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Interactive LessonGrades 9-12

Figurative Language Lesson

Skill: Figurative Language

This lesson explains simile, metaphor, personification, hyperbole, and understatement. Students learn these techniques and then practice identifying and distinguishing between them with a practice activity. This lesson is adaptable for grades 3-12.

What is Figurative Language?

Language which one must "figure" out...

Literal Language
Words mean exactly what they say
Ex: The bees were busy pollinating flowers in the garden.
Figurative Language
Readers have to FIGURE out the meaning of the expression by thinking.
Ex: The students working on their research projects were as busy as bees pollinating a garden.
Were the students working hard or were they being lazy? The reader has to FIGURE this out.

Figurative Language Techniques

What This Lesson Covers...

Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Hyperbole
Understatement
Let's look at each of these a little more closely...

Simile

A comparison of two different things using "like" or "as"

Examples
Let it be forgotten as a flower is forgotten.
The drops ran down as slow as fate.
His sorrow goes like mountain snows in waters sweet and clear.

WARNING!

The speaker must actually compare two different things.

Simply using the word LIKE or AS does NOT automatically make it a simile.
THE FOLLOWING ARE NOT SIMILES
I washed the dishes as she dried them.
I like Taco Tuesdays.
She looks like her mom.

Metaphor

A comparison of two different things without using "like" or "as."

Examples
My heart was a silent sea after the storm.
Would I might mend the tattered fabric of my youth.
Life is a frail moth flying, caught in the web of the years that pass.

Personification

Giving human traits or abilities to objects, ideas, or nature

Examples
A tree may wear a nest of robins in her hair.
Beauty walks in the woods waking flowers from wintry sleep.
The North Wind, ravenous and savage from its long polar journey, is searching for food.

Hyperbole

Exaggerating to express a strong feeling or for effect

Examples
Each moment apart takes a year till we reunite, my dear.
I would wander with you to the ends of all creation.
And there will I keep you forever, yes, forever and a day, till the walls shall crumble to ruin.

Understatement

An expression with less strength than expected, minimizing the effect of something

Examples
When the strategy resulted in the loss of an entire regiment, the general called it a less-than-ideal outcome.
After revealing he had been poisoned, the spy remarked, "This is somewhat inconvenient."
The guillotine will give you a bad hair day.

Review

Practice Review

Her thoughts scattered like ash in the wind.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorPersonificationHyperbole

Winter wrapped its cold fingers around the village and refused to let go.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimilePersonificationHyperboleUnderstatement

The professor's lecture was so dull it could have drained the color from a painting.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimilePersonificationHyperboleUnderstatement

Grief is an anchor that holds us to the places we have lost.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorPersonificationHyperbole

The general felt that after the campaign failed, costing hundreds of thousands of lives, things had not gone exactly as planned.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimilePersonificationHyperboleUnderstatement

Her silence hung between them like a curtain neither dared to draw.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorPersonificationHyperbole

The abandoned factory brooded at the edge of town, patiently waiting for a thing that would never arrive.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorPersonificationHyperbole

The bureaucracy required enough paperwork to deforest an entire continent.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorHyperboleUnderstatement

She marveled at the burning fire in his eyes whenever he spoke about his grand ambition.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorPersonificationUnderstatement

After successfully landing the plane with the detached wing, the pilot agreed that the flight had been a little bumpy.

Choose one answer, then add your follow-up response.

SimileMetaphorHyperboleUnderstatement