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9th Grade Honors Mini-Unit
Describing Places and Things, Describing People and Events:

Figurative Language in Poetry

Key Questions (Apply these questions to classical literary texts.)[1]

1. How does figurative language create meaning in poetry?
2. How is poetry different than prose?
3. What criteria should we use as critics to evaluate classical poems?

Indicators:

• Examinelanguage choices with an emphasis on simile, metaphor, personification, and hyperbole. LA.E09.10.04F
• The student will compose to describe, using prose and poetic forms. LA.E09.20.02

Objectives:

• Examine language choices in a text with an emphasis on simile and metaphor.
• Examine language choices in a text with an emphasis on hyperbole.
• Examine language choices in atext with an emphasis on personification.
• Compose a poem using figurative language (simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and personification) to describe a place, thing, person, or event.

Sequence of Lessons:

1. “Showing, Not Telling”

To focus on descriptive writing, start your first lesson by asking one student to stand up, shake your hand, and take a seat in the hallway. Whenhe/she leaves, instruct each member of the class to describe that individual as thoroughly as possible (model using yourself…be as specific as possible). Before inviting the student back in, have students share their descriptions to see how accurate they are. You may choose another student to describe, informing the class that they now know what they’ll have to describe.

When done,discuss the importance of detailed descriptions in writing. Remind the class about the use of sensory details, but then ask them what other ways authors and poets describe. On an overhead or video date projector, have each student write a detailed description of the following: a luxurious house, a great concert, a depressed person, a polluted place, and a good lunch. As a model, describe a luxurioushouse using as many details as possible. When done, have students share their writing in small groups and then out loud with the entire class.
2. “Introducing Metaphors and Similes”

Next, on an overhead projector or video data projector, place the opening stanza of Eve Merriam’s “Metaphor”.

Morning is
a new sheet of paper
for you to write on.

Askthe class how this is different than describing with sensory details (“Is morning literally a new sheet of paper?”) Pull a few other similes and metaphors to show this difference. Provide the class with the list again (a luxurious house, a great concert, a depressed person, a polluted place, and a good lunch). This time, have them use only metaphors or similes to describe each item.

Havethe class read “The Wind—tapped like a tired Man” by Emily Dickinson

The Wind—tapped like a tired Man—
And like a Host—“Come in”
I boldly answered—entered then
My residence within

A Rapid—footless Guest—
To offer whom a Chair
Were as impossible as hand
A Sofa to the Air—

No Bone had He to bind Him—His Speech was like the Push
Of numerous Humming Birds at once
From a superior Bush—

His Countenance—a Billow—
His Fingers, as He passed
Let go a music—as of tunes
Blown tremulous in Glass—

He visited—still flitting—
Then like a timid Man
Again, He tapped—‘twas flurriedly—
And I becamealone—

Have them find as many similes and metaphors as possible. Then discuss what the similes mean (“How might the wind be like a tired man? Why does Dickinson describe ‘him’ as ‘timid’ in the final stanza?”)

You may have the students compose a BCR in response to the following: “Analyze how the use of simile and/or metaphor enhances or contributes to the meaning of “The...