...

Students explore Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  In this figurative language lesson, students locate similes, metaphors, and examples of personification in their reading.  Students write down the page numbers of each example...

When Macbeth says, "Nature seems dead," he uses personification. Using the resource, scholars complete a Quick Write to analyze the impact of figurative language on the mood of Shakespeare's Macbeth. Pupils also participate in an...

No, not literally. Scholars read Hugo, the Lord’s Nephew to compare figurative and literal language. Readers learn about simile, metaphor, personification, and idioms with a graphic organizer. Pupils then answer text-dependent...

Readers of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings are asked to craft an essay in which they compare how Maya Angelou uses figurative language to depict herself and Mrs. Flowers. 

Eighth graders craft a Petrarchan sonnet and respond to a performance assessment to demonstrate what they have learned in this five-lesson poetry unit.

The second lesson in a five-part poetry unit asks seventh graders to construct a metaphor poem. First, pupils examine Emily Dickinson's "The Railway Train" and identify the metaphor. They then select an object and an animal and craft a...

A reading of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech launches a study of rhetorical devices such as hyperbole, allusion, metaphor, simile, personification, connotative language and parallel structure. Class members then...

The language of and the perspective of photographs, poems, and official reports differ. After a close reading of two photographs, two poems, and a military report about the Vietnam War, individuals adopt someone's voice or something from...

Jane Hirshfield's poem "My Skeleton" asks readers to pause and think about the amazing, often taken-for-granted structure that protects and gives form to human bodies. After observing the human skeleton's image, class members read the...

Song lyrics, like poems, are meant to be heard. After examining the literary devices in several poems, scholars examine the lyrics of popular songs and identify the sound devices and the figurative language writers use to create the...

Maya Angelou's poem, "Still I Rise", offers young scholars an opportunity to consider how poets use literary devices to create powerful messages. After a close reading and discussion of the poem, class members reflect on how they can...