Personification

Examples

The snow is a white blanket He is a shining star The classroom is a zoo

The alligator’s teeth are white daggers She is a peacock My teacher is a dragon

Laughter is the music of the soul America is a melting pot

Her lovely voice was music to his ears Animals is Characteristics of a zoo Noisy Wild

The classroom a zoo

Dirty

Comparing What is personification? Personification is a language technique where non-human things are given human characteristics. Etymology

The word ‘personification’ comes from Latin and means ‘a mask’ or ‘false face’. Examples

Lightning danced across the sky The wind howled in the night The car complained as the key was roughly turned in its ignition

Rita heard the last piece of pie calling her name My alarm clock yells at me to get out of bed every morning The avalanche devoured anything standing in its way elegant beautiful fast Lightning danced across the sky Non–human Human thing characteristics nurturing motherly keeping safe Non–human thing

Human characteristics The sun cradled the earth©The Educational Company of Ireland

ACT IVITY READING

Go to your activity book (see pages 38–39) to practise picking out examples of simile, metaphor and personification.

WRITING

Go to your activity book (see pages 40–41) and complete the tasks on using similes, metaphors and personification in your writing. ACT IVITY WRITING: WRITE A SIMILE POEM Choose a subject to write about from the suggested topics below or feel free to invent your own. trees cars bikes food the beach mountains horses dogs cats Create a three-line simile poem by thinking about ways to compare your subject to something else. Here is an example: A Book Is Like A book is like a longed for letter, when read again the friendship’s better. A book is like an unopened door, crying out for more, more, more. A book is like a mysterious friend that keeps its secret to the end. Writing Tips Before you start, write down your choice of topic in the middle of a spider diagram, like the example below, and then add everything you could compare that topic to. Then use the same sentence structure as in the example above to build your poem. For example: A is like a Explorer – visiting new worlds Seed – grows ideas Door – seeing new possibilities Letter – you make new friends Factory of ideas – inspiring new thoughts Dictionary – new words to be discovered Friend – someone you Books©The Educational Company of Ireland can tell secrets to

WRITING: WRITE A METAPHOR POEM

Choose a subject to write about from the suggested topics below or feel free to invent your own. a cloud a cat an apple cheese the ocean an autumn leaf the moon a lake a beach a sunflower chewing gum fishing Create a three-line metaphor poem by thinking of ways to compare your subject to something else, and so reveal their similarities. Here is an example: The Sun The Sun is a menacing ball of fire A nurturing mother A glowing marble. Writing Tips Before you start, write down your choice of topic in the middle of a spider diagram, like the one below, and then write everything you can think of about that topic, including things you could compare it to. Use the structure of the example to help you craft your poem. Ball of fireNurturing mother Life-giver/god Sets sky on fire Fields/trees bathing/ basking in glowing light Breaks through Fierce lion Rosy/blazing Powerful/ menacing Withering opponents The sun ©The Educational Company of Ireland