The use of personification is introduced in this lesson. At the end of the lesson, students are able to: 
- Define personification 
- Identify personification instances in literature and poetry. 
- Use personification in your original work. 
- Analyze how personification is used.

- How do students expand and improve their vocabulary?
- What techniques and resources do I employ to decipher unfamiliar vocabulary?
- Which techniques and instruments does the student employ to decipher unfamiliar vocabulary?
- Why pick up new vocabulary?
- How does interaction with text provoke thinking and response?
- What techniques and resources do readers employ to decipher unfamiliar vocabulary?

- Figurative Language: Language that cannot be taken literally because it was written to create a special effect or feeling. 
- Personification: Figurative language in which an object or abstract idea is given human qualities or human form. 
- Poetry: Writing that aims to present ideas and evoke an emotional experience in the reader through the use of meter, imagery, connotative and concrete words.

- Shel Silverstein. (2004). The Giving Tree. HarperCollins. 
Alternative books:
- Virginia Lee Burton. (1978). The Little House. Sandpiper.
- Marie Hall Ets. (2004). Gilberto and the Wind. Live Oak Media.
- Patricia McKissack. (1986). Flossie and the Fox. Dial Books for Young Readers.
- William Steig. (2012). Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. Little Simon.
- Janell Cannon. (1993). Stellaluna. Scholastic..
- Virginia Lee Burton. (2010). Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Teachers may substitute other books or poems that present personification in a way that is easily understood to provide a range of reading and level of text complexity.
- student copies of Mix-and-Match Personification activity cards (L-5-4-2_Mix and Match Personification)
- copies of the Personification Organizer (L-5-4-2_Personification Organizer)
- chart paper

- Maintain the emphasis of the class on recognizing and analyzing personification in fictional texts. 
- While the students work in small groups, keep track of their engagement and personification knowledge by making anecdotal notes and observations. 
- Utilize the checklist below to assess pupils' comprehension: 
+ Students are able to explain personification. 
+ Students are able to recognize personification in-text examples. 
+ Students are able to write personification sentences. 
+ Students are able to justify the author's use of personification.

Active Participation and Clear Instruction 
W: Assist students in locating personification instances, investigating personification in literary works, and putting what they have learned into practice by coming up with their personification examples. 
H: Initiate class discussion by having them listen to Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree and analyze the traits of the tree. 
E: Assist students in deepening their comprehension of personification through the completion of match-and-match personification activity cards, the composition of original personification paragraphs, and the interpretation of the personification's intent. 
R: Give students the chance to work in small groups to deepen their comprehension of personification. 
E: Allow students to put their knowledge of personification into practice by constructing a list of books that highlight particular genres that employ this figurative language. 
T: Give pupils a range of resources and collaborative learning opportunities so that they can all comprehend personification at the conceptual level. 
O: This lesson's learning exercises include large-group instruction and discussion, small-group inquiry, pair work, and individual application of the material. 

Main question: How do authors use personification to improve their writing?

Say, "Today, you will hear a tale known as The Giving Tree. Consider the title and your best guess about the plot of the story." Ask pupils to present their forecasts. Next, read the book aloud.

Say, "Reflect on the story about the tree we have just heard. What characteristics did the writer give the tree to give it the appearance of a person?" Assist pupils in realizing that the tree possesses human traits, emotions, behaviors, and attribute

Part 1

Say, "Authors use figurative language called personification when they give human qualities to an object or animal, like the tree in the story." On the interactive whiteboard or board, write the word "personification".

Then continues, "Personification is another tool used by writers to enhance their work's appeal, comedy, drama, excitement, detail, and description. It is up to us readers to decipher the personification's meaning or intent." Put the following sentence on the interactive whiteboard or board:

The blossoms danced on the grass.

Talk about the meaning or potential function of this statement. (The author wished to convey happiness. The author intended to convey the springtime air with a picture.)

Ask pupils to talk with a companion about the following examples:

The wind whipped swiftly and screamed at the moon.

Snow blanketed the tree in white.

Next, have a group discussion about the examples. In each scenario, ask "What object is personified?"(wind, snow) "What is the goal of the personification?" (The reader can see and hear the wind better with the first example. The reader can better visualize the scene with the aid of the second example.)
Assign small groups of people to read the books in the Materials section or other comparable literature. Give out copies of L-5-4-2_Personification Organizer, the Personification Organizer.
Say, "Fill in the personification organizer as you read the books by identifying personification examples and explaining how the personification impacted the text (why the author employed it)."
Give students time to analyze the meaning of the personification instances and present their conclusions to the class.

Part 2

Give each student a copy of the activity cards (L-5-4-2_Mix and Match Personification), and assign them to work in small groups to complete the task. Say, "Appoint the appropriate verb to each object." Examine the pupils' responses, keeping in mind that there can be multiple matches. Among the potential responses are the following:

alarm clock and painted 
frost and danced
garbage disposal and  yelled
rain and welcomed
pillow and shared
tall grass and  digested
attic and brushed

Pose the question, "How can these pairs of words be employed in personification statements?" Ask pupils to come up with some ideas. Put the ideas of the kids on chart paper. (For instance, the window's decorations were painted by the frost.) Explain to the class why this sentence might be used by an author. (to evoke a picture in the reader's mind; to enable emotional identification)
Using the remaining mix-and-match personification activity cards, have small groups come up with personification statements or phrases. Ask pupils to explain how they would understand the phrases.
Write the following example on chart paper once students have finished and presented their assertions and interpretations. Ask students to recognize the underlined personification statements, explain how the personification enhances the reader's understanding of the paragraph, and analyze the personification's meaning.


I woke up on a gloomy Sunday morning to the sound of my alarm clock screaming at me from across the room. The wind blew through the window crack, and the frost had left designs on the glass. Winter had suddenly descended upon us.

Assign students to work in small groups to produce paragraphs that contain four personification instances. Pupils are free to create their examples or use examples from the personification statements. After reading their papers, assign students the task of asking others to recognize and analyze the personification in each example.

Extension:
Pupils can create their own mix-and-match personification cards if they feel they need more practice. Students should be instructed to match vivid verbs with inanimate things to produce personification assertions. To create statements, students can trade mix-and-match cards with a partner.
Pupils who are prepared to go beyond the requirements might write creative poems that employ personification and clarify its meaning. For examples of poetry books that use personification, see the Related Resources section at the end of this lesson.