Figuring Out Figurative Language!

Introduction

• Start the lesson by reading a book (or passage of a book) to the class that contains examples of figurative language. Saturdays and Teacakes has great examples of figurative language.
• Define figurative language to the class as a tool that authors use to help readers visualize what is happening in a story or poem.
• Point out examples of figurative language as you find them in the text. For example, in Saturdays and Teacakes, Laminack writes: “In Mammaw’s big kitchen, sunlight poured through the windows like a waterfall and spilled over the countertops, pooling up on the checkerboard floor.”
• Explain that this passage is an example of simile, a figure of speech that compares two things, using the words like or as.