Day 55 Foundations–
Figurative language
and Participle phrases
Objectives
1. Identify Participles and Analyze sentences for their effect.
2. Analyze how figurative language can affect the
interpretation of a poem.
Homework:
Print off Drama/Poetry terms from the wiki
Close reading Poetry passage due Friday
Vocabulary quiz Friday – will include participles and Participle phrases
Bring Romeo and Juliet to class Monday!
warm up:
Instructions:
Rewrite the following sentences placing the participial
phrases where they should be placed.
1. Playing the piano, my dog started to howl.
2. Eating lunch, the doorbell rang.
3. Having walked several miles, my new shoes
hurt.
GRAMMAR TIME!
Review:
The participial phrase is always used as an adjective
phrase to modify a noun or pronoun.
It includes the participle together with its modifiers, objects, or predicate words.
The present participle form always ends in -ing, but the endings for past perfect and
passive perfect participles may vary.
ex. Walking rapidly, we reached the town in fifteen minutes.
Annoyed by the noise, the teacher spoke sharply to the class.
Tom, having won the chess game, looked up happily.
Having won every game but one, Ohio State now led the Big Ten.
Computer Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Get a computer
• Log into your google account.
• Find my wiki and download the
Dangling participles- fix em.
• Share it with me ONLY when you are finished
Jenniferm.louis@cms.k12.nc.us
• Complete the worksheet + ask questions when needed
Face-off
Figurative Language
Poetry and songs frequently use
figurative language. Figurative
language uses comparisons,
description, and explanation to help the
reader understand. There are many
types of figurative language. The most
common forms found in poetry and
songs are:
Simile
Metaphor
Personification
Simile
Using like or as to compare
two different things.
Examples:
Her hair was as orange as a
carrot
Life is like a box of chocolates…
He would stride off, sending
patterns of frosty air before him
like the smoke of a cigar.
Apply Yourself! by Kathy Appelt
Orange- simile
“Apply yourself!” was all he ever heard,
as if he could wrap himself around his homework
like a Band-Aid around a cut
as if he could glue his fingers to his Spanish
vocabulary words,
paper feathers on his fingertips
as if algorithms and battles and presidents and
as if he could nail his palms to Economics
theorems and scales and pep rallies and
as if he could plug his whole being into the good
maps and cosines and Bunsen burners and
grade
hurricane charts and bills of rights and
machinery
dangling participles and dress codes and
as if he could tape his head to the linoleum
all that filled his notebook could stick to his thin body
as if he could paste his butt to the desk
like flies to flypaper, his fragile wings
as if he could spread his gray matter onto the test
pinned to the poisonous strip
sheet
as if all that matters and will matter
like peanut butter on toast
is to add it all up and fill out the application…
as if that mattered at all, as if that mattered
at all…or all at once…
as if that was all that mattered.
HELLO, I MUST BE GOING by Ms. Klanderman
When we finally took her cigarettes away
Orange- simile
Nana tried to smoke chicken bones, lighting
each gnarled end with matches we forgot to
check her pocket for. “You’re a sweetie” was
her mantra, repeated like her old blue parakeet
she forgot to feed, and it died slowly, like the
She had the looks of Marilyn,
smile from her face as she sat in
left the house in any shoes but heels, even
the blue velour chair, staring out the front window never
ironed Boompa’s boxers until her mind moved on and
like she was watching a Garbo movie.
forgot to leave a note. When we came over today
When we came to bring her groceries,
those bags like birthday presents,
she would hike up her sweat pants
like an umpire contemplating a play and
wander to the kitchen, her fingers playing with the
edge of her t-shirt, and peer through
blue eyes, as clean as a slate, as we pulled
cans of fruit cocktail and snack cakes magic-like from
brown paper sacks.
she looked through me like I was a pane of glass. My
face like one she saw once in a magazine ad,
or in the crowd at St. John’s Sunday mass.
She asked me who I was, her voice like the hello you
speak into the phone, distant and hollow like she
was across a lake. The glimmer of recognition in
her face like a dying ember stoked for the last time
before burning out altogether. She put her hands
up to her ashen face, devoid of the makeup she
caked on like Tammy Faye, and felt for her once pretty
eyes, that broke a hundred hearts, as they betrayed
her with tears, splashing down her face, surprising her
like rain on someone else’s cheeks.
#6 Now practice your own similes:
The dog wagged his tail like…
The tree swayed in the wind like…
The night was as dark as…
The music from the fifth grade band concert
sounded like…
The girl’s face was red as a….
His legs moved as fast as…
Metaphor
A direct comparison between
two things.
A is B.
Examples:
The stars are eye candy.
Freedom is a breakfast food.
Their love is the slap of a baseball
in a mitt.
“All I Need” By Radiohead
This song uses metaphors.
I'm the next act
Waiting in the wings
I'm an animal
Trapped in your hot car
I am all the days
That you choose to ignore
You are all I need
You are all I need
I'm in the middle of your picture
Lying in the reeds
I'm a moth
Who just wants to share your light
I'm just an insect
Trying to get out of the night
I only stick with you
Because there are no others
You are all I need
You're all I need
I'm in the middle of your picture
Lying in the reeds
It's all wrong
It's all right
It's all wrong
Sometimes they are written directlyLife is a rollercoaster
Life= A
Rollercoaster= B
Sometimes the form of “is” is left out.Her face,a picture of bliss, gazed at the ocean.
Face=A
Picture of bliss=B
Night Letter to the Reader by Billy Collins
Green- Simile
I get up from the tangled bed and go outside,
a bird leaving its nest,
a snail taking a holiday from its shell,
but only to stand on the lawn,
an ordinary insomniac
amid the growth systems of gardens and woods.
If I were younger, I might be thinking
about something I heard at a party,
about an unusual car,
or the press of Saturday night,
but as it is, I am simply conscious,
an animal in pajamas,
sensing only the pale humidity
of the night and the slight zephyrs
that stir the tops of trees.
The dog has followed me out
and stands a little ahead,
her nose lifted as if she were inhaling
Pink – metaphor
the tall white flowers,
visible tonight in the darkened garden,
and there was something else I wanted to tell you,
something about the warm orange light
in the windows of the house,
but now I am wondering if you are even listening
and why I bother to tell you these things
that will never make a difference,
flecks of ash, tiny chips of ice.
But this is all I want to do—
tell you that up in the woods
a few night birds were calling,
the grass was cold and wet on my bare feet,
and that at one point, the moon,
looking like the top of Shakespeare’s
famous forehead,
appeared, quite unexpectedly,
illuminating a band of moving clouds.
#7 Now try writing a metaphor sequence:
Complete the following in your notebook.
Pick a noun:
Your name is….
Your face is…
Your car is…
Your dog is…
Your mom is…
Your friend is…
#8 Now try to write FIVE metaphors that directly
compare your noun to another noun.
Personification
Comparing the action/idea/emotion
etc. of something non-human to
something human.
Examples:
The podium proudly stood in front of the
class room.
The fire rushed back into every closet and
felt of the clothes that hung there.
Under the Harvest Moon
by Carl Sandburg
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
Blue = personification
Apple Pies by Ms. Klanderman
I like how she could peel
the skin of each apple
so it came off in one
long crimson strand
like Christmas ribbon,
and the way the kitchen walls
clung to the cinnamon smell
three days later,
and the way the oven sighed
the breath of the baking crust
I’d see her roll out to the thickness
of the old silver dollars
she kept in the jewelry box
next to her bed.
She’d scoop the sliced apples
each shaped in a fruity grin
wet with sugar
into the tin bed of the pan
and cover it with a blanket of dough,
then tuck it in slowly
turning and pinching
until it was sealed,
her tongue stuck into
the corner of her mouth,
flour like a line of latitude
printed across the front of her red sweatshirt.
I like how she’d bend her knees,
those knobby bumps poking from cut-offs,
as she watched her creation born
through the thick glass of the oven door.
Red= simile
Blue= personification
Green= sensory detail and/or
visual imagery
“Fog” by Carl Sandburg
The fog comes out
on little cat feet.
It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.
The easiest way to add personification is:
1. To give the non-human thing an emotion, state of being or quality that
humans have
From “There Will Come Soft Rains” by Ray Bradbury
The clock screamed its morning alarm as if it were afraid
nobody could hear it.
From “The Victims” by Sharon Olds
The black noses of your shoes with their large pores.
From “How it Is” by Maxine Kumin
The dog at the center of my life recognizes/ you’ve come to
visit, he’s ecstatic.
From “Feeding Time” by Maxine Kumin
Horses are waiting./Each enters his box/in the order they’ve
all/agreed on,…cat supervises from the molding cove.
2. Make it do something it cannot (use an action
verb)
From “Apple Pies” by Ms. K
the oven sighed
the breath of the baking crust
From “Sonnet 18” by William Shakespeare
Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st,
From “Lines for Winter” by Mark Strand
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
From “The Round” by Stanley Kunitz
I saw light kiss
the silk of the roses
From “Across the Universe” by Lennon/McCartney
Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing through my open ears
Inciting and inviting me
3. Imbed it in a simile or metaphor
From “Across the Universe” written by Lennon and
McCartney
Thoughts meander like a restless wind (simile)
From “Under the Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg
Death, the gray mocker, (metaphor)
From “The Derelict” by Sharon Olds
blond beard like a sign of beauty and power.
(simile)
From “Under a Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers. (metaphor)
 Get into your pairs
and analyze the next
poem for figurative
language.
 Answer these
questions about the
poem.
Figurative Device
Quote from Poem / Statement of Significance
Hyperbole
"I'll love you / Till China and Africa meet."
China and Africa will never physically meet, giving the figurative
meaning that the speaker's feelings can never be severed by any earthly
.
concerns and strengthening the overall expression of love
"I'll love you / Till China and Africa meet."
China and Africa will never physically meet, giving the
figurative meaning that the speaker's feelings can never
be severed by any earthly concerns and strengthening the
.
overall expression of love
How does the poet use figurative language to
enhance her message?
The idea that love is a power that transcends our human bonds and limitations is
enhanced by the poet's use of hyperbole.
Closure
Write 3 things you have learned about poetry.
Write 2 examples of figurative language.
Write 1 question you have concerning poetry.