Metaphors Are Like Similes...Right?
Build the basis for critical thinking by increasing mastery of metaphors, similes, and analogies.
By Elijah Ammen
This article is a metaphor. Or maybe it's like a simile. Perhaps this article is to metaphors as similes are to analogies?
Comparisons, whether metaphors, similes, or analogies, are often confusing to younger grade levels; even without throwing in epic similes, extended metaphors, and other further complications. However, comparisons are important not just as literary devices, but as a basis of critical thinking.
Nearly all knowledge is built on previous knowledge. As teachers, we are very aware of the need to activate prior knowledge in order for our pupils to add to their schema. Given this hierarchy of learning, the ability to understand and use comparisons is crucial because it helps explain a new concept in terms of a familiar concept. This is why similes, metaphors, and analogies are not only important categories within figurative language, but essential to expanding our frame of reference.
Using Pop Culture and Advertising
A key part of understanding the relevance of comparisons is helping your classes see that similes, metaphors, and analogies are littered throughout pop culture and advertising. Slogans, billboards, and commercials make claims using these literary devices, and being able to identify these helps young people become educated consumers.
One strategy is having your class bring in songs on their devices and identify the similes and metaphors in the songs. While this requires a certain amount of discretion, it can increase excitement about the project, and puts students in charge of finding their own examples, rather than forcing you to find every example in pop culture. (The chances are that your kids are more fluent in pop culture, anyway.)
Create Your Own Comparisons
Once a learner has mastered identifying comparative language, he or she needs to be able to use it. Not only does creation show a higher level of Bloom's Taxonomy, but it allows the student to demonstrate that he understands the concept, and hasn't merely memorized it. For instance, analogies show critical thinking skills because they require understanding of the relationship between two things, as well as the creative aspect of coming up with two more things with the same relationship.
For visual learners, you can also use photographs in order to prompt the creation of metaphors, similes, and analogies. This allows for variety of responses, and flows easily into the discussion of figurative language in poetry.
You can also have your class design products and create advertisements that use comparisons. Model some examples of metaphors, similes, and analogies in advertisements, and then have small groups design a skit, commercial, or billboard and present it to the rest of the class. These presentations are easy ways to flip the script and have your students teaching the concepts rather than listening solely to you.
You can even turn similes and metaphors into a game similar to Telephone. One end starts by writing two things that are compared using a metaphor or a simile. The next person takes the second item and compares it to something new. By the end of the game, you can trace the final metaphor or simile back to the original item by using a trail of comparisons.
Figurative Language Resources:
This is a detailed unit plan that scaffolds teaching figurative language with a variety of texts. It also includes different activities and ways that the material can be tailored to different learning styles. You can also use this plan for a list of links for texts, and a graphic organizer to keep it all straight.
Looking for a simple, straightforward approach to teaching metaphors in poetry? This lesson has definitions, a graphic organizer, a poem, and reflective questions in order to teach metaphors.
A simple sheet that can be used for independent practice. It is divided between identifying and creating metaphors.