Name _________________________________ Hour ______ Date _________
Creating a Visual Metaphor of the Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution profoundly changed much of human experience. It changed patterns of
work, transformed the social class structure, and the way people thought about class. The Industrial
Revolution helped shape economic, political, and social thought with theories such as capitalism,
socialism, and communism.
This culminating project challenges you to create a visual metaphor representing the impact of the
Industrial Revolution. To do this, you will create a metaphor that represents key ideas from the
unit’s most important topics: the political, social, economic and geographic changes of the
Industrial Revolution and key events of the Industrial Revolution. You will choose a metaphor – a
tornado, a tree, a monster, a bridge – and make comparisons between it and the impact of the
Industrial Revolution. Your choice of metaphor should be based on whether you feel that the
Industrial Revolution impacted society in a positive or negative way. To create your visual
metaphor, which will be completed on computer paper, you will use materials accumulated through
this unit – original writing, visuals and historical information – and resources collected through
additional research, if necessary.
1. What is a metaphor?
A good metaphor points out significant similarities between the objects or ideas being compared.
For example:
 Being a student at this school is like ______________ (a circus? Climbing a mountain?).
Then develop similarities and differences.
2. Design your visual metaphor to show your understanding of key ideas in the history of the
Industrial Revolution. Your metaphor must contain information on these topics:
 The changes that resulted from the Industrial Revolution
 Key events of the Industrial Revolution
3. You may use one of these metaphors to represent the changes of the Industrial Revolution
 a tree growing,
 a bridge,
 a tornado wreaking havoc,
 an escaped monster,
 or choose one of your own.
The viewer should be able to quickly determine whether you are praising or condemning the
Industrial Revolution simply by examining your metaphor. For example, if you believe that the
Industrial Revolution should be praised, you might use the metaphor of a tree. However, if you
feel that the Industrial Revolution should be condemned, you might use the metaphor of a
monster.
4. You must create bold, detailed visuals and clearly label comparisons between your metaphor and
these key items:
The Changes that Resulted from the Industrial Revolution (include at least four of the following
items): inventions, working conditions, child labor, reforms, economic systems, reaction to
industrialization, romanticism, realism, nationalism, urbanization, education, role of women, class
structure
For example, if your metaphor compares the Industrial Revolution to an escaped monster, it should
answer these kinds of questions: How does the monster represent the Industrial Revolution? Does
the image of the monster praise or condemn the Industrial Revolution? Who is helping the
monster? What do the monster’s characteristics represent? Who or what represents the positive
aspects of the Industrial Revolution? What might the monster be thinking?
5. For each part of your metaphor, include a one-sentence explanation of how your metaphor
matches each historical term. For example, if you chose a tree, you might label the roots
“inventions” and write, “inventions like coal-fired locomotives and steel allowed the Industrial
Revolution to grow quickly, inspire other inventions, and spread much like a tree’s roots find the
water and nutrients by spreading through the soil for the tree to grow strong."
If there is room, write the explanations directly under the label. Otherwise, write them on a separate
piece of paper and attach it to the metaphor.
6. Give your visual metaphor an appropriate title. Write the title in big, bold letters.
7. To the front of the visual metaphor, attach a one-page summary statement that describes the
metaphor and explains how it represents the changes resulting from the Industrial Revolution.
8. At the end of your summary, list three ways that it does not represent the changes of the
Industrial Revolution.