Mini-Lesson

Figurative Language

Mini-Lesson: Grades 4-6

Objective: Students will identify and interpret similes in a news story.

1. Start a discussion about figurative language. Explain that writers have many different ways of helping readers understand what they are trying to say. Sometimes, writers include lots of details to help the reader make a picture in their mind. Other times, the best way to describe something is to explain how it is like something else that the reader may be more familiar with. Show students this example:

The cat's fur was as white as snow.

Tell students that in this sentence, the cat's fur is being compared to snow. In most ways, the cat's fur is nothing like snow. It is not cold, and it doesn't fall from the sky. But the cat's fur is like snow in one way: its color. When a writer compares two things that are very different just to point out one thing about them that is the same, that is called either a simile or a metaphor. It's a simile if the writer uses the word like or as to make the comparison. Otherwise, it's a metaphor.

2. Tell students that they will be reading about an unusual dinosaur fossil discovery. Pass out the latest timeforkids.com news story, Skin-Deep Dinosaur Secrets. Challenge students to be on the lookout for similes as they read. Encourage them to underline examples and to think about why the author made each comparison.

3. Have students share their findings. (Examples include the comparison of a living dinosaur to an inflatable toy in paragraph 3 and the comparison of the dinosaur's skin to plastic wrap in paragraph 3.) Then challenge students to come up with their own similes to describe features of the dinosaur fossil described in the article.