Personification Lesson Plans and Resources
Lesson Plan I
Grade Level: upper elem. students
Goal: Students can identify personification and determine when to use it in their writing.
Focus: Identifying the use of personification
Examples:
"The ancient car
groaned into third gear."
"The cloud scattered rain throughout the city."
"The tropical storm slept for two days."
The nonliving objects in the above sentences (car, cloud, storm)
have been given human qualities (groaned,
scattered, slept). Adding meaning to nonliving or nonhuman
objects in this manner is called personification.
Personify the following sentences. Change the words in
parentheses to words that would describe a human's
actions:
1.My bedroom door (opened).
2.The puppy (barked) when I left for school.
3.The leaf (fell) from the tree.
4.The flashlight (went on).
5.Hair (is) on my head.
6.The CD player (made a noise).
7.The net (moves) when the basketball goes through.
8.The player piano keys (moved up and down).
9.The space shuttle (took off).
10.The little arrow (moves) across the computer screen.
Write your own original sentences that describe objects through
personification.
Evaluation: Students can do the above activities with a minimum of 80% accuracy.
Lesson plan II involving cartoon characters:
Grade level: upper elem. students
focus: personification in other literature
Discussion involves the following:
The cartoon characters always seem to "save the
day."
Mighty Mouse and Underdog are examples of the
action hero type. Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny are of the average
variety. Many are these cartoon animals have been personified.
These animals
are given human traits such as the ability to speak and show
emotions such as love and anger.
Activities:
Students will draw their own cartoon animal and personify him/her.
Lesson Plan III
Grade Level 7-12
Focus: Personification
Activity:
"Listen to the Sea"
Use to write a poem about nature. Choose a word from List A or a
different word that names something in nature.
Choose a word from List B or another word that names an action.
Write
this word next to the word from List A.
List A
sun
moon
stars
sky
sea
stone
night
mountain
dawn
morning
List B
tells
shows
reminds
teaches
listens
remembers
brings
looks
dances
dreams
guides
takes
Example:
stone listens
Then expand your words into a sentence.
Example:
The stone listens carefully to the grass as it grows around it.
Write on one subject, or describe other objects in nature. Select
favorite
lines to put together in a poem. You may need to drop the
"s" on the end of the verbs.
Example:
Night, it reminds me of yesterday.
The sun listens to the messages of the clouds.
Moon, look for me on the field.
Sea, guide me to you.
Dawn, bring me to the new day.
Evaluation: Use a rubric
or a pre designed set of criteria to grade the poem.