A couple of fun, interactive lessons here, inspired largely by Trevor Wright's How To Be A Brilliant English Teacher - a book which I'd highly recommend to prospective and practising teachers alike. A rough overview of the lesson is here, and at the foot of the article there are links to download the full lesson plans and associated resources.
Lesson One: An Introduction to Similes
Just get on with lesson – no messing. Draw a large circular shape on the board
and label it – “head like an orange” will suffice. Stick an ear on it and label
it – “ear like a cauliflower” will do the job. Offer the pen to a pupil to have
a go. Repeat until you run out of steam.
Discuss your character. Give him a name. Why is better to say he has “spots
like baked beans”? Get to a point where the word ‘simile’ is mentioned. The
kids will hopefully now understand the concept – get them to prove it... Each
pupil has a post-it note. They have to write what they think a simile is.
Collect them, discuss them, arrive at a definition and get them to copy it into
their books.
In their books, pupils are to complete this sentence: I think the poet has used lots of similes because...
Feed back and hopefully someone will come close to answering today’s LO: To explore why writers use similes.
 |
| Head like a potato |
Show the kids the a picture of a someone with an interesting face. They must describe them without using any
similes at all. Feedback – and be critical. Ask them to do the same task again
– this time they must use loads of similes. Feedback – there should be much to
praise. Pupils swap books and make one positive comment on how the description has
improved from the first version to the second.
To wrap things up, pupils must work with the person next to them to produce a definition of simile – without
using the word ‘as’ or ‘like’. Once you've got a definition you're happy with, let them pack up!
Lesson Two: It Tastes Like...
First, pupils must unscramble the red words in the learning objective and copy
it into their books.
LO: To lime
issues to describe food.
LO: To use similes
to describe food.
Following the last lesson on simile, pupils should have a
good idea what it is and how it works. So just launch into this lesson and they’ll
hopefully follow enthusiastically...
You need some foodstuffs. My suggestion would be some Chilli Heatwave Doritos,
some pineapple and some chocolate – enough for everyone to have some. Pupils
will take it in turns to eat an item before writing a suitable description in
their books. Initially they must begin “it tastes like...”
- For the first item (Doritos) there are no
restrictions on what they can write. It could ‘taste like’ anything they want.
- For the second item (pineapple) they are not
allowed to describe it in terms of another foodstuff.
- For the third item (chocolate) encourage them to
describe it in a way which doesn’t mention taste at all: it feels like, melts
like, etc.
After each stage, discuss which descriptions were the best
and why. Hopefully you’ll get some really creative ideas and can make a record
of the best ones on the board and in books. Have the kids realised that in
saying ‘it tastes like’ they have created dozens and dozens of similes?
Hand out and read Thorarinn Eldjarn’s Froots & Vegedibles (link below). Pupils are to
pick three of the absurd foodstuffs and describe them using similes. Pupils
should describe taste, appearance, texture or anything else that tickles their
fancy. Feedback, sharing descriptions and maybe try and guess which fruit/veg
they are describing.
As a quick plenary, ask the class to use a simile to describe what today’s lesson would’ve tasted like if
it were edible!
As i'm sure many teachers do, i spend inordinate amounts of looking around for inspirational lesson ideas and wondering how i can transform everyday instances from my life into whizz-bang lessons which link learning with experience in a truly memorable form. Today, i watched a film which did that around 25 times in 100 minutes.
