I am used to having my kids identify and write their own figurative language. Now, however, the CCSS says they also have to interpret figurative language - YIKES!
At first I thought, "So, what?" Um, here's what -- it's hard! So, I've been working the past week on helping my students first figure out what figurative language is, and then explain what it means (and I have to admit, I actually revisited this post to remember all that I did. I lost some of my lesson plans in my move ... so glad for my "blog archives").
Here is my original post for figurative language. It basically outlines how I taught figurative language last year. But, this year I had to vamp up my lessons. I started with the basics, but added some new rigor (isn't that the new buzz word).
Here is a document that we are using in my classroom to organize our thoughts (the fonts are Darcy Baldwin @sweetshoppedesigns.com). Click on it to download the PDF:
I looked through some poem books I had and found a few that had good examples of figurative language. There are a ton online as well! But, I also wanted them to find figurative language in narrative text. I chose the book Snow Day Dance by Will Hubbell.
I created another chart for this book. Click the picture below to download it (again the fonts are by Darcy Baldwin @sweetshoppedesigns.com). There are so many examples of figurative language in the book, but I focused on similes and personification for my lesson.
Even with all of the activities we are doing, my students still struggle. Some figurative language is just plain confusing! Especially when it is in a poem! We are going to keep plugging away. I found two poems this weekend that are very difficult.They are both about trains, and both have figurative language. I am going to model with them how figure out poetry that seems really tricky. We are also going to compare and contrast the poems as they have very different moods and messages (Wish me luck!)
On a totally separate note, I love when TpT has a sale!!! I completely forgot, however, and only put my items on sale at 2 today .. woops! Because of that everything in my store will be on sale until tomorrow night before I go to bed :)
I just added two new things to my store:
1. An affixes set to help students learn and understand CCSS eligible 4th grade affixes
2. Deport Dull Words - a set to help you show your students how to use synonyms to make their writing better.
Check them out while they're on sale! I have some shopping of my own to do now :)
