Discover lyric poetry through a reading of Sympathy by Paul Laurence Dunbar and analyze its meaning with three short-answer questions covering symbolism, personification, alliteration, metaphors, and similes. 

Beyond Paul Bunyan and his blue ox, tall tales can be a great way to teach young writers about word choice and voice in their writing. Using Jerry Spinelli's Maniac Magee  and the Six-Trait Writing process, they begin to write...

What a helpful resource! This presentation could be used to review literary terms in the classroom. Learners view a series of slides defining the meaning of terms, such as personification, imagery, similes, metaphors, and alliteration....

In this poetry writing worksheet, students identify the topic, similes, metaphors, onomatopoeia, rhyme scheme, and alliteration in a poem. Students fill out this information in a given diagram.

After a review of poetic terms, groups are given an object and they create a poem using a simile, a metaphor, internal rhyme, end rhyme, alliteration, and personification. Groups then exchange objects and repeat the process. Consider...

Under construction, this instructional activity focuses on Canto Familia, a collection of poetry about Gary Soto's experiences growing up in California's Imperial Valley. Representative of the experiences of many Latinos, the poems also...

Give your learners quick definitions of simile, metaphor, and analogy. As the first slide in this PowerPoint suggests, you can use the presentation as a warm-up and have scholars record the words and their meanings in a Literary Terms...

Tasking class members to analyze a poem can strike fear into the hearts of many learners. Here's a worksheet that takes the mystery out of the process by providing questions about what to look for in the text and to the devices poets use...

We carry memories of where we're from; tweens and teens can capture these memories by first listening to several memory poems and then crafting their own. They analyze literary devices other poets use, brainstorm a list of images they...

Students examine the use of literary prose in the story, "Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed." In this literary prose instructional activity, students investigate the use of imagery, metaphor, and simile in the story. They tell how author's...

Students create a haiku about the land formations they've studied.  In this haiku lesson, students identify the metaphor and meaning of a given haiku, brainstorm comparisons for a landform photo as a class and choose one to use in a...

Students use the Internet and video to discover how find evidence in poetry in order to discover the theme(s) of the poems. They are able to define poetic devices like simile, metaphor and repetition. Students identify themes in...

High schoolers 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...

If used as part of an exploration of figures of speech, this short presentation defining similes, metaphors, and analogies could be used as a review tool in an English classroom. A teacher could augment this resource with more examples...

Need a quick review of some of the elements of poetry? Eleven key terms are defined and illustrated.

When is a staple remover a fanged monster? In your ELA classroom when you're teaching this fun figurative language lesson, of course! Get your young writers using figurative language by making a game of it. Give groups a paper bag full...

Students investigate the quality of writing while focusing on the use of sensory words to convey meaning and ideas. The power of similes and metaphors is emphasized while they create and edit works of writing. The skill of descriptive...

Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings is controversial. Like many other Angelou books, it is frequently challenged or banned from schools. In fact, Angelou is one of the most frequently banned authors in the United States. An...

Students read and analyze several highly symbolic poems. They create their own symbolic poem, read it to the class, and discuss whether they can guess any hidden meanings.

Students explore imagery in poetry. In this poetry activity, students examine how the use of metaphors and similes aid in reading comprehension. Multiple resources are provided.

Students examine a primary source document from 1684 that includes many of the same lines found in Romeo's speech to Juliet from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. Students compare the texts and discuss authorship during the sixteenth and...

Learners examine the impact of sound devices in poetry. In this poetry lesson, students read the listed poems and identify uses of hyperbole, simile, metaphor, imagery, and personification. Learners discuss how sound devices enhance poetry.

Students explore figurative language. In this Fahrenheit 451 instructional activity, students read the Bradbury novel. As they read, students note the simile, metaphor, and personification examples that they encounter.

Students read the poem Bluebottle and discuss the use of the simile in the poem.  In this Bluebottle poetry lesson, students analyze the use of verbs and the energy created by that use.  Students text mark all the similes in...