Standard 3: Critical Reading and Writing

Students will apply critical thinking skills to reading and writing.

5.3.R.4 Students will evaluate literary devices to support interpretations of literary texts:

• simile

• metaphor

• personification

• onomatopoeia

• hyperbole

• imagery

• symbolism*

• tone*

*Students will find textual evidence when provided with examples. 

Student Actions 

Teacher Actions 

• Students explain how literary devices contribute to their understanding of text.
• Students judge how a combination of two things that are unlike, usually using the words like or as support the understanding of the text.
• Students judge how a direct comparison of two unlike things will support their understanding of the text.
• Students explain how human qualities on animals, ideas, or things contribute to their understanding of the text.
• Students underline/highlight the object, animal, or idea being personified and then circle what they’re doing that makes it an example of personification.
• Students identify what is being compared in both similes and metaphors. 
• Students explain use of words that mimic the sounds they describe to support their understanding of the text.
• Students assess how obvious and deliberate exaggeration contribute to the understanding of the text.
• Students prove how multiple words or a continuous phrase that a writer uses to represent persons, objects, actions, feelings, or ideas descriptively by appealing to the senses support their understanding of the text.
• Students find evidence of symbolism and tone within text (provided with examples.)
• Students identify the literal representations of idioms and other devices through class discussions, drawings, and writing. 
• Students show an understanding of the metaphorical meanings of selected literary devices by using them in sentences and advancing to apply this understanding within their own writing.

• Teachers explain with examples how various literary devices contribute to the understanding of the text.

• Teachers review simile and model how to determine their support of a text.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to judge how a combination of two things that are unlike, usually using the words like or as support the understanding of the text.

• Teachers review metaphor and model how to determine their support of a text.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to judge how a direct comparison of two unlike things will support their understanding of the text.

• Teachers review personification and provide opportunities for students to explain their contribution to the text.

• Teachers may list nouns, such as monkey, tree, wind, snow, sky, leaf. and verbs, such as whispered, smiled, laughed. Teachers guide students to write their sentences using personification.

• Teachers emphasize that a talking animal character is not an example of personification.

• Teachers review onomatopoeia and provide opportunities for students to explain how these words support their understanding of the text.

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

• Teachers review hyperbole and provide opportunities for students to explain how exaggeration contributes to the understanding of the text.

• Tip: “If something the author says just can not be, don’t take it literally, it’s hyperbole!”

• Tall Tales provide a wealth of hyperbole examples.

• Teachers review imagery and model how to find examples in a text.

• Teachers review symbolism and tone and provide opportunities for students to identify within a text.

• Teachers guide students to make connections between idioms and their own personal experiences.

• Teachers provide opportunities for students to research the origins of selected idioms and discuss how some idioms are passed down through generations. 

Supporting Resources

Teacher Insights

OSDE ELA Glossary (webpage)

How to Analyze a Poem with Imagery (webpage)

Online Idiom Tool (webpage)

Five Different Types of Imagery (webpage)

How to Teach Imagery (webpage)

Symbolism Pictionary (webpage)

Figurative Language Awards Ceremony (webpage)

Creative Writing in the Natural World (webpage)

Dancing Minds and Shouting Smiles: Teaching Personification Through Poetry (webpage)

Weather Detectives: Questioning the Fact and Folklore of Weather Sayings (webpage)

• In previous grades students only needed to identify literary devices, but beginning with fifth grade, they must be able to discuss the impact each device has on the text.

• 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.

• onomatopoeia: Buzz, whoosh, and boom

• personification: The wind whispered through the trees.

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

• idiom: It’s raining cats and dogs.

• alliteration: Harry the happy hippo hula-hoops.

• imagery: involves language that appeals to all senses

• Sound: the splashing of the waves soothed us.

• Touch: Wisps of milkweed seeds brushed against my face.

• Taste: Saltwater is bitter on my tongue.

• Smell: The mushrooms gave off a pungent odor.

• Sight: The deep red of the maple leaves announced the coming of fall.

• symbolism: Winter can represent old age.

• tone: Tone can be serious, humorous, sarcastic, objective, etc.

• 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.