Found Figurative Language by Terri Sabbag - The Education Fund

Lesson Plans
Objectives:
Strand: Reading Application
Benchmark: LA.4.1.7.2 The student will identify the author’s purpose (e.g. to
persuade, inform, entertain, explain) and how an author’s perspective influences
text.
Strand: Literary Analysis
Benchmark: LA.4.2.1.7 The student will identify and explain an author’s use of
descriptive, idiomatic, and figurative language (e.g. personification, similes,
metaphors, symbolism) and examine how it is used to describe people, feelings, and
objects.
Strand: Writing Process
Benchmark: LA.4.3.3.3.3 Creating precision and interest by expressing vividly
through varied language techniques (e.g. imagery, simile, metaphor, sensory
language)
Personification Lesson Plan:
Activity:
1. Teacher sits on top of the desk and then asks students: “How do you think the
desk is feeling with me sitting on top of him?”
2. Allow various responses (e.g., complains because of the weight, moans under
the weight, creaks under the weight, etc.)
3. Instruct students to create sentences describing the action of the teacher sitting
on the desk and the reaction the desk experiences with the teacher sitting on
top. (e.g., As Ms. Sabbag’s feet kicked back and forth, the desk struggled and
moaned under her weight, wishing she would get off.)
4. Define personification as “giving human qualities to an object, thing, or animal.”
5. Have students form small groups to discuss how a pencil feels as a student takes
a timed multiplication test.
6. Instruct the groups to first make a list of the pencil’s feelings.
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