The Fires of Pele
A long time ago, in a faraway land known as Kahiki, there lived a mother, father, seven brothers, and seven sisters—all
gods and goddesses. One of the daughters was named Pele (Pay-lay). Pele was the goddess of volcanos.
Pele had a terrible temper. Whenever she became angry or jealous, she would fly into a wild rage. If she stamped her
feet in anger; the ground would shake. When she screamed, cried, or tossed her hair; fiery lava would flow down the
mountainsides or shoot up high in the air.
Pele usually didn’t stop to think about whether something was good or bad. She just did whatever she felt like doing at
that moment. This often led to big trouble. For instance, there was the time she fell in love with the man her sister (Namaka-o-kahai) loved. Unfortunately, her sister became very jealous and angry at Pele and set out to chase her away.
Pele quickly packed her things into a canoe and escaped from her sister. She traveled for a long time, far across the
warm bright Pacific Ocean.
At last, exhausted, Pele reached the island of Kauai, where she rested awhile before climbing a mountain. When she
reached the top, she carefully carved a pit with her digging stick. She prepared to move into the pit and make it her
home. Her sister, Na-maka-o-kahai had other plans. She was a goddess herself, the goddess of the oceans and seas.
She had followed Pele all the way to the island and waited patiently until Pele had finished digging the pit in the
mountaintop. Then with her power, she caused the ocean waves to splash higher and higher until the pit disappeared
under a pool of water. Pele was not discouraged though; she knew she had to move on and try again.
Pele next landed on the island of Oahu and dug a pit in the mountaintop there. However, her angry sister followed and
flooded that pit as well. Pele canoed from island to island and at each island she climbed a mountain, dug a pit, and
prepared to move in. Each time her sister would splash the ocean waves higher and higher until the pit was flooded.
Finally, Pele landed on the big island of Hawaii. She climbed the mountain known as Mauna Loa. At the top of the
mountain, she took out her digging stick and carved out a huge pit. This time she made sure that she was very distant
from the ocean waves. Na-maka-o-kahai splashed the waves as high as she could but she couldn’t splash them high
enough to reach Pele and flood the pit.
Pele settled into Mauna Loa and there she stayed. But just as before, when she would lose her temper and fly into a
rage, stamp her feet, scream, cry, and toss her hair the ground would shake and rumble. Hot lava would erupt into the
air and flow down the mountainsides.
This is how the Hawaiian Islands came to be as they are today. If you visit the islands you will find huge craters on each
one, filled with water. And if you visit Mauna Loa on the Big Island, you will feel the rumble, hear the roar, and see the
lava and know that once again Pele has lost her temper.
Answer these questions on notebook paper.
1. What genre is the story? How do you know?
2. Who are the characters? What is the conflict?
3. What inference can you make about the sisters’ personalities? Explain.
4. If you were writing a summary of the story, which two things would you need to include?
a. The definition of a digging stick
b. Real events
c. The characters, plot, and setting
d. An explanation of the Earth’s core and crust
e. A tie-in to the natural event the story explains
5. Create a cause and effect chart for the events of the story.
Figurative language
Name________________________
Complete the following activities to help you understand figurative language
1. Alliteration: (Not always extreme, like in tongue twisters : )
Definition:
Underline the alliteration in the following example:
Acquainted with the Night
by
Robert Frost
I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.
I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.
I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,
But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky
Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.
Create your own example of alliteration, like a tongue twister, or something simpler:
2. Simile:
Definition:
Complete the following similes:
Her eyes are as blue as the _______________________
His pillow was fluffy like a _____________________
She was as mean as a ____________________
Underline the similes in the following example:
A Red, Red Rose
By Robert Burns
O My Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O My Luve's like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve,
And fare thee weel, awhile!
And I will come again, my luve
Tho' it ware ten thousand mile!
Create three examples of similes and write them below:
3. Metaphor:
Definition:
Complete the following metaphors:
My teacher is an ornery _______________________
The cloud was a puffy _____________________
The dark room is a musty ____________________
Underline the metaphors in the following example:
Fifth of July
My family is an expired firecracker
set off by the blowtorch of divorce. We lay
scattered in many directions.
My father is the wick, badly burnt
but still glowing softly.
My mother is the blackened paper fluttering down,
blowing this way and that, unsure where to land.
My sister is the fallen, colorful parachute,
lying in a tangled knot, unable to see the beauty she
holds.
My brother is the fresh, untouched powder that
was protected from the flame. And I,
I am the singed, outside papers, curled away
from everything, silently cursing
the blowtorch.
By: John
http://www.teachervision.fen.com/poetry/literary-techniques/5453.html?detoured=1
Create three metaphors and write them below:
4. Hyberbole:
Definition:
Underline the hyperbole in the following example:
THE OLYMPIC RUNNER (hyperbole)
The sun beat down so hard it burnt his back,
His feet ate the dust as he ran the endless track,
The wind gave him wings and the miles flew by,
He was gunning for gold, for victory he’d die.
Critics had a field day when he entered the arena,
They could have knocked him down with a feather,
“Sideways you can’t see him through a 50-cent coin,
Bones on a cold carcass make up his manly loin.”
“His feet so long he will surely fall flat on his face,
Legs stretch down like two bamboo poles in place,
From the land of famine he gets not his daily bread,
If he wins, we’ll eat our hats,” in mockery they said.
As he touched the finish line, the crowd went wild,
Cheers heard across the land by every man and child,
His heartbeats so erratic they were beating out of time
If he could take a shot at his critics it’d be no crime.
Sweat streamed down, pooled like rivulets on the floor,
A warrior back from the battlefield, battered and sore,
Standing tall as a Brobdingnagian, the anthem sung
The joy so sweet, he could taste it on his tongue.
He was so tired he felt he could sleep for a year
The cynics struck dumb, had no cause to jeer,
‘A man in a million’ was the headlines that day
“Not a mere man but a giant in spirit,” they say.
Create three examples of hyperbole and write them below:
5. Personification:
Definition:
Underline the personification in the following example:
The Train
Emily Dickinson
I like to see it lap the miles,
And lick the valleys up,
And stop to feed itself at tanks;
And then, prodigious, step
Around a pile of mountains,
And, supercilious, peer
In shanties by the sides of roads;
And then a quarry pare
To fit its sides, and crawl between, Complaining all the while
In horrid, hooting stanza;
Then chase itself down hill
And neigh like Boanerges;
Then, punctual as a start its own,
Stop-docile and omnipotentA stable door.
Create three examples of personification and write them below:
BONUS: What is this poem an example of?
6. Onomatopoeia:
Definition:
Write down three onopatopoetic words :
Underline the onomatopoeia in the following example:
Onomatopoeia
by
Eve Merriam
The rusty spigot
sputters,
utters
a splutter,
spatters a smattering of drops,
gashes wider;
slash
splatters
scatters
spurts
finally stops sputtering
and plash!
gushes rushes splashes
clear water dashes.
Create three examples of onomatopoeia and write them below:
7. What is an idiom? Give an example.
8. What is a euphemism? Give an example.
9. What is an oxymoron? Give an example.