Teaching figurative language, it's almost time for tcap y'all!

This time of year is CRAZY at school. I always feel a last minute rush, the week before our state test, to impart every bit of knowledge I have about anything, to my students. Last week my amazing, 7th grade literacy, counterpart and I decided that we were going to review figurative language. Our students need to know:

Personification

Alliteration

Similes and Metaphors

A little reminder on our flip chart

What students needed to accomplish by the end of the class period:

We always try to do really fun hands on activities, so here's how this lesson went down:

1. Review figurative language (All of the students had me last year, so we taught these intensely in 6th grade.)
2. Next students all received a sticky note of the color that corresponded with the poster. IE-personification was a pink, metaphors were green etc.
3. For alliteration students wrote down a consonant letter. Then, they had to trade with the person seated across from them. Next, they had to write an alliteration using that letter and post it on the poster.
4. For similes students had to write down an animal and then pass it to a different student. Then students had to write a simile using that animal.
5. For metaphors students had to so take out the "like" or "as" from their simile and turn it into a metaphor.
6. For personification, students had to write down a non living thing in the classroom, then trade again and students had to write a personification using that object.
7. After all of the stickies were posted, we went through and read each sentence that students had written.
8. The class decided by voting with yes/no index cards which sentences were actually using the poetic device. The examples that received "No's" from the class were removed from the poster and were left with the good examples.

This gave me some great feedback about which students could ID figurative language and who still needed support. It also gave me a good idea about who could actually use figurative language and who would need extra practice throughout the week.

The students loved this activity! I am praying that they will retain some of the lesson and use it for next week! Good luck to all those great teachers and students out there next week!!