Personification

I am teaching personification/figurative language and poetry to my sixth graders. Personification is giving human traits (qualities, feelings, action, or characteristics) to non-living objects (things, colors, qualities, or ideas). I have a whole group discussion about non-living objects. We then list them on chart paper. We define verbs and human characteristics. Next, I give them an example of what of personification. For example: The window winked at me. The verb, wink, is a human action. A window is a non-living object. The whole class is asked write a personification of the first five words on the chart paper. I check for understanding. If my students are still struggling, I then give a few more examples. I then put my students in pairs. This allows the struggling readers to work with stronger readers. I give them a worksheet and chart paper. The stronger reader reads and writes the sentence while the struggling reader draws a picture of the human reaction. Here is a copy of the worksheet.

1. The wind sang her mournful song through the falling leaves.
2. The microwave timer told me it was time to turn my TV dinner.
3. The video camera observed the whole scene.
4. The strawberries seemed to sing, "Eat me first!"
5. The rain kissed my cheeks as it fell.
6. The daffodils nodded their yellow heads at the walkers.
7. The water beckoned invitingly to the hot swimmers.
8. The snow whispered as it fell to the ground during the early morning hours.
9. The china danced on the shelves during the earthquake.
10. The car engine coughed and sputtered when it started during the blizzard.