Teaching Figurative Language in Writing Workshop

As state testing time is RAPIDLY approaching (T minus 5 school days until THE TEST!), I've been trying to hit test material/strategies in all content areas, not just during test prep time.  Writing Workshop has been a great place to review skills like author's purpose, text genre and style, and most recently figurative language.  We talk about figurative language all year long during shared reading, but most times that just involves pointing out examples when we happen to come across them in the shared text.  That's okay, but I wanted to go a little further.  On our 5th grade state test, most figurative language questions tend to be about similes, so I wanted to spend most of our time focusing on writing and identifying similes, but also wanted to go over metaphor and personification again.

Last year, I did a series of lessons on writing poems using similes that I got from Read Write Think.  The lessons involve reading the poem "Willow and Ginkgo" by Eve Merriam.  and identifying the similes in the poem.  After that, the kids begin to write their own simile poems.  I decided to do this same lesson again this year, and it was just as successful.  Since we worked on our poems the week of Valentines Day, all of the kiddos chose a person or thing that they loved to describe using similes.  Read more about the lesson I did last year here.

After spending about a week reading and writing similes, this week we explored metaphors.  I had a hard time finding a kid-friendly poem with great examples of metaphors, so I "borrowed" a poem I found about books that used a lot of similes, and changed them to metaphors...I don't want to get in trouble for copyright infringement, so I'm not going to share it here... :)  If you know of a good poem with tons of metaphors, please let me know!  As another activity, we listened to the song, "The World's Greatest" by R Kelly.  Are you familiar with the song?  It is ALL metaphors.  While we listened to it, I had the kiddos jot down some of the things R. Kelly compared himself to in the song.  Afterwards, we discussed the metaphors and talked about what they might mean.  For example, "I am a lion" might mean that he feels he is brave and strong.

Once we'd learned about metaphors, the kids had an opportunity to write poems about their families comparing each member to something through metaphor.  Here's my sample:

As another fun review of the difference between similes and metaphors, we listened to "Firework" by Katy Perry.  Before listening, I had the kids write the words "Simile" and "Metaphor" on a large index card.  During the song, every time they heard one of the two, they held up their card to indicate which one it was.  So much fun.  Finally, I haven't taught it to my kids yet, but one of my teammates shared this little song she made up to help with simile and metaphor.  (To the tune of "Oh Christmas Tree")

A simile, a simile

A comparison using like or as

A simile, a simile

A comparison using like or as

A metaphor is a comparison

That doesn't use like or as

A simile, a simile
A comparison using like or as

I will be starting off our week Monday by using this song to review the two techniques.  :)  This week, I am also planning on revisiting personification, which we worked with more closely earlier this year.  When I introduced it, we read the books Brave Irene and Rosebud and Red Flannel, both of which are great.  Then we wrote stories personifying object in pictures, like bowling pins, buildings, etc.  After we've reviewed personification, I plan to read a few picture book mentor texts and have the kids hold up cards when they hear examples of similes, metaphors, and personification.  So far I've picked out Owl Moon (great similes!) and Under the Quilt of the Night.  Both are so beautiful.  

What are your favorite ways to teach figurative language?


Do you have any favorite mentor texts for figurative language?