Standard 3: Critical Reading and Writing

Students will apply critical thinking skills to reading and writing.

 For more specific genre information, please refer to Genre Guidance (page 4 of the Support Documents.).

3.3.R.4 Students will find examples of literary devices:

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• onomatopoeia

• hyperbole

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students will find examples of comparisons using like or as (similes) in a text.

• Students will find examples of comparisons that do not use like or as (metaphors) in a text.

• Students will find examples of human characteristics given to animals, ideas, or inanimate objects (personification) in a text.

• Students will find examples of words that mimic the sounds they describe (onomatopoeia) in a text.

• Students will find examples of obvious and deliberate exaggeration (hyperbole) in a text.

• Teachers review how to identify a simile or metaphor in a text.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to find examples of similes and metaphors in a text. 

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to find examples of onomatopoeia in a text.

• Teachers explain that a hyperbole is the use of obvious and deliberate exaggeration in a text (e.g., I am so hungry, I could eat a horse).

• Teachers model how to find examples of a hyperbole in a text.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to find examples of a hyperbole in a text.

• Teachers provide examples of personification and tell students to underline the object, animal, or idea being personified and then circle what they’re doing that makes it an example of personification.

• Teachers may list nouns on the chalkboard such as monkey, tree, wind, snow, sky, leaf. In another column on the board, write some verbs such as whispered, smiled, laughed.  Teachers then guide students to write their own sentences using personification.

• Teachers include onomatopoeia to add humor to a poem or story and make your reader laugh.

• Teachers use tall tales to study hyperboles.

Supporting Resource

Teacher Insights

• Literary devices, or techniques, are similar to literary elements in that they are choices an author includes when writing, but they “are not universal or necessary in the sense that not all works contain instances of them” (Literary Devices).

• Literary devices are style choices rather than essentials.

• Different devices include those listed in the standard which can be found in the OSDE Glossary, but further explanations on these devices, along with other devices, refer to: literarydevices.com.  

• Examples of these terms include:

• simile: She runs like the wind.

• metaphor: She is the wind when she runs.

• personification: The wind whispered through the trees.

• onomatopoeia: Buzz, whoosh, and boom

• hyperbole: I’m so hungry, I could eat a horse!

• It should be pointed out to students that any use of the word like is not necessarily a simile.

• The statement I like ice cream is not a simile.

• Likewise, any use of is or are is not necessarily a metaphor.

• The statement His shirt is blue is not a metaphor.

• Personification is the bestowing of human qualities on animals, ideas, or things.

• Animals or objects as characters who talk are not examples of personification. The animals, ideas, or things must take on a human quality through comparison.

• Students at this age will misidentify personification in the following ways:

• When the action is what an animal and human can do.

• Example: The cow was eating grass.

• When the action is not something humans do.

• Example: The thunder boomed outside. 

Due to recursive nature of the standards, it is essential that teachers are aware of how all objectives within and between strands work together for optimal instruction.