Figurative Language Classroom Exercise

That Rings a Bell! 
This statement is an idiom which means what you heard makes you think of something else.  Using a bell is a good way to exercise your students using figurative language and help them practice making sentences sparkle with life.

I play this classroom game in the style of Family Feud.  After spending a week or so modeling a particular type of figurative language, have a contest to see which student can remember the most figurative expressions related to a literal statement.  It can be played two ways.  For example if you have just finished working on idioms, you can make this statement to two competitors.  "I think I'm going to hit the hay."  Whoever rings the bell and responds correctly first with the answer, "I'm going to bed," is the winner of that point. 
The more challenging way to play is to give a literal expression and ask the students to come up with a figurative way to say the same thing.  The winner is the person or team with the most correct responses. 
A few cautions to be aware of here....  Many students are great 'bell ringers' but have no idea what to correct answer is, so you may want to set a time limit to answer the question.  Also, in some situations, more than one answer may be correct, so you the teacher need to have the final say as to whether a response is acceptable or not.
The issue some have with teaching figurative language is that students have a tendency to go overboard with the use of figurative expressions.  You'll teach onomatopoeia and your students will want to put twenty of them into one composition!  When I notice this happening with my students, I ask them, "Tell me if you're supposed to put cheese on your spaghetti or spaghetti on your cheese." 
Figurative language needs to be used much like that, where it simply adds flavor or spice to the paper. 

Visual Aid: Encouraging creative writing students to improve test scores

On the topic of visual aides, I'd like to share a bulletin board idea which I have used in my classroom to show how my creative writing students are doing in their writing by displaying their test scores.  This idea is probably my favorite.

Gone Fishin'
At the beginning of the school year, I use a clip art program to print out ten different types of fish in four sizes; large for scores of four, medium for scores of three, small for those who earn 2s, and finally, extra small fish for anyone who receives a "one" score.  each time a composition is read and scored, the appropriate fish is placed next to the student's name or picture.  I found some neat metallic puffer fish and put my students' names on them.  At the end of the year, I'd simply add up all the score points on each student's fish, and the one with the most points wins. 
My kids loved being able to choose what type of fish would go next to their name.  They felt like they were actually fishing!  As you can well imagine, most students who get a "one" don't like seeing a mini-fish next to their name and want to throw it back!  The only way I allow this is if they agree to rewrite the paper, implementing the suggestions for revising and editing that I offer in my critiques of their essays.
Well, what are we waiting for?  Let's go fishin'!

Teaching creative writing students to make their sentences longer.

 

That's Stretching It!
(Another handy tip from Bill MacDonald, the Writing Doctor)


One way to teach your creative writing students to expand the length of their sentences is for them to work as a group.
Start off by separating them into groups of four or five, and give each person in the group a short sentence of about five or six words.  Ask each student to add one word to his or her sentence, then pass it to the next person, who will then proceed to add another word somewhere in the sentence.  It doesn't matter what part of speech is used, as long as the words give some meaning to the sentence.
At the end, ask each group to read their sentences to the class to see how different and uniqe the now "stretched" sentences are.

This activity will get the students to learn to develop fully elaborated, well thought-out sentences, with much more varied sentence structure.
Take care - this will require practice.