Name: Elizabeth Buelow
Subject Area(s): Language Arts
Lesson Title: Metaphor/classroom zoo
Age/Grade Level: 11/12th
Unit Title: Literary Devices
Time: 60 minutes
Purpose/Rationale for lesson: To understand how metaphors function throughout
various forms of text, in this example, through a poem.
Curriculum Framing Questions:
Essential Question: How do literary devices impact language?
Unit Question that applies to this lesson: How do literary devices help us make
meaning out of language?
Lesson or Content Question(s): How does author Elizabeth Bishop use metaphor
in the poem “The Fish?”
Goal: Students will read, process, and apply metaphoric/figurative language.
Learning Objective(s):
 Read and understand a figurative poem by a well known author
 Analyze the tools the poet uses to communicate
 Write a poem based on a piece of factual information they have researched.
 Participate in a group critique of the poems, focusing on how the poem
communicates its message.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dancin/resources/lesson_plan-l4.html#8
Curriculum Standard(s): EL.HS.LI.09: Identify various literary devices, including
figurative language, imagery, allegory, and symbolism; evaluate the significance of the
devices; and explain their appeal.
EL.HS.LI.13: Evaluate the impact of word choice and figurative language on tone,
mood, and theme.
Materials Needed: Overhead projector with text of poem.
Background knowledge or skills students need prior to lesson: Students will have
rudimentary knowledge of what figurative language is from previous lessons.
Hook or Introduction: Instruct the students to write on a piece of paper what animal
they think is the most fascinating. When they’re done, have everyone read their answer
aloud.
(10 minutes)
Procedures:
Instruct students to take out their texts for the short story “The Fish” by Elizabeth Bishop.
Pick one or two students to read it out loud while the class follows along. Instruct
students to get together in small groups, and pass out a handout with the following
questions on it:
-Why do you think she let the fish go in the end?
-Why do you think the fish didn’t fight?
-What kind of imagery is presented in line #11?
-Why did the author call the oxygen “terrible” in line 23?
-How would you characterize the way in which the fish was “looking” at the writer?
-Why does the author compare the old fishing line caught in the fish’s mouth to medals?
Do you think this is an accurate comparison?
-What literary device is the author using in line 63?
-What would you name this poem if you had to change it?
(20 minutes)
Lead a group discussion where each group reveals their answers to the questions and
other groups may comment on or challenge others’ assumptions. Move discussion into
how it’s amazing how one ugly old fish could inspire such beautiful imagery.
(15 minutes)
Instruct students to take the paper where they wrote their fascinating animal out. Each
student should pass their paper to a classmate. Students must write a short poem about
the animal they received. For example, if Susie got a kangaroo, she must write a short
poem about a kangaroo. Susie can use the poem “The Fish” to help her along. Each
poem should contain at least one metaphor and one simile. The students can take the
remainder of the class period to start their draft. This creates a sort of classroom zoo.
Each student, for homework, should research facts about their animal to include in their
poem. Poems are due next class period, where they will be peer reviewed anonymously.
(15 minutes)
Differentiation/Accommodation
Students will be able to follow along with the poem and the teacher will help point out
different literary devices for those who may be struggling to find meaning.
Attention to Literacy: Lesson involves reading a poem and definition and analysis of
more complicated literary devices.
Closure: See above (last 15 minutes).
Assessment and Evaluation of Student Learning: I will know their progress from
listening to their discussion in their groups, from discussion as a class, and from their
written poems.
The Fish
I caught a tremendous fish (1)
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn't fight. (5)
He hadn't fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips (10)
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age. (15)
He was speckled and barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three (20)
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
--the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood, (25)
that can cut so badly-I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks (30)
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine (35)
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass. (40)
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
--It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face, (45)
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
--if you could call it a lip
grim, wet, and weaponlike, (50)
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth. (55)
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away. (60)
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared (65)
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine (70)
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels--until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow! (75)
And I let the fish go.
-Elizabeth Bishop