Simile

Oct 28, 2009 by Annemarie

Writing Trait/Strategy:

Word choice; simile

Mentor Text Suggestions:

• Borrowed Black by Ellen Bryan Obed
• Easy as Pie: A Guessing Game of Sayings by M. Folsom
• If You Hopped Like a Frog by David M. Schwartz
• It Figures: Fun Figures of Speech by Marvin Terban
• Owl Moon by Jane Yolen (or any other book by Yolen)
• Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood
• Similes by Joan Hanson
• Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz
• The Elephant’s Child by Rudyard Kipling
• There’s a Frog in My Throat by Loreen Leedy and Pat Street

Description:

A simile is a figure of speech that compares two things using the words “like” or “as” . The writer uses similes to create mind pictures for the reader.

Simile Traveling Book

Click here for traveling book directions. Choose a person that everyone in the class knows. A school staff member works well. Have the class brainstorm adjectives and characteristics that describe the person. Next have them compare each characteristic to an animal or object and write each in the form of a simile.

Subject: Mr. Murphy, the school principal

Characteristics	Comparisons
hard worker sharp wise cheerful smart busy energietic in charge of the school	ant pencil owl a song Einstein bee Energizer bunny lion

Sample simile:  “Mr. Murphy is like a lion because he is king of the school.”

Have each child illustrate one simile, compile the pages into a book and give it to the person as a gift.

Riddle Poems

Read aloud poems such as those in Do Not Feed the Table by Dee Lillegard, but omit the titles. Have students try to guess what object the poet is describing. Ask which words in the poems helped them figure it out. Have students select their own subject and write riddle poems using metaphor, simile, and personification to describe the subject without stating what it is. Have pairs of students exchange poems and try to guess.