Student Worksheet

Figurative Language Practice - Activity Instructions

“Boats bowing to the wind.”

Good authors use figurative language to spark the imagination of their reader and make their writing more vivid and interesting. Practise changing some bland phrases into metaphors, then apply figurative language to a piece of your own writing.

Figurative language can be thought of as the 'colouring in' of writing, like younger kids do when they have finished a picture. Writers use ordinary words or phrases beyond their normal meaning to create exciting visuals in the reader’s mind.

One type of figurative language is a metaphor, which takes something normal and makes comparisons to something else to make the reader think about that thing in a new, interesting way.

Step 1.

Read Where Happiness Hides.

Step 2.

Consider the phrase “Boats bowing to the wind” from the book Where Happiness Hides.

Are the boats in this illustration really bowing, like humans? What is the author actually describing on this page?

Step 3.

Create interesting figurative language phrases out of the more mundane sentences below. Create three of your own at the bottom. It’s helpful to think of something else - an animal, object or place - that does a similar thing to what you’re trying to describe.

Step 4.

Think about a stormy night. There’s thunder, rain, wind. What can you see, hear and feel?

Write a poem or a short paragraph describing the scene using lots of figurative language.

Taking It Further

Find a piece of longer narrative writing you’ve done in the past, or create a new one. Look for places where you can insert some figurative language to make the description more exciting for the reader.

Figurative Language Practice (home learning)

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